Eggplant-Potato Moussaka with Pine Nut Cream

I'm so excited!  For the first week of the vegan cooking challenge I decided to make Eggplant-Potato Moussaka with Pine Nut Cream from Veganomicon.  I wanted to attempt something completely new and a little bit fancy in honour of my husband's birthday.  There is quite a bit of prep work involved in this recipe.  Eggplant, zucchini and potatoes were peeled, sliced and roasted on trays.  I seem to have severely underestimated the amount of shrinkage the vegetables would undergo and only prepared one tray for each.   I would recommend doing one and a half or two trays of each to end up with enough for layering.  As the veggies roasted, I prepared the tomato based sauce on the stove and the pine nut cream in the food processor.  Once all of the components were ready, the layering began and then back into the oven it went.   

I was a little disappointed in the flavour of this dish.  I've never had regular moussaka so I had nothing to compare it to but for the same amount of effort I would much rather eat a scrumptious lasagna.   I'm not sure if I did something wrong apart from over-roasting the potatoes and I am quite obssessed with eggplant so I was sure this was going to be a hit.  I'm glad I gave it a go even though it turned out to be not among my favourites from this collection.  

Eggplant-Potato Moussaka with Pine Nut Cream

Joining me in the challenge is my talented friend Jeannette who does not (yet) have her own food blog.  She has submitted the following:  

For my first entry in the Vegan Cooking Challenge, I made a zucchini cake that I found posted on The Post Punk Kitchen.  But, as my husband will attest, I never follow a recipe to the letter. SO, I read the posts following the original recipe post and made a few adjustments of my own. Here is my modified recipe:

Ingredients

3 cups grated, unpeeled, fresh zucchini
2 ripe bananas, mashed well
1/2 cup canola oil
3 cups flour
1 cups sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. Vanilla

I omitted the ground walnuts and the chocolate chips. I also took the cake out of the pan after 5 minutes and ate it warm.

My Results:

I got a sweet, moist and firm zucchini cake. It was not as “tender” as it would have been with the full cup of oil, but it was not dry. I could have used a tablespoon or two of liquid to thin the batter, because it was fairly stiff. I never peel zucchini before grating; I like the green flecks. I mixed the sugar into the flour by mistake. If I had mixed it into the wet ingredients, it might have helped pull some of the liquid out of the zucchini. But, it didn’t matter because this cake is very good, even with my modifications.

I am curious about using soda instead of baking powder. Soda needs an acid to react with. I wonder if baking powder should be used? Is this something vegans do not use?

Jeannette's Zucchini Cake