The Campana Kitchen: Vegan Ceviche

Ok, I love my vegetarian friends. They are great. They do, however, tend to cramp my style at potlucks and parties. Gone are the days where I can bring my Bacon and Leek Stuffed Mushrooms, or Bacon Wrapped Fried Dates. No bacon anywhere! How am I supposed to make something delicious with absolutely no bacon involved? Instead, I go to potlucks and see that 8 other people brought hummus as well, then I’ll try to get creative and bring Tabouleh, and put it over with the other five of those. Well, over winter break, whilst cooking my family a meal, I stumbled upon this dish, when I was trying to just make an interesting salsa. It wasn’t even a vegetarian affair, we had Maple Candy Coated Bacon with Butter Pecan Ice Cream for dessert! This one is sure to impress at any party, in perfect little hand-ready, munchable packages.

Ceviche is a pretty trendy thing to eat or claim to eat. It is a form of citrus marinated seafood appetizer, popular in mainly Latin American countries. If you ever watch Top Chef, you know that it is in like every episode. People think they are so cool for eating or cooking Ceviche, and I am no exception.

This recipe has a lot of the texture and flavor of ceviche, but uses soft vegetables, like tomato and avocado for that texture. It is good, really good.

Jeff’s Vegan Ceviche

Serves 12ish

3 Avocados, ripe, coarsely chopped
1 red onion, finely diced
1 nice tomato coarsely chopped
1 can of white hominy, drained, rinsed.
A handful of fresh cilantro
2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed and diced.
The juice of 1 lemon
The juice of 1 grapefruit
The juice of 1 lime
the juice of 1 orange
1 fresh Jalapeno pepper, finely diced.
Salt and pepper to taste.
A healthy drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, break out the good stuff!

Combine all of the things above. Let stand in a refrigerator for 3-4 hours. For presentation, you have 2 options. Easy or hard.

Easy: get a bag of Tostitos scoops. Spoon Ceviche into scoops immediately before serving. Try not to get too much liquid in them. Viola!

Hard: Get a package of wonton wrappers. Lightly brush each sheet with olive oil on both sides. Put it into a mini muffin tin pushing down in the center and allowing the edges to rise up in a free form fashion. Bake at 375 until golden brown. Basically a lighter tasting, more delicious version of Tostitos scoops. Spoon the Ceviche into the scoops careful not to add too much of the liquid. To small batches, 12-15 at a time. Keep them coming, this stuff will last all night!