Homeless Feasting

I am preparing for a dinner party I am having this Sunday. Testing recipes in a way. This will be an unusual dinner in that a bonfire will be involved and we will be eating "Hobo Dinners." I grew up eating Hobo Dinners when we went camping, and they are a particular favorite of my 85 year old grandfather. Not familiar with the term? You may still be familiar with the product, a foil wrapped meal that you cook on the embers of a campfire, or in our case a bonfire.

Our family's Hobo Dinners have evolved over the years. When I was in fourth grade we learned to use cabbage leaves as a first layer of defense against burning the food within. The charred cabbage is quite yummy and it adds moisture to the finished meal. My dad has gone gourmet with the dinners, adding sauces and unusual ingredients. He replaces the standard ground beef with salmon or cuts of pork. Now I want to introduce a new challenge: I have vegetarian friends, family and even I try to eat vegetarian during the week. So I want to create a wonderful vegetarian version of the Hobo Dinner, and why not? How many hobos actually had meat? Okay, I mean real meat! No squirrel or rat. I am aware that they didn't have tofu either!

I am writing this as my first attempt at this experiment cooks on the grill. I confess that I am quite proud of myself and what I believe will be a brilliantly delicious meal. Now...I really don't know yet...but I can feel it! It has to be good! Right?

My genius comes from the beurre blanc sauce I have composed, with help from Julia Child. I have altered the recipe a bit: instead of white wine vinegar I used balsamic, and rather than shallots I used sweet onion, and then I added garlic. Again...seriously what could go wrong? Especially with 'lots and lots of butter!'

The main meal meal is made up of zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, yams, crimini mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and tofu. It's the tofu I'm a little worried about. I'm very new to tofu and what its capable of.

(time passes, 20 minutes on one side and 10 on the other)

When I opened the foil pouch it looked like the butter had burned, but just around the edges. The Dinner was AMAZING!! The tofu was great, the veggies oh so yummy! My only regret? That I put all of the sauce in the dinner and didn't reserve some for later. Oh well, after all Sunday is in the future, and I have a few more days left for experimenting.