Retro Recipe Redo: Not So Beefy Wellingtons

Starlet’s love a dish with a title (I learned that from one of my favorite books: The Bombshell Manual of Style). But many if the decadent dishes of the past were heavy and fattening. I’ve also mentioned before that many Old Hollywood Starlets were serious animal rights activists and most likely would have been vegetarian had there been vegetarian option back then. I’ve been wanting to start a series where I take retro recipes and make them new and hopefully healthier. I wanted to start with a classic Beef Wellington. Since I don’t eat red meat, and my boyfriend/taste-tester is allergic to poultry, I decided to try a vegetarian version. I made a variation of this recipe from Virtually Vegan Mama for Portobello Wellingtons. The recipe is vegan, but I made mine vegetarian using honey instead of date syrup, and I used regular butter and store bought puff pastry. The critics (and by that, I mean my meat-eating boyfriend and father) loved it. The Duxelle had so much flavor that no one even missed the meat.