Thanksgiving 2010

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  I love planning the dishes, I love cooking and chopping and measuring and peeling and stirring all day with friends or family, and I love sitting down to a spectacular meal and being thankful for such a blessed life.  I do not love the clean up, but I am not above ignoring the mess until someone else takes care of it...

This year was my first vegan Thanksgiving.  I bought a Field Roast Hazelnut and Cranberry Stuffed Roast, and made mashed potatoes with Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese and soy milk, green beans with mustard sauce, the Mushroom Gravy from Veganomicon, and this chestnut soup from C'est la Vegan--we roasted the chestnuts in the oven and spent about half an hour peeling them...!  Mom made Cranberry Sauce Made Easy and Sweet Potatoes with Apples and Walnuts from vegweb.com and some sweet corn.  Mom of course made pies--a vegan pumpkin pie (it didn't make it into the pic above!) and a not vegan apple pie.  They were delicious, as usual, though I think the best vegan pumpkin pie recipe is still waiting to be discovered.

Mom, the pie expert:

Stand outs were the chestnut soup and the sweet potato bake.  The chestnut soup (I used a couple tablespoons of Earth Balance instead of the soy cream) was silky and rich and the sweet potatoes had a crunchy, sticky coating that was delicious.  All three of us loved both these dishes.  I also loved the Field Roast, though I want to make one myself next year.

(There's the pumpkin pie!)

It's been quite a while since I've had Thanksgiving with my parents, and we had a great time and a great meal.  It was really sweet of them to do a vegan meal with me, though they were a little disappointed, mostly, I think, because a couple of the dishes were too strongly flavored for them.  For instance, they liked the seitan part of the Field Roast, but not the stuffing in the middle. Though none of us were crazy about the Mushroom Gravy, which I felt was too bland.

Here's Dad, looking a little sad...I hadn't noticed he wore a Thanksgiving Day running t-shirt for the occasion...

The dogs were busy playing around most of the day, but begging at the table was a highlight...

I hope your Thanksgiving was lovely and you have a restful, long weekend!

Pumpkin Chili, Salad, and Garlic Bread

I love food.  All food.  I think that's why my veganism is going to last: who cares if I leave out a couple types of food, I've still got so much to try and I love it all.

Not that this is an unusual or exotic meal.  Just the opposite, it's simple and it was easy and cheap.  I usually only have one dish in a meal when it's just me--I love one-pot meals.  But I used a couple little time-saving strategies here so that I had a three course meal every day...though it was still the same meal for a week...any one else do that?  I tend to have the same thing for three days in a row.  This lasted five!

The Pumpkin Chili is from (never home)maker, a site I'd never visited before this review from seitan is my motor.  Seitan is my motor is a great German vegan blog (in English) that I read all the time but have never cooked from because her specialty is baking, and baking is not my thing, unfortunately.  But even when she isn't baking, the recipes look great.

I used my crockpot again here to make the kidney beans from dried, and I tried not even soaking them this time, which worked just fine.  I brought them to boil in water to cover, then cooked them in the crock on high for about 4 hours with a couple bay leaves, an onion cut in half, and a little thyme.  I used some of the cooking liquid in the Chili instead of the veggie broth (just remember you'll need to add a lot of extra salt).  I also roasted a pumpkin and used that instead of the puree from a can, and I sauteed some celery with the onions because I didn't have any corn to add.

The last change I made was I roasted the pumpkin seeds along side the pumpkin and used them to garnish.  It was a good, healthy chili--I have other favorites, but the pumpkin was fun.

I served the chili with a salad.  I tried something new here to make this easy and fast--on Sunday I washed and dried the lettuce, chopped it, and put it in a large plastic container with a tea towel.  I did the same for the other veggies (minus the tea towel): shredded a couple carrots, and chopped some sugar snap peas, green pepper, and celery.  Then I just had to assemble the salad each night, which went really quickly.  I also threw on some onion sprouts and chopped avocado.  I made the dressing in an almost empty Vegenaise jar with dried thyme, mustard, red wine vinegar, and evoo, and used that every evening, too.  I didn't go without a salad all week, because it was so easy.

Finally, I had a slice of garlic toast on the side.  I lightly toast a slice of whole wheat bread, rub it with a half-clove of garlic, butter it with Earth Balance, then throw it back in the toaster oven to get it good and bubbly and crunchy.

Layered Dip

So I don't know why I posted so much here during probably the busiest I've been since graduate school--the last couple weeks of October.  I'm chair of a local Democratic club, and we were canvassing, phone banking, and hosting events, as well as keeping an office open and running.  I was also working on a website, and doing design and layout work.  And going to two or three events and fundraisers a week.  And feeling like I could/should be doing so much more...

Then, I've never been busier at work.  I got promoted to a position I've been gunning for for years, and I'm excited about it, and trying to learn and start all these new things.  But...my old position hasn't been filled yet, so I'm doing that still, alongside trying to prove myself in the new job.

Nervous energy, maybe?

And then...the election happened...what did I do all that work for...???  Maybe the dividends are in the future...blah, blah, blah...

But either way (before or after demoralization), I haven't been doing my usual browsing of cookbooks and blogs, so my cooking is more based on the ingredients I have and what fits into my schedule, so I finally have some chances to post recipes of my own!


Not that you would actually call this recipe, "cooking," but I did manage to take a crappy picture (this is the best one!  what happened here?), and I'm writing up the ingredients.  I might bring this for our annual holiday potluck at work.  It's very rich, and there's nothing "hippie" about the taste, which--I don't know about you guys, but--everyone I know worries about a great deal...

Layered Dip

2/3 can vegetarian refried beans, heated
1/4 c salsa

1/3 c Vegenaise
2 T adobo spice mix (I had this in my pantry...YUM)

1 ripe avocado
juice of 1/4 lemon
plenty of unrefined seal salt to taste
a couple grinds of black pepper

Combine heated refried beans and salsa; set aside.

Combine Vegenaise and adobo spice; set aside.  (I'm going to have to stop myself from just making the Vegenaise and adobe spice by itself next time...)

Mash avocado with a fork and add lemon, salt, and pepper to make simple guacamole; set aside.

Layer bean mix, Vegenaise mix, and guacamole.  Serve with corn chips.

And here's the summer memory of the day, my twin nieces coming to my house and seeing their birthday cake, and both wearing the same, hilarious smile-suppression look on their faces...