Thanksgiving menu

I cooked thanksgiving dinner this year for our little family. The problem with a vegetarian thanksgiving is the matter of a main dish. We can (and do) enjoy the side dishes, but for our dinner at home I really wanted a main protein dish to replace the turkey. A few months ago, I got it in my head to somehow stuff seitan, roast it and serve it with gravy so we wouldn't miss out on those traditional flavors. Honestly, my first two practice versions of this dish left a lot to be desired. I originally made the mistake of using the seitan recipe on the back of the gluten container. My final version used the recipe from Veganomicon and it was excellent!

Seitan Stuffed with Mushrooms
Double batch of simple seitan recipe from Veganomicon
4 cups sliced cremini mushrooms
4 tbls high smoke point oil, such as canola, corn, or safflower
1/2 cup gruyere
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup packed spinach leaves
dash of white wine

Make the seitan according to the recipe, but when shaping dough, shape into two thin rectangles. (Seitan can be made up to one week ahead and stored in its cooking liquid.)

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil on high heat add about 1 1/2 cups mushrooms. Sprinkle with salt and saute until browned, stirring occasionally. Remove mushrooms from pan and add an additional tablespoon of oil. Continue cooking the rest of the mushrooms and oil in small batches. The trick to this step is to work with a hot pan and small batches of mushrooms so that the 'shroom juices are boiled off as they are released and you end up with nicely browned mushrooms. Getting the pan too hot, however, will cause your oil to burn, so watch the pan closely and adjust the temperature as needed.



Once all the mushrooms are cooked, remove the pan from the heat and adjust the temperature to low. Return all of the mushrooms to the pan and add the cream, cheese, and wine. Stir to combine and melt the cheese. Add the spinach leaves and cook until wilted. Adjust seasoning and remove from heat. (Don't clean that pan! Deglaze it with a bit of white wine and vegetable stock and and save that liquid to make gravy with.)



Lay seitan pieces flat and cover with a thin layer of the stuffing. Tightly roll each piece starting at one narrow end and tie with cooking twine in two or three places. Cook in a 350 degree oven until heated through, approximately 40 mins.



To serve: remove twine and slice. Top with mushroom gravy.





The rest of the menu? I'm glad you asked.



Parmesan pastry pinwheels

vegetables and hummus



Butternut squash gratin

Brussels sprouts hash

Mashed parsnips, russet and sweet potatoes

Homemade crescent rolls

First Taste

The bean started solid food the day after christmas. I plan to make most of her food myself and we debated for quite some time what to start with. In the end, we decided on sweet potato. I steamed and pureed it, heated it, and we got ready with the video and digital cameras.

She took one bite.

And made this face.

And refused to eat any more.

The next day was the same story, along with the day after that. We've tried pears and peas and have gotten similar lukewarm responses. I'm starting to wonder if we should stop forcing the issue and just wait a bit longer.

Honestly, with the way this girl loves to nurse, I'm not at all surprised that she's not thrilled with the idea of solid food. I have to admit I was sort of hoping for a break, though!

Too much of a good thing

The boy and I are sugar addicts. We generally try to eat very healthfully, but when it comes to dessert, forget about it. Early in our relationship, we bonded over the fact that we both believe ice cream should not be reserved for warm weather eating. I had to fast the day leading up to my surgery last year. I confidently announced that, when I broke the fast after almost two days, I would no longer be eating processed sugar. I lasted two days before I gave in. We like our sweets.

It should come as no surprise, then, that one of our favorite christmas traditions includes loads and loads of cookies. Every year, I start in early December making batches of cookies to give away. They fill our freezer and we can't help but sample them. I make extras to account for the ones we eat, but there is always the worry that there won't be enough to give away. I never know until the containers are filled whether I'll be making emergency batches on christmas eve to make up for our December gluttony. I might also add that by the time the cookies leave the house, we are happy to see them gone. We've been eating them for weeks and are sick of them.

Today I packed up the cookies and there were enough to go around, with some to spare. We've enjoyed them all, pronouncing each new batch our favorites as we taste tested them and I think they look so pretty packed up in their little tins. Still, I have to say, good riddance!! I can't wait to get these things out of our house!

The longest 10 days of my life

The longer she makes us wait, the more I knit,

Sheldon turtle knit from knitpicks shine sport, Baby Merry-Janes knit with Cascade 220, Newborn hat made with knitpicks Bare in worsted, Aleenan mekko dress made with knitpicks shine sport, and Crumpets dress knit with Rowan DK cotton.

and sew,

Very baby pocket diapers, microfiber inserts, and hemp fleece wipes.

and bake.

Ginger-spiced scones with cashews and dates from Vegan Planet and chewy oatmeal-raisin cookies from Veganomicon.

Valentine's Recap

I know I'm terribly late, but I'm very excited to share pictures of our valentine's dinner. Saturday, the sweetie headed off to the new place to work on the painting, while I stayed behind to work on packing and preparing dinner. After a hard day, the sweetie returned for our valentine's celebration (which will also be the last serious cooking I do before the move).

We started out with stuffed mushrooms, followed by a salad of spinach with apples, dried cherries and walnuts.


Dinner was mushroom, lentil, and wild rice timbales (they photographed all icky and brown, but tasted soo yummy!) along with mushroom gravy and sauted swiss chard.

For dessert, I made vegan molten chocolate lava cakes (made un-vegan with the addition of whipped cream). They were very good but, sadly, were not molten, as the gooey filling baked right into the cake so the effect was more like a very moist chocolate chip muffin. I'd love to try again and tweak the recipe a bit, but that will have to be an experiment for my new kitchen (the old one is currently full of boxes!).

Merry Merry

I had a post written about drowning in christmas cookies with a picture to prove it (I left all my baking until the last minute this year and literally packed up the last batch of cookies to give away as the icing was still drying) but we left the camera at the boy's parent's last night. Entertaining picture or not, I'm wishing you all a happy winter holiday of your choice, surrounded by loving friends and family.

Thankful for Dairy

This pumpkin cheesecake has been my go-to thanksgiving recipe for as long as I can remember. Last year, when we were "most of the time vegans," we indulged on thanksgiving, so I can honestly say I haven't missed a year since I started making it (its really that good). This year, I had planned to try veganizing it, but ended up making the full-fat, full-dairy version, since we're off the vegan wagon for now. I usually make a few slight modifications to the recipe, and this year I also left the bourbon out of the topping, out of respect for the little one in my belly who will also be enjoying it (and hopefully won't be tasting bourbon for many, many years). The best part about this recipe is that it makes too much for my springform pan--just enough extra to fill two individual pans. The large cake will go with us to the sweetie's family tomorrow, the other two . . . well, I'm sure we won't be letting them go to waste.

As if that weren't enough, I also made one of the sweetie's favorite desserts for the long weekend. This cake is so incredibly easy to make that it really doesn't have any right to taste as good as it does. The main ingredient is Famous Chocolate Wafers. I never use these unless I'm making this particular cake and I don't know anyone else who does either, which makes me wonder how the company stays in business. Actually, every time I go to the store for them I expect them to be gone, but there they always are. (Google just told me that these are made by Nabisco, so I guess the company is safe after all). In any event, the recipe goes something like this: whip up some heavy cream (a pint or two will do), splash in some vanilla and a few spoonfuls of powdered sugar. Layer wafers with cream, chill overnight, et voila . . .

When I was growing up, my mother would make a version of this with mint flavoring in the cream and garnish it with maraschino cherries for Christmas. The sweetie is a purist, so we have the plain black and white version.

I threatened some time ago to share a picture of the blanket I'm working on for the bean, so I figured I'd surprise us all by actually following through! This is the Prairie Blanket by Oat Couture knit in some undyed wool we picked up at Rhinebeck this year. The picture really doesn't do it justice--the yarn is just stunning in person. I'm very happy with how this is coming out, despite the fact that it looks like a shawl at this point. It will someday grow up to be a real blanket!

Have a lovely holiday tomorrow. This year is especially meaningful to me because of all the many blessings in my life; thanksgiving is as good a day as any to remind myself not to take one second of it for granted.

Random Thoughts

Because I can't be troubled to create paragraphs today:

• We protested prop 8 in NYC on Saturday. Neither of us took any pictures, but you can find some here, here, and here.

• I bought my first pair of maternity pants. Because its so early, I felt weird about it for a second. That's all over now that I have these babies on. So. Comfortable.

• I have all of the pieces of Apricot Jacket completed and I started seaming them up last night. It should be done just in time for me to be too big to wear it. *sigh*

• I have started knitting a blanket for jelly bean, but it is very slow going. It may make a nice 1st birthday present. :)

• I am no longer vegan. This decision was made after a lot of research (including discussions with both a nutritionist and midwife) and some soul searching. I think it may be possible for some women to have healthy pregnancies while on a vegan diet, but I've determined its not possible for me. Try as I may, I cannot get the recommended amount of protein without eating huge amounts of soy and, while the jury may still be out on the possible dangers of soy, its not a risk I'm willing to take with the little bean. I originally became vegan because of moral issues with factory farming and I still have concerns about hormones in dairy products, so this was not a decision I made lightly. For me though, the best thing is to go back to eating cheese, eggs, and yogurt (I'm still vegetarian, not taking things too far!).

Barley Salad

I've been feeling pretty uninspired when it comes to dinner lately. For one, I haven't had much energy to make anything beyond just the basics. The other reason for my funk is that I feel like we eat all the same things every week. The other day I took a peek in our cupboard to see if I could find something for dinner that wasn't rice, and I found some barley. We don't eat too much barley, which is unfortunate because it serves as refrigerator velcro, as Alton Brown would say. I threw it together with most everything I could find fresh in our fridge and the results were incredible. You can serve this salad warmed or at room temperature.

Barley Salad

1 cup barley
1 1/2 cups water or vegetable stock
1 can artichoke hearts, diced
1 1/2 cups button mushrooms, sliced
1 tomato, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 can kidney beans (which is about 2 cups worth in case you soak and boil them yourself, as I do)

Dressing
2 tbls dill, chopped
2 tbls olive oil
4 tlbs white wine vinegar


Rinse barley and combine with water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil uncovered, then cover, lower heat and simmer until water is absorbed and the barley is tender, about 10 minutes.


Add chopped vegetables and beans to cooked barley and stir to warm through. Combine dressing ingredients in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Toss barley mixture with dressing, season to taste with salt and pepper and enjoy!

Best (Vegan) Ice Cream Ever!

OK, maybe I'm getting a little bit carried away with the "best ever" posts, but still, this ice cream is darn good.

Last christmas, my sweetie and I were gifted with the ice cream maker attachment for our kitchen aid mixer. Since then, we've experimented with several different vegan ice cream recipes, but haven't been fully satisfied with any of them. Various flavors of the old standby (soy) and even a raw ice cream made from mashed bananas all left something to be desired.

So, when the boy brought home a recipe for coconut whipped cream from the New York Times (again with the Times!), I figured we had nothing to lose. Veganizing it was simple, but I did experiment with a couple batches trying to lower the fat content while maintaining the creamy texture. I'm pretty happy with the result.

Coconut Vegan Ice Cream

1 can cream of coconut

1 can light coconut milk

4 cups non-dairy milk

1 cup shredded coconut, optional

4 tbls agave nectar (or sweetener of your choice)

Whisk together ingredients in a large bowl. Freeze in an ice cream maker, according to manufacturer's directions.

This makes a double batch for my ice cream maker--I have to freeze it in two separate batches or else it overwhelms the poor bowl and doesn't freeze well (ask me how I know). If you prefer not to make two batches, I recommend using the leftover 1/2 can of cream of coconut for pina coladas and adding the coconut milk to homemade thai food.

This recipe can be varied endlessly. Leaving out the shredded coconut makes an ice cream with a less pronounced coconut flavor that lends itself well to other additives. For just a hint of coconut (and less fat) use a whole can of coconut milk and omit the cream of coconut altogether. This results in more of a sorbet textured ice cream.

For this batch, since I was freezing in two batches anyway, I made two different flavors. To the first batch, I added little pieces of frozen cookie dough leftover from the big cookie experiment of 2008. To the second batch, I added cocoa powder until the batter looked reasonably chocolately (it took about 3-4 tbls). They were the two best homemade ice creams we've made and this recipe will definitely become our standard from now on.

Best (Vegan) Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever!

I may be one of the last people to have read the New York Times article on chocolate chip cookies. (On a recent visit to Whole Foods, I found the recipe displayed alongside the recommended chocolate disks, just in case I hadn't already seen it all over the blogosphere.) Well, I already have a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I love (even though its not vegan) and I didn't have much interest in switching, but I did want to try my hand at some of the recommendations in the article.

First, I veganized the recipe I already had. I love this recipe, because it calls for oatmeal to be ground to a fine powder--upping the nutritional content without sacrificing texture. I subbed out earth balance margarine for butter and egg replacer for the eggs, which got me close, but the recipe required a bit more tweaking to get the moisture content right.

Next up, there's this whole idea of resting the batter in the fridge for 36 hours before baking. This whole cookie experiment took place over two weekends and four batches of cookies. (I take this stuff seriously, people!) The first couple batches were baked at 0, 24, and 48 hours after mixing. 36 hours may be optimal for the cookies, but its darn inconvenient for me. If I mix up a batch of cookies in the evening, I sure don't want to be baking them for breakfast two days later! As the article suggests (and other foodbloggers have confirmed) the cookies definitely taste better after resting. 24 hours is better than 0, but 48 hours was even better. The cookies had a better flavor and took on a richer color after baking. Even the raw batter was better after resting!

Left to right: 0, 24, and 48 hours after mixing

I was also intrigued by the addition of sea salt in the NYT recipe. I'd already discovered the amazing combination of sea salt with caramel, but it wouldn't have occured to me to add extra salt to cookies. I mean, there's already salt in the batter, right? The second weekend (and next two batches) were dedicated to exploring the addition of salt, as well as continuing to work out the moisture issue with the batter. I can't tell you whether just upping the salt content of the recipe would work the same way, but there is something added with the extra sea salt on top of the cookie. I didn't measure the amount, but a more generous sprinkling did produce a better tasting cookie. I started out with a light dusting and ended up upping the amount a couple times.

In the end, the boy and I couldn't stop eating these things. They were really that. good. Go make them, but don't say I didn't warn you!

Best Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup Earth Balance margarine
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
egg replacer equivalent to 2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup non-dairy milk
2 cups flour
2 1/2 cups blended oatmeal (measure oatmeal, then blend in a food processor to a fine powder)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
12 ounces chocolate chips
4 ounces dark chocolate, grated (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Blend the oatmeal and combine with flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, cream the earth balance and both sugars until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Add egg replacer, vanilla, and milk and mix until combined. Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet and mix just until combined. Stir in chocolate chips and grated chocolate, if using. Scoop onto parchment lined cookie sheets (I use a #20 scoop and divide each scoop into two balls). Flatten each ball slightly and liberally sprinkle with kosher salt. Bake for 10 minutes, rotating sheets midway through cooking.

Even though the oatmeal makes me feel slightly less guilty indulging in these, they are still pretty outrageously high in fat and sugar. My next cookie experiment will involve lightening these up a bit, but I'm in too much of a sugar coma to think about that right now.

T is for Tamale

I've always loved tamales and I've wanted to learn how to make them for a long time. Since its pretty difficult to find a vegan tamale at a restaurant, I figured I'd try my hand at a homemade version over the long weekend. As with most things, this journey started with google. I found several recipes that looked good, but ultimately decided to use the masa recipe here along with the fillings here and here.

Note: I had a hard time finding chipotles in adobo sauce, dried corn husks, and dried ancho chiles at my regular supermarket, but I was able to find them all at a spanish grocery near my house. (The checker asked if I was making tamales and then I'm pretty sure she laughed a little bit after I said yes. Mockery only makes me more determined people!)

The first steps were to soak the corn husks in warm water and to prepare the masa dough. I set those both aside while I whipped up the ancho chile sauce. This stuff was quite a bit of work and made a huge mess. Word to the wise--be very careful when pouring this stuff to strain it. It looked like a murder scene in my kitchen with all the red spatters everywhere. (And my pan did eventually come clean, although I had my doubts at one point). This sauce was then added to the filling from the banana leaf tamale recipe. I slightly modified this recipe by using zucchini instead of calabacitas and, of course, leaving out the cheese.


After I added the chile sauce to the veggie mixture, I felt like it still needed a little kick, so I added one chopped chipotle pepper with some extra adobo. Problem solved--this stuff was screaming hot. It had this gringa crying. I should have started with a 1/2 pepper. Lesson learned and maybe the supermarket checker had reason to giggle.


On to the sweet potato filling. I modified this recipe as well. I wanted to make a half batch and didn't want a 1/2 can of tomatoes left over, so I used a couple fresh tomatoes along with the red chile sauce I had already made. I didn't learn my lesson and added a full chipotle pepper; however, the recipe calls for 2-3, so at least I was starting to catch on. I mashed up the baked sweet potato and all the ingredients were ready.

The boy helped with this next step and it took a little bit of trial and error to figure out the best method. I had read somewhere online that you should flatten a piece of dough with your hands, place it on the husk, top with filling, and then form another piece of dough for the top. We didn't have much luck with this, as it was impossible to keep the filling from seeping out between the two layers.

Don't do it this way!

I have also seen people making tamales by spreading the dough onto the husk with a spatula. This was the method we ended up using--we spread the dough onto about 2/3 of the husk and then put filling on one side of it so that one side would fold over with dough for the top and then the opposite side would fold over the first with no dough. There are good folding instructions here. We also had better luck with the sweet potato filling because it would smoosh down and allow for better folding--the squash filling tended to come out and make a big mess.

After what seemed like hours of folding, we were ready to start steaming these bad boys! I crammed as many as would fit into the top of a steamer pan and left them to their own devices for about 30 minutes.

Having a steam bath.

To round out the meal, I made salsa with homemade tortilla chips and salad. I'm no salsa expert, but I like to chop the tomatoes, add salt, and let them sit and juice for a few minutes.










Leave us alone, we're juicing!

Then, I added red onion, garlic and cilantro. Lime juice and some jalepeno would have also been good but 1) my limes were bad and 2) my mouth was still on fire from tasting the chipotle sauce, so I left well enough alone. The chips were easy peasy--cut up some flour tortillas and bake in a single layer at 350 until crisp, turning once.

I had originally planned to make a more spanish-inspired salad but, again, I couldn't bear the thought of putting anything else spicy in my mouth so it ended up being a pear, fig, and baby spinach salad with balsamic vinaigrette. The cool pears were the perfect counterpoint to all the spiciness of the tamales. Wanna know my secret for vinaigrette? Good quality balsamic, a dash of olive oil, and two pinches of sugar. So simple and so incredibly delicious!

We especially loved the sweet potato tamales. The sweet offset the insane heat of the sauce, making the whole thing extra yummy. I'm not sure how soon I'll be setting aside an entire day for this process, but at least now I can say I've done it. Plus, I have a freezer full of tamales for the next craving.

Food

This topic of diet is something I've been thinking about alot over the past several months. When my ex and I parted ways almost 2 years ago, I lost weight. I'm being intentionally flippant because it wasn't something I planned to do, or worked at. It just sort of happened. I know there are so many people who struggle with their weight and expend huge amounts of energy and money trying to control it--I was one of them for some time, so I can empathize. Its just that, for me, the weight loss was an occurence that I didn't feel like I had much to do with. I have several theories about it (decreased stress, for example), but I don't have one specific answer to the question of how I lost the weight. Because of this, the topic of diet as defined as a temporary method of eating for the purpose of weight loss isn't particularly interesting to me. What I'm more interested in is diet as defined as the way a person typically eats.

After the breakup, I stopped preparing meat at home immediately. I didn't really have a good reason for doing this, its just that my ex really liked eating it and I prepared it mostly for her. I don't really miss it much when I don't have it, so I figured, "why bother?" While I wasn't purchasing and preparing it, I would still occasionally have it if I was eating at someone else's house, so as to not offend or put anyone out. This went on for several months until I realized that, since I was probably 95% vegetarian, meat made me ill when I did have it. I decided to stop eating it altogether and really didn't find it very difficult either in terms of missing it from my diet or as an inconvenience when I ate away from home. Along with becoming vegetarian, I started becoming much more interested in my health and diet as a means of preventing and curing disease. As a result of some of my research, I started cutting back on my consumption of all animal products to the point where I, again, didn't prepare them at home, but would eat them when I was out. I started calling myself a "most of the time" vegan, but I didn't worry too much about whether there were hidden animal products in the food I ate.

The funny thing is, when you become vegetarian or vegan for health reasons and you google for vegetarian restaurants or read vegan cookbooks, its impossible to avoid all of the animal rights information that's out there. Thanks to my unwitting reading of excerpts from the book Slaughterhouse and listening to this podcast, I started to become more and more aware of the treatment of animals raised for consumption. This information made my stomach turn and sometimes reduced me to tears. I realized that I had to make the change to being a strict vegan (to the extent that I am able) immediately. Suddenly, my diet became about more than my own health.

My focus with my diet is still to eat food that is as healthful as possible. I want to use my diet to maintain my health and prevent illness and, to that end, I eat as many fresh vegetables and fruits as I can. Of course, it is absolutely possible to be an unhealthy vegan. There are plenty of vegan snacks and desserts that have no nutritional value and, don't get me wrong, I eat those foods occasionally too. But, for me, I feel better when I'm focusing on nutritious plant-based foods. I have done much more research on nutrition since making this change than I ever did before when I was eating animal products, and I'm sure that is a huge reason for the increased health benefits. I know this isn't right for everyone, but it works for me!

Like, out of this world good!

I was given a copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World for christmas and drooled over each and every recipe before deciding on this one--peanut butter chocolate heavencakes. These were amazing and not just "good, for vegan cupcakes." These were possibly the best cupcakes I've ever had--vegan or not. I used Vahlrona chocolate and organic natural peanut butter, which may have made a big difference in the flavor, but I'm sure this recipe rocks either way. Although they contain no animal products, they're far from healthy, so I made a half batch for me and my sweetie. We gobbled up these 8 in no time, though. Oops!

Over the holidays, my cookie baking was all-consuming, but now that things are settling down a little, I've gotten some cooking done too. I made a decent Thai green curry and I think I may have finally perfected my vegan palak paneer. I've been making all these vegan recipes, but you know, I still haven't managed to make the transition full-time. I travel a huge amount for work and I've struggled to maintain a vegetarian diet while eating out and I'm starting to wonder if the vegan thing is going to be just too hard. At least for now, I'm OK with falling off the wagon once in a while.

I can't even believe I'm saying this, but I've also had time to knit in this first part of 2008! I'm very excited to share my new projects. Soon, soon!