Happy Thanksgiving!

Rob is on swing shift this week, so posts have been scarce. Not because I haven't had anything to say, or any food to share. There's been plenty. In fact, Rob even made cookies! Really!! The guy whose best meal is canned tomato soup with minute rice made homemade cookies from scratch! Something about swing shift just takes away my time and inspiration to post.

Until tonight!

I was totally prepared to go without a Thanksgiving post, and even a Thanksgiving. For months, he knew he was supposed to work that afternoon. So we decided to not make a big deal out of it. Why stress myself out all morning for an elaborate lunch that we have to quickly inhale so he makes it to work on time, and then I'm left spending the rest of the afternoon getting fat off of cleaning up the leftovers while dealing with the baby? What kind of holiday is that? Don't ask me, because that's not how it turned out!

Yesterday evening, I get a phone call. He got the day off! At the last second they decide to give half of his crew Thursday off, and the other half Friday off! WOOOO! WAIT! NO! Tomorrow off? We don't have ANY Thanksgiving food, it's 6pm on Wednesday night, and Rob has the car! Luckily, I was able to get ahold of his friend Dave, who was nice enough to drive me to two stores so I could get my Tofurky and all of the other little Thanksgiving must-haves. Whew!

We invited Dave to have dinner with us. It was the least we could do since he was nice enough to take me shopping! Holidays are more fun with company anyway. I knew the boys would be watching football, so I whipped up some dips for them: Pine Nut and Garlic Hummus and Black Bean Dip. They were just sort of thrown together at the last second so I don't have actual recipes. Here's the general idea of what I did though:

For the hummus, I toasted up a handful of pine nuts, a can of drained and rinsed chickpeas, and a few cloves of garlic in olive oil. I seasoned it up with some fresh rosemary and thyme, as well as dried basil, oregano, salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. After letting it cool a bit, I ground up everything in a food processor with tahini, more olive oil, and some vegetable broth. It turned out a little dry. It needed more tahini and olive oil. It tasted excellent though!

For the black bean dip, I drained and rinsed the beans and threw them in a pan with a few cloves of garlic and toasted them as well as black beans could be toasted. They were seasoned with cumin, chili powder, a little bit of oregano, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and salt. This was blended up with olive oil and veggie broth, and I managed to not make it too dry. It was a big hit!

Both dips were served with fresh veggies and chips for dipping (of course they ate the chips and left most of the veggies...boys...), and black olives. The hummus is on the left, and the black bean dip is on the right.


Dinner turned out great. The Tofurky turned out excellent. I used my usual recipe.


There was a massive bowl of mashed potatoes that required some serious muscle to mash. I might have gone a little overboard with those. Which, of course, is way better than not making enough!! Yay for leftovers!


Dave brought the cranberry sauce, which turned out awesome!


Not Pictured: Sweet baked yams, green beans (from a can...not worth a picture), homemade apple crisp (Mom's recipe), and sparkling cider (because we're wild like that). It was a great meal that I was very lucky to have. I definitely have something to be thankful for.

Chili and Corn Muffins

The furnace repairman wasn't able to make it last night (grrrrr!!!), so we were forced to find a way to stay warm for one more day. I don't have a chili recipe for you, since I was in the kitchen trying to throw everything in the pot as quickly as possible, but I DO have pictures! For the corn muffins, I used my favorite cornbread recipe off of VegWeb, with only a slight modification: I skipped mixing the egg replacer with water, and just mixed the powder right into the dry ingredients and made sure it was whisked in really well. Mmmm...there's nothing better than a hot oven and bowl of chili to warm you up...except for maybe a functional furnace...

Creamy Potato Soup

The weather here has been ridiculously cold these past few days - I've even seen snow flurries! Snow already!! I guess I'm not in Seattle anymore! With all this freezing going on, Rob and I decided it was time for one of our favorite cold-weather comfort foods: creamy potato soup. Bonus: I was able to use up a few more of the fresh herbs I have left over from making the Tofurky! Unfortunately, this wasn't the most photogenic batch...I almost didn't even post a picture. I used broth instead of water, unpeeled red potatoes, and red onion, which gave it sort of an odd color. Trust me, it tastes better than it looks. Here it is:



As usual, everything is approximate. Use your own tastes and judgement as your guide.

Ingredients:
extra virgin olive oil, as needed
1-2 carrots
2 celery stalks
1/2 bell pepper (I would recommend sweet bell pepper, but I just used the leftover green one I had in the fridge)
1/2 large onion, or one small onion
3 cloves of garlic
1/2-1 head of cauliflower
2-5 potatoes (if you're using big potatoes use 2 or 3, if you're using little red potatoes like I did, use 4 or 5)
3 cups vegetable broth or water
1/3 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup or more of plain, unsweetened soymilk
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tbsp margarine (optional)
few sprigs of fresh thyme
1 sprig fresh rosemary
2 bay leaves
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2-1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp white pepper
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
red pepper flakes, to taste (optional)

Instructions:
Rinse, peel, and scrub vegetables as you normally would. If you're using the big, brown potatoes with thick skins, go ahead and peel those. If you're using the little red potatoes, go ahead and just give them a scrub and leave the skins on - the skins are the best part!

Preheat a big soup pot to medium-medium high heat, and lightly coat with olive oil

Finely chop carrots and celery and add to heated pot, add a pinch of salt and pepper. Stir.

Finely chop onion, and add that next. Add another pinch of salt and pepper. Stir.

Mince garlic and finely chop bell pepper. Add them at the same time. Salt and pepper. Stir.

Dice potatoes into medium-small pieces, while keeping an eye on the veggies in the pot and stirring them occasionaly. Add the potatoes when they're all chopped.

Remove "leaves" from rosemary sprig and mince. Add along with all other seasonings. Don't bother removing the leaves from the thyme sprigs - they'll fall off on their own while cooking.

Stir in broth or water and corn. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium. Let simmer for 20 minutes or so, stirring occasionally. I literally use the "thyme" as my timer! When the leaves fall off the thyme sprig, it's done!

Remove from heat.

Optional: Using a potato masher, mash everything up to make it thick and creamy.

Add soymilk, nutritional yeast, and margarine.

Serve it and love it!

As Promised: Tofurky!!

Yummm...I just had an AWESOME early Thanksgiving dinner! The Tofurky was a hit at the meetup - it disappeared quick! It ended up slightly drier than usual since I accidentally arrived an hour earlier than the meetup actually started, and we didn't bring out the food until an hour after the meetup started. Oops! Two extra hours in the warmer might have been a bit much. It was still moist enough, but I've made better. I guess that means I'll just have to post more pictures of my next one!


The recipe:

Place Tofurky in refrigerator to thaw at least 24 hours before you intend to use it!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Ingredients:
1 Thawed Tofurky
2 Tablespoons vegan margarine (I used Earth Balance)
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
2-3 Sprigs of fresh thyme
1/2 - 1 Sprig of fresh rosemary
3-5 Fresh sage leaves
2-3 Cloves of garlic
1-2 Carrots
2 Stalks of celery
2 Medium red potatoes
1 Small-medium onion
Vegetable broth, as needed (I prefer No-Chicken broth, but it was not available at my store. If you can find that, use it!! Otherwise, any veggie broth will do)
Salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste

Instructions:
Mix margarine, oil, soy sauce, a few grinds of pepper, and a pinch of salt (easy on the salt...you have soy sauce in there!) in a small dish

Remove leaves from thyme and rosemary and chop into fine pieces. Finely chop sage and garlic. Add to above mixture and whisk together with a fork. Set aside.

Remove Tofurky from plastic casing and avoid injuring yourself like I did.

Now for the REALLY fun part: Attack it! Take a small knife or fork, and stab several small holes around the Tofurky. This is an essential part of achieving a moist end result!

Place Tofurky in the center of a 8x11 baking dish

Apply entire margarine-oil-soy sauce-herb mixture to Tofurky, spreading it around as evenly as possible. If there is extra, just pile the rest right on top!

Peel, rinse, and chop carrot(s) and onion

Wash and chop celery and potatoes

Arrange vegetables around Tofurky

Add more salt and pepper over everything (optional, but recommended)

Add vegetable broth until vegetables are almost covered

Cover tightly with foil

Cook 1 hour 10 minutes covered, remove cover, and cook 10 more minutes (same as package instructions)

Avoid placing in warmer for 2 more hours afterward like I did (ha)

Thinly slice and enjoy!

Note: I would not recommend skimping on ANYTHING! The oil and margarine might sound like a lot, but c'mon. It's the holidays! Fresh herbs are absolutely essential. If you don't want to buy tons of fresh herbs that you don't plan on using anything else, take another look in the fresh herb section of your grocery store. Usually around the holidays (if not all year round) I am able to find a "poultry seasoning" mix containing those 3 herbs. This will cost you much less and leave you with much less waste. The vegetables are also important, even if you don't want to eat them. The flavors season the broth even more, and the broth steams and soaks into the Tofurky. I've had this thing prepared many ways, and trust me - This is the way to do it!

Ahh...Now if only I had recipes for all of the food that everyone else brought tonight...YUM!

Seasoned Toasted Chickpeas

This afternoon, I had two things to face: I was hungry for a snack, and it was absolutely freeeezing in my house! I needed something that would warm me up as well as fill my tummy. So I went for something I could cook in the oven. Seasoned Toasted Chickpeas it is!!

There are countless ways to accomplish this yummy and healthy snack. This is what I did:

Preheated oven to 375

Drained and rinsed 1 can of chickpeas
Coated a baking pan with extra virgin olive oil
Pressed 2 cloves of garlic through a garlic press, straight onto the olive oil
Added a bunch of ground cumin, some chili powder, a few dashes of oregano and paprika, and some fresh ground black and red pepper
Mixed the oil, garlic, and seasonings thoroughly
Added the chickpeas, and stirred it all together so they were evenly coated

Baked for about 10 minutes, stirred, and then baked them for about 10 more minutes. They still needed a bit more crisp, so I stuck them under the broiler for a minute or two. I added a few pinches of salt when it was all done.

I didn't bother posting this in true recipe form, because you can really substitute anything for whatever you like. I've seen a recipe on VegWeb.com where they used only Cajun seasoning, salt, and pepper, and a different baking temperature. I've also seen other recipes where the toasting was done on a stovetop skillet. You really can't go wrong with this!

Bonus: After I was done cooking and turned off the oven, I went ahead and left it open so it could help heat my house a bit more. Obviously this would be an awful idea if you have small children running around. Use your common sense on that one.

Countdown to Tofurky Day!

With my move to the east coast, this is my first holiday season spent entirely away from my family. They've always been only a few hours away, so I have always been able to spend at least Christmas or Thanksgiving with them. Not so this year. Luckily, I still have something to look forward to: I volunteered to cook the Tofurky for the local VegHeads meetup! Now, forget all of the yucky things you have heard before about the tofurky. Forget bad experiences with dry, rubbery ickiness. I make the BEST darn tofurky you'll ever taste - and I'll have my recipe and pictures posted here by Sunday (Monday at the latest)! It is super fun, and super simple to make. This is one recipe that I am very excited to share!

Indian Spiced Potatoes and Veggies

Note: All amounts and times are approximate. I rarely measure or watch the clock while I cook. This recipe is EXTREMELY versatile - Feel free to adjust the seasonings and veggies as you see fit. You won't shouldn't go wrong.

Ingredients:

4 medium potatoes
1-2 carrots
1 medium red onion
1 medium red bell pepper
1 large tomato
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 small head of broccoli

Extra Virgin Olive Oil, as needed
Salt, to taste
Fresh Ground Black Pepper, to taste
1/2 tsp ground Coriander
1 tbsp Curry Powder*
1-2 tbsp ground Cumin
1/2 tsp Paprika
1 Bay Leaf

Preparation:

Peel and wash potatoes, carrot(s), onion, garlic. Rinse bell pepper and remove seeds. Rinse broccoli.

Add enough extra virgin olive oil to a medium-large soup pot, enough to lightly coat the bottom, and turn heat to medium/medium-high.

To avoid having to use a timer, I chop the vegetables in the order listed above, one at a time: potatoes first, chopping all potatoes, adding them all at once, add a pinch of salt and pepper, and stir. Next with the carrots, then the onion, and so on. The time you finish chopping the next vegetable is generally the time it's ready to go in the pot. Chop everything except the garlic into bite-sized pieces. Mince the garlic.

Once all vegetables are added, toss in the rest of the seasonings, and let your nose be your guide. It should become very fragrant once you stir them in.

Cook for 10-15 minutes, or until the tomato juice is reduced to to almost non-existence, stirring often enough to keep everything from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Serve with basmati rice, and enjoy!

Serves 2-4

*Check to see if your curry powder contains salt. If so, you will want to add much less salt as you cook.

Variation: Stir in a can of coconut milk right before serving. You'll need to add probably 50% more of the spices. This makes an excellent, creamy, curry-like dish!