A Very Vegan Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving, I had the pleasure of preparing food for a crowd of people. Quite a crowd of people; there were thirteen including myself & the little one! That's definitely more people than I'm used to cooking for, so it was a challenge! This was a get-together the day after Thanksgiving for some friends and family and some new friends of all dietary persuasions! It was really a blessing and totally worth all the effort to be able to share it with such open-minded & appreciative people. When I got back from dropping the kiddo off at her dad's, everyone had put away the food and done the dishes. It was amazing.

Most of the recipes I quantified turned out to be enough or just enough, except I could have easily doubled the gravy recipe. I was really impressed with some of the new recipes I used (and was nervous about using at first!). I spent Wednesday cleaning & sanitizing the house, as I get a little OCD about cleaning before important events. Then I prepped a bunch that evening, cooked for nearly 17 hours on Thanksgiving, and finished the remaining dishes Friday afternoon/evening. I reheated at the refrigerated things I'd made before in a really hot oven - I'd never done this with a mass quantity of food before, but it worked fine, & I kept a few more things heated on the stovetop & my dual buffet I'd not gotten to use yet! It tickles me that everyone ate my entire faux cheesecake with strawberry sauce! Better than Cream Cheese is truly a good substitute for the original here. I might make another one in a couple days so I can use the rest of the strawberry sauce! We had a merry night of stuffing ourselves silly (sometimes uncomfortably full!) drinking a little chardonnay and beer, and finishing the night off with freshly ground vanilla, hazelnut cream, and cinnamon flavored coffee.

                                            Pressing 12 blocks of tofu for the 2 roasts!

 "Sausage" balls! Made with Lightlife sausage, cheddar-style Daiya and biscuit mix. Everyone in my family makes the original version around the holidays, and these taste better than the original! I did 1.5x the recipe, and they all got eaten :)

 Toasted pumpkin seeds in chile & sesame oils with black lava salt for an appetizer; also had kalamata olives in thymed oil.

 The cheesecake before it was chilled. I was worried about this one, and the pictures don't do it justice. It was probably the tastiest pie!

 This picture is dark too; it's the pumpkin pie.

                                The giant bowl of sausage balls on the appetizer table

Used 10 pounds of potatoes for mashing with earth balance & rice milk - it made 2 9x13" pans! About 1/3 of the second pan was gone by the end of the night. Whoa!

Two loaves of beer bread. The front one is made with Sam Adams Black Lager, and the back is Boston Lager. Both very good, but I prefer the dark one.

I'm so excited I got to use the buffet I got this year! It was perfect! It's just heated with two regular tealight candles, which worked surprisingly well - after I reheated the sweet potato casseroles in the 425 oven, the candles kept them hot until they burned out.

The sweet potato casseroles were the same except for the toppings. They both had brown sugar, earth balance, and Dandies vegan marshmallows melted in. This one is topped with pecans that I lightly caramelized with pure maple syrup and ground cinnamon.

...and these I topped traditionally with more marshmallows! (Those got nice & melty & golden brown when I reheated them in the oven just before serving!)

 And this lovely creamy mac'n'cheeze recipe I got from the Daiya site, if I'm not mistaken. I used rice milk & mimiccreme in it & doubled it for this big 9x13 pan.

          Maple pecan pie! This tasted just how I remember pecan pie, and it is so delicious!

 My daughter talked me into making hush puppies, even though it is time-consuming and dangerous! They were yummy & enjoyed though, so I guess it was worth a couple minor grease burns :)

 The orange-flavored tofu roast, with tangerine zest, brown sugar, ginger, red chilies, white pepper, mirin, and sesame & peanut oils.

 The traditional-flavored roast, with not chicken broth, thyme, sage, rosemary, and earth balance.

 A yummy new recipe for gravy that I added some mimiccreme to, and about 20 servings of stuffing! I'm glad they finally have a stuffing mix that is vegan because you add your own broth, as well as chopped celery and onions.

Yet another poorly lit picture of a dessert sampler. I was really just too tired and busy to be bothered with taking expert photos at this point...and being as it's dessert, I was extremely full too!

There were also a big tray of mini corn-on-the cob and a big tray of whole green beans/wax beans - the latter of which I tossed in oil, earth balance, cracked mixed peppercorns, and red salt.

All in all, I'd call it a grand success. Happy Holidays/Joyeux Fete de la Grace!

A Vegan's First Year: Part 1

This is the past year's food highlights (my first year being vegan!) as a sort of preview of what I'll be expanding and (hopefully) improving on. The most obvious things I need to work on are photography skills (I'm learning!) and plate presentation. I'm also trying to up the ante on color and texture contrasts, but all in due time. I'm trying my hand at an organic herb garden this year (with a few veggies too - limited space!) for fresh flavors at their peak.

White bread: working with yeast is an art unto itself. High gluten content and an earth-balancey crust are key for yumminess.

Seitan "Parmesan" - my homemade seitan (wheat gluten meat analogue), breaded and fried, smothered in homemade marinara atop a bed of thin pasta & covered with "almesan" - a surprisingly cheezy-tasting combo of almonds, nutritional yeast, & garlic

My first sushi-maki! I've since fallen in love with it & tried to experiment as much as possible.

"Shanghai Wings" - a copycat of an old Chili's recipe modified: breaded/fried setian chunks with citrus ginger glaze atop fried sai-fun noodles, served with my own dairy-free wasabi-ranch.



Coconut cream pie with a refreshing hint of lime and delicate crunch of toasted coconut...definitely remaking this in the summer.

First vegan pizza ~ love to make herbed garlic yeast dough from scratch, add roasted red peppers, my marinara, olives, and pepperoni I made from vegan bacon I seasoned up first. Then topped with the vegan parmesan. Keep in mind, this is before I discovered Daiya cheeze.

Spinach lasagna~ sometimes I add soy crumbles to the marinara, but sometimes I just like a thick sauce made from chunks of various roasted peppers, tomatoes, onions, and garlic (with herbs).

Tofu Pot Pie with celery seed pastry. This could have only been better if I used seitan, or seasoned Gardein chik'n scallopini instead of the tofu.

Grand prize winner for best decorated at the Mercer County Fair 2010! I took grand prize in all three of my entries last summer. Keep in mind, this was my first try at homemade fondant icing, and I couldn't find glycerin anywhere. When I try fondant again, I will either buy vegan storebought or find glycerin & do it right!

Cherry-Date Braided Swedish Tea Ring ~ drizzled with icing and almond slivers, this was another winner at my county fair 2010. I'm wondering what to enter in this summer!

French Apple Pie ~ The other winner at my county fair for double-crust fruit pies. I need to work on my lattice.

Fossil Cookies ~ for Halloween! (Thanks, Martha Stewart!)

Seaweed Salad ~ tried to emulate the local Japanese Steakhouse ~ my dressing from sesame oil, chili oil, and rice wine vinegar is dead-on, but I need more experience with various types of seaweed to gett the flavor/texture combo right.

Getting better with sushi ~ cucumber/avocado is my favorite; the flavors just dance on my tongue when they combine. I colored some of the rice for fun around Halloween!

Tempura Sweet-potato sushi with eel sauce (I'm pretty sure that's what the drizzle sauce is; I make mine from soy sauce and sugar).

Vegan Corn Dogs. I had waited so long. I am, however, considering getting a deep fryer to make things like this easier.

Pumpkin Cheezecake for Thanksgiving, with 'better than cream cheese.' This year I'll get a picture after it's been cut!

Thanksgiving spread - the roast I made from tons of Gardein chik'n scallopini, traditional stuffing ("Not Chicken" bouillon is a lifesaver in so many recipes!), candied yams with vegan Dandies marshmallows, mashed taters with gravy, corn, and spiced cranberry chutney.

X-Mas waffles, because my dad sent me a much-appreciated waffle iron for the holiday!



X-mas dinner: I tried to replicate a stuffed pork loin recipe I'd previously modified. Made a "loin" from masked chik'n scallopinis, marinated in merlot, peppers, celery, and spices, then stuffed with fruited curried jasmine rice & covered in infused red wine gravy (made from marinade).

"Steakhouse Stir:"  Sauteed potatoes, garlic, onions, and sweet orange peppers, tossed with seared beefless tips and a dash of that famous A1 sauce.

My version of "Mounds" candy. Very time consuming, but totally worth it ~ LOVE the flavour of fresh coconut milk.

Cordial cherries: another time-consuming candy that is absolutely worth making if you love fresh ingredients and velvety-smooth dark chocolate.

A vegan pumpkin roll? Totally possible. Had a little help from a surprisingly vegan icing, but this year I will make one entirely homemade.

White chocolate Macadamia nut ccokies: I've ordered a couple things online from a vegan website, and those white chips are one of my cool finds. I hadn't had that kind of cookie for probably two years before I made these.