Short and Sweet Celebration

Even though I didn't do a whole Thanksgiving spread this year, I still want to make good on my MoFo promise and explore Alicia Simpson's Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations for the holidays. In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, I did so by making the Classic Macaroni and Cheese and Southern-Style Greens, and ate them with some Chipotle Lime Crispy Fingers.

Quick, easy, and crazy delicious. As with her nachos, Simpson's mac and cheese required no cheese analogs, no nutritional yeast, and no plant milks. I'm not opposed to those things, but it's impressive that she creates such smooth flavor using veggies and spices only.

This book is pretty awesome, and though the chapters by holiday are fun, this is more of an every day book than I remember to give it credit for.

This picture isn't as good because of the light, but when I realized that my Pika Chu stapler was in the frame, I had to post it.

A few days later, I decided to tackle the Raw Sweet Potato Pie to make a complete meal out of the meager leftovers. That didn't go as well.

When someone says "raw" and "in your high-speed blender" in the same recipe, they do not mean in your food processor. They probably don't even mean in your Magic Bullet. They probably do mean in your $400 kitchen Sarlacc pit/Vitamix. I don't have one of those.

The pie blended up eventually, but it was frustrating and I lost a spatula in the process. All that and the flavor wasn't great. The spices were perfect, and the crust was fantastic, but raw sweet potatoes may not be right for me. No pictures for that one though. It's ugly.

It's still haunting my refrigerator, but I'm starting to have some ideas for how to re-purpose it with other leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner.

Just Reporting on the Same Holiday Everyone Else Is (Was)

I ended up going out of town to a non-vegan dinner for Thanksgiving. That's OK though - it was not the first time I'd been in that position, and I decided to try one of the recipes that inspired me during MoFo.

The Beast is a casserole layered with semi-traditional Thanksgiving foods and flavors. I say semi because soy curls are probably not totally traditional. Megan over at Down Home Vegan posted the recipe she created after competing in a Vegan Iron Chef competition. Since I needed a meal that would travel for the holiday, I decided this would be it.

I am stunned by how fast and easy this was to make. I wanted to get a head start, so I started making the components while I had a few minutes, and before I knew it, the ramekins were going in the oven.

(Sadly, none of the pictures feature the pumpkin gravy, which was subtle and surprising in flavor).

I had to make a few adjustments, and baking it in ramekins was the first, so I reduced the cooking time a bit. I have these great ramekins that are large enough to hold a meal-sized portion, and that have these handy plastic lids. So they're much easier to pack and lug around, but more importantly, I clearly had a limited amount, and I couldn't share with the omnivores.

Typically, I do like sharing, but it sucks to bring an empty casserole dish home and spend the next few days hearing about everyone else's damned sandwiches and soups while I'm making new meals and being pretty grossed out. This goes doubles for those meals at which NOTHING is suitable except what I brought.

So The Beast was quick and easy, and it worked to suit my selfish side. On top of all that, it was a dish that goes where you want it to go. I couldn't find soy curls, so I used TVP. Then, I decided that I wanted to make my own cranberry sauce, so I used Alicia Simpson's recipe, but I added the vanilla and cardamom as directed by Megan (I will never make it any other way). Finally, I forgot to top it with puff pastry, and it didn't matter because the mashed potatoes made for a lovely crispy topping.

None of that mattered, everything was amazing. Plus, like any holiday food, it was even better as leftovers. I had made it the night before, so it was all leftovers all day!

The Beast was only missing one part of a holiday meal, so I also made the Pumpkin Gingerbread with Pumpkin Butter from Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations. I made it in a loaf pan and it was super cute. I did stress a little, thinking about how I should have made a glaze rather than the butter, since it would have looked more festive. Someone should have slapped me. The combination was awesome.

So at least I ate well. It's getting harder and harder to sit down to large celebrations that are so closely linked with a practice that I find so utterly revolting. It's heartbreaking and frustrating at best. I don't want to dwell too long on that right now. I'll keep dreaming of a day when I have the space to host the type of celebration of thanks that I'd like to see - one of hope, love, and compassion for everyone.

Eating During the Storm

Hurricane Sandy came and went in Baltimore. I'm very fortunate. Except for some leaks here and there, and a loss of income, my household was unaffected. It was, and still is pretty chilly here though.

I did stock up on emergency supplies though, and I still have plenty to eat. I wanted to make a big, filling, comfort meal beforehand so that we'd be well fed in case of an outage. Initially I decided on Mac and Sleaze from 500 Vegan Recipes, but I had loads of veggies from the farmers' market that I wanted to use up. I always bolster my M&C style recipes with extra veggies to make them healthier, but I ended up completely changing the recipe to do so.

I added:

-15 oz tomato sauce
-1/2 bunch kale
-1/2 head roasted cheddar cauliflower
-1/2 head broccoli, chopped
-1 roasted red pepper

Since I had power and gas, I did a lot of other cooking, partly just to keep the joint warm. I had overfilled my stock bin again, so I made a batch of that. Since I didn't have a perfect however many cups, I made some tablespoon-sized stock stars.

Naturally, I also made cookies.

I realize now that I began to make good on my promise by making Game Day Nachos from Alicia Simpson's Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations. I've made these incredible nachos before, following the instructions to the word. This time, I didn't have everything required, but I was close enough to make reasonable substitutions.

I'm the last person to obsess over how healthy my meals are, but I gotta say, these nachos stack up pretty well in that arena. The cheese-style sauce is mind-blowing because it requires no plant milks, no nutritional yeast, and no animal product stand-ins of any sort. It's all veggies. I can't help but think it's cool. If anyone ever gives you crap about being able to give up cheese and weird vegan foods, just slap them with this book.

The above is the best of the quick and dirty pictures, so you'll notice that I took care of any healthy moments by having these for dinner, with beer.