Thanksnowing

New York got it's first snow of the season Sunday. I knew I was going to spend most of the day cooking anyway, but I took advantage of my family staying in the house, hiding from the elements, to make them all sit down and have a vegan family dinner.

I made the Tofurky Roast with vegetables, Panic Pepper Potatoes, the Baking Powder Biscuits from Vegan With a Vengeance and Sarah's Gravy. I also put out the Pumpkin-Apple Butter from Fat Free Vegan I made Saturday night. Yum!



So, what are Panic Pepper Potatoes? They're the best way I could think of to use up some extra potatoes and the contents of a McClure's Spicy Dill Pickles jar (cayenne peppers, garlic cloves, dill, vinegar). I used about ten potatoes and they were still too spicy for my parents and I to eat a full serving off. A forkful or two was very tasty, but beyond that, it was just too hot. My brother inhaled them, but then again, he eats wasabi raw.

My family still can't get enough of the Baking Powder Biscuits. We had some with gravy, some with pumpkin-apple butter and some plain. All caused joy. My brother put a tiny dab of the butter on a biscuit "just to taste because I'm not feeling pumpkiny right now." He took a bite, grinned hugely and proceeded to pile the butter onto his biscuit. That's what I liked to see (as long as it's not real butter)! I doubled the biscuit recipe this time and am shocked that there are still a couple left right this minute (unless someone ate them while I'm typing this at work).

Sarah's Gravy is a gravy recipe from my friend Sarah (duh). She made it up while standing in front of her stove and wanting to make something quick, easy and tasty. She succeeded. I think I overheated mine a bit because it was thicker than gravy should be, but everyone loved the flavor. The recipe I include below is how I made it, not exactly how she sent the recipe to me (she lists a bunch of optional ingredients and I don't want to give away all of her secrets).

Panic Pepper Potatoes (don't worry, I know this isn't an actual recipe):

Buy a jar of McClure's Spicy Garlic Dill Pickles.
Eat the pickles.
Boil about ten potatoes in the brine with as much water as necessary added.
While your potatoes are boiling, puree the remaining contents of the pickle jar.
Drain the potatoes.
Mix the cayenne/dill/garlic puree into the potatoes while mashing.
Eat.
Cry.

Serve with bread or something else absorbent (Tofurky!) to take care of the oils from the peppers. Do not drink, that will only make it worse.





Sarah's Gravy

2 Tbsp Olive Oil
3 Tbsp Nutritional Yeast
2 Tbsp Flour
1 Cup Water
2 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1/2 Tsp Black Pepper
1 Tsp Garlic Powder

Whisk together first three ingredients over medium heat until they bubble. Continue whisking for an additional minute. Add water and whisk to dissolve. Bring to a boil, whisking occasionally. Lower heat and whisk in remaining ingredients.

Tofurky!

I made a Tofurky Roast (mine came stuffed but gravyless and was meant to serve four) on Sunday. I also made a bunch of other things, but this post is dedicated to the Tofurky.



That there is really what you see when you take it out of the box. Looks kind of like a football, kind of like a ham, and just kind of funny, doesn't it?

It doesn't look much more appetizing unwrapped, though:



The box tells you to surround the roast with one quartered onion, two quartered potatoes and two carrots. That leaves you with really enormous potato pieces, so I halved some of mine again.



Then comes the "baste": one tablespoon olive oil, three tablespoons soy sauce (I use nama shoyu, even on this) and some dried sage. Mmmm.



Then you cover it up and throw it in the oven for an hour and fifteen minutes. When it comes out, it looks something like this:



Add more baste, put it back in the oven for ten minutes, uncovered, and (if one is to believe the packaging) it's done:



It kinda looked done and felt done when I stuck a fork in it (not that I really knew what "done" would look and feel like), but the vegetables were nowhere near cooked, so I wrapped the Tofurky in foil and left it on the stove top to be warmed by the heat of the oven and the pots on it while the vegetables cooked.

I make fun of Tofurky and similar mass-produced synthetic meats a lot. I call them science experiments, Igor food and other insulting things. But look at the Tofurky's ingredients. I can pronounce everything on that list. They even go the extra mile to let you know their stuff isn't genetically engineered. Pretty responsible, I think.

I served the Roast as part of a family dinner of sorts on Sunday night (more on that later). My brother was first to try it and exclaimed "Wow! It's turkey!" I was shocked! "Really?!?" "No, but it still tastes good," he laughed, finished off his portion and asked for more. My mother actually liked the included stuffing better than what we had at Thanksgiving. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it too. So much that I spent all of Monday looking forward to eating the leftovers when I got home from work (with a biscuit, not in a sandwich). It was still tasty after two minutes in the microwave. I don't think the texture changed much either.

Carving the Roast (which kept rolling away until my brother held on to it while I cut):



Sliced. Mmmm....stuffing.



Looks kind of like a hard-boiled egg, doesn't it?



Thus concludes our photo essay on the Tofurky Roast. Have a good night, get home safe and don't forget to tip your bartender.

A Toast!

To demolishing the toaster oven!

Ummm....so....it may be possible that I still can't make toast.

I went to a late concert Saturday night and knew I wanted to make a lot of things this weekend, so I decided to do some work before the show. The plan was to make some breadcrumbs and Pumpkin-Apple Butter (damn, do I ever love that butter. I think it was better last time I made it, though. I used apple cider and nutmeg this time. I also burnt it ever so slightly. Oops!

ANYWAY! While I was working on the butter, I loaded up the toaster oven with whole wheat bread. I then ignored the toaster oven, since it's supposed to ding and stop when it's done, right? I did check it once because it seemed like it was taking ages to get done, but the bread didn't look particularly dark. The sides of the toaster oven itself looked a little brown, though, and I was surprised I'd never noticed that before. I finished making the butter and went upstairs for a second. When I came down, there was smoke pouring out of our (now very brown) toaster oven, which contained several rectangular slices of charcoal. Obviously, the house stunk and needed a good airing (and it was FREEZING that night). I'm kind of concerned the smoke detector didn't go off, though.

Personally, I blame the toaster oven. I did the same thing the next day and had no trouble. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The Mini Pie Revolution

Check it.

Like pies? Like cupcakes? They're two tastes that go great together and now they're a December challenge. Vegan cupcakes may be taking over the world, but mini pies can certainly have this month. I'm definitely going to participate and I think my submission will have cranberries in it. That's all I'm going to say for now.

And I kind of like this monthly challenge thing. November: VeganMofo. December: mini pies. Let's hope January is something like Low Fat Dishes That Take Ten Minutes to Cook and Taste Like Sunshine.

The End

Today is the last day of VeganMoFo. I only missed two days all month (of blogging, not veganning) and I think that's pretty respectable since I'm so new to it. I was going to make my last VeganMoFo post all about the things I've learned and how I've changed in the past month, but I'm no good at being poignant and shit (and really, the only change that will happen now that VeganMoFo is over is I won't post as frequently - especially on weekends - and probably won't include posts that aren't about food I've cooked, unless I eat someplace historically good or my friends cook), so instead I'll just follow up on my Misc. list.

1. I left the tofu to soak for four days before moving it to the dehydrator. I tasted one piece after it'd been drying for about a day. The outside had really firmed up and darkened in color, but inside was still softer and whiter, so I left it on. Will check it again when I get home. It's REALLY tasty, but the spicy pickle flavor comes out more the longer you chew it.

2. Got my groceries from peapod.com. Everything was...adequate. For produce, I had ordered Fuji apples, lemons, garlic, carrots, green grapes and Brussels sprouts. They were out of the apples (which was just as well since I just bought them to push my order over $50. Since it was their fault, I got away with placing a $47.50 order). The lemons, garlic and carrots look good. The Brussels sprouts are in those little cardboard containers, so it's possible that all the sprouts under the first layer are spoiled, but the tops look fine. The grapes aren't as pretty as the ones I try to pick myself, but I've seen and eaten worse. Overall, I'd give them 4/5 for produce.

Also, my mother was supposed to be home to take delivery of the groceries. My father's car broke down, so she had to go get him, so naturally the delivery came while she was away. The driver was very nice and came back to our house as his last stop of the evening, after my mother came home, without charging the extra delivery fee. Rock.

Advice!

Here is some advice. Free. No charge. Gratis. Just for you:

Don't break your arm in three places while arm wrestling drunk unless you have someone willing to bake you cupcakes while you're in the hospital.

Just saying.



Those are Your Basic Chocolate Cupcakes topped with green Vegan Fluffy Buttercream Frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and Harry Potter sprinkles in Harry Potter cups. Why green and Harry Potter? Why not?

I got home from visiting the hospital a bit after 1 AM, realized I couldn't sleep and was in the mood to bake, so I did.

I was always under the impression that ice cream scoops only came in one size. That's apparently not the case. The new one we got is huge and I can fill about two cupcake cups with it. Of course, it took me a while to realize that, so I ended up with a few muffin tops.

Also, my oven seems to be kind of fucked, so when the cupcakes were supposed to be done, they were still very wet in the center and the temperature was 340 instead of 350. I turned it up and left them in for a while longer and they seem to be OK.

This was my first time working with the pasty food coloring. It was pretty neat. I didn't know how concentrated it was, so I dipped a fork in the coloring, scraped the fork against the beaters, then resumed beating the frosting. It was pretty cool because the white frosting would turn really dark green around the beaters, then the color would slowly lighten and spread. I really like the mint green I got, but it makes me wish I had some mint extract to put in the frosting, making chocolate-mint cupcakes.

Also, I need to remember to use a bigger bowl next time I make that frosting. The beaters sprayed it everywhere, even when I tried to block it with my hands. I spent quite a bit of time cleaning up when I was done.

A friend gave me the Harry Potter sprinkles when I first got into baking, but I didn't know what I'd be able to use them for now that the series was over, so this was a good use. I bought the HP cups myself, on the cheap, to match them.

I had originally planned on spelling out GET WELL SOON in frosting on the cupcakes, but I miscounted the number of letters in the phrase and made two swirly cupcakes to use as spaces. Once I did that, I just did a bunch of other swirlies and wrote GWS (I couldn't bring myself to do one more swirl at 4 AM!). I really wanted to use the big star tip for the frosting, but it was upstairs and I was lazy, so I tried the small star. I think I would have been there until 6 AM if I used the small star, so I switched to a large crescent. The tip itself was pretty cool looking, but the icing was unimpressive. At least it was fast!

Naked cupcakes in all their nerdy glory:



Close up of the cup:



Spork 2000s:

Misc.

1. Flipped and rotated the tofu for the jerky again last night. Allowed myself a taste and it was still very firm and pickled and spicy, but not overly so. If I get home at a reasonable hour, I'll but it on the dehydrator tonight (2 AM just didn't seem like the right time).

2. When I was in school, I used to order my groceries (except produce) from peapod.com all the time. I've decided it's time to give them another shot. I don't know if I trust them since they don't carry peanut oil, but I'm attempting to do my shopping through them this week. Even produce. Will let you know how it goes.

3. Advice: If you've eaten beets, keep in mind that you've eaten beets. That way, you don't have a panic attack when you go to the restroom.

4. I just found a recipe I really want to make on a vegetarian-friendly omni site, but when I read the description, it said "I threw this together the other night when my wine club came over and liked it enough to make it again as a side dish / vegetarian main dish on Thanksgiving." I beg your pardon, but a side dish is a side dish and a main dish is a main dish. An extra large side dish serving is NOT a main dish for a vegetarian! We're allowed real food, with courses and sides too, honest! That really roasts my chestnuts.

Another thing that grinds my grits: went for Japanese with my family on Sunday and ordered a dish called "Vegetable Bi...something" I don't even remember what the third word was. It was BLAND. And didn't have any vegetables in it except scallions, pea pods and bak choy. It was very clear that this was just a meat dish with the meat omitted, not a vegetable dish. How can they call it "Vegetable...." without any real vegetables in it?! The mind boggles.

Sorry this post is so ranty, I've just been having that kinds of day. And it is vegan-related.

In a Pickle

I love pickles.

When I saw McClure's Spicy Garlic Dills at The Brooklyn Kitchen a few weeks ago, I had to have them. So I did. Those are damn good pickles. Spicy! They're almost a bit too spicy for me, but that's good because it prevents me from eating the whole jar at once (which I've been known to do).

When I got home, I looked at my receipt and saw the jar of pickles cost $12. $12! For pickles! I vowed at that moment that I'd use every single thing in that jar in some way. Hell, I'm even going to use the jar for storage and the label as a bandage.

Not long after I finished the pickles, I made something that called for one pound of extra-firm tofu. The tofu came in 14-ounce packages, leaving me with 12 ounces of extra-firm tofu to play with. I also have a dehydrator.

Brine + tofu + dehydrator = JERKY?!?!?!



I pressed the tofu for over an hour, then cut it into halfish-inch wide/thick, twoish inch long strips and threw it in a container with the brine, dill, garlic and some cayenne peppers (I still have a few untouched peppers). I flipped and rotated it after 24 hours (mostly to make sure it didn't get crumbly or something from sitting in the liquid) and will try to remember to do so again when I get home tonight. So far, they've been soaking for about three days. I think I'm going to take it out tomorrow night and attempt to dehydrate it. I will, of course, keep you updated on the status of my possible pickly jerky.

Beets Dont Fail Me Now!

I once said beets freak me out and challenged myself to try them this month, so I did. I made the Autumn Latkes (page 53) with Horseradish-Dill Sour Cream (page 208) from Veganomicon, with a side of Sauteed Beet Greens.



I knew beets would be an adventure from the time I picked them up at Whole Foods: they were wet and muddy and pretty damn gross. I try to use as few plastic bags as possible when I shop, but I had to bag them all by themselves to keep everything else from getting filthy.

Despite their drippy nature, they didn't smell or anything, which was awesome...until I rinsed them off and started to peel them. As soon as the peel broke, I smelled garden (to put it nicely, or dirt if you want to be blunt). That kind of freaked me out because it meant the smell was coming from the beet itself, not the dirt or the peel and they'd therefore taste like shit (logic!). Thankfully, they didn't smell dirty enough to make me give up on my cooking plans for the day.

Autumn Latkes (AKA Beet Cakes): YUM! I don't own a food processor, so I had to shred the beets, carrots and sweet potato and chop the shallots by hand. Ow. Each beet took a little under fifteen minutes to shred and the other things were even faster, but it was still unpleasant. After that, the recipe went smoothly and was done pretty quickly.

This was my first time frying since I started all this cooking stuff and I was shocked by the amount of oil (and paper towels) I used. I ended up having to pour some down the sink when I was done, which made me feel wasteful, but better in the sink than in my belly!

The sweetness of the beets is countered really nicely by the fennel (which I don't think I chopped small enough for my taste) and frying them with the exact timing indicated in the book gave the latkes really crispy edges and nice, chewy centers (just how I like them). I still have one beet and most of the other ingredients left, so I think I may do a half batch baked this weekend.

Horseradish-Dill Sour Cream: Not my favorite thing I've made so far. It's OK, but I think I may not have used enough dill because it had started to turn. Despite the fact that this doesn't really count as giving it a fair chance, I don't think I'll make it again, just because I'm kind of meh about horseradish, like dill and hate sour cream. There's nothing about this recipe that made me jump up and think I needed it ASAP; I just made it because it was recommended with the latkes.

Sauteed Beet Greens: I don't think it's possible to go wrong with greens, garlic, onion and olive oil, do you?

Autumn Latkes, AKA Beet Cakes:

Makes about 2 dozen beet cakes

I serve these with an apple chutney or horse radish sauce but I don’t have those recipes handy, I just wing it so make up an apple sauce (the roasted apple sauce in VwaV will do nicely) or serve with apple sauce or tofu sour cream. I also sauté the beet greens in sherry and garlic. Yums.

2 cups peeled shredded beets, (about 3 average sized beets)
1 cup peeled shredded carrot (about 1 average sized carrot)
1 cup peeled shredded sweet potato (you guessed it, 1 average sized sweet potato)
1 shallot, finely chopped (about ¼ cup)
½ cup flour
¼ cup corn starch
½ teaspoon salt
several dashes fresh black pepper
1 teaspoon fennel seeds, chopped
1/4 cup water
Olive oil for pan frying

Combine the shredded veggies in a large mixing bowl and mix them up. Add the onion and combine. Add the corn starch, flour, salt, black pepper and fennel seeds. Use a wooden spoon to combine everything, the flour should coat all the veggies. Add the water and combine again, until all the flour is dissolved.

Preheat a heavy bottomed non-stick or cast iron skillet on the low side of medium high heat. Add about ¼ inch layer of oil. Let the oil heat up for about 2 minutes.

Form the beet mixture into quarter sized balls, then flatten out into 1 ½ inch medallions. Add to the oil, and fry for 5 minutes, flip the beet cake, flatten a bit with the spatula and fry for another 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel or paper bag to drain. Serve!

Sauteed Beet Greens

1 bunch beet greens
2 tablespoons oil, divided
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons chopped onion
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and onion, and cook for a minute. Tear the beet greens into 2 to 3 inch pieces, and add them to the skillet. Cook and stir until greens are wilted and tender. Season with salt and pepper.

My shredded and chopped vegetables. Oh how stratified!



Shiny, garlicy greens:

Flesh-Free Friday

I may want to revisit Thanksgiving at some point and write a bit about how that all went down (quite well), but at the moment I want to write about a tradition my family started this year: Flesh-Free Friday. From now on, my immediate family will go vegan for the Friday after Thanksgiving (I will do all the cooking, obviously). This time, we brunched on three dishes from Vegan With a Vengeance: Asparagus, Olive and Mushroom Frittata (page 14), Baking Powder Biscuits (page 26) and Tempeh Bacon (page 23). We dined on two from Veganomicon: Caesar Salad with Roasted Garlic Croutons (page 81) and Tomato-Rice Soup with Roasted Garlic and Navy Beans (page 137). We obviously love garlic.



My mother loves biscuits. Almost more than she loves her children. When I first started cooking and baking, her reaction was almost "Pretty cupcakes are great. Yeah. Whatever. Can you make biscuits?" So when we decided we were all going to finally sit down and have a vegan meal together, I knew I had to include biscuits. She loved these babies before they even went in the oven. She just sniffed the raw dough and deemed them worthy (by comparing them to a memory of the Pillsbury dough, I believe). By the time they were ready to come out of the oven, she and my brother were practically dancing around in front of it waiting. They weren't disappointed. She said these fulfilled her biscuit craving perfectly, while my brother deemed them "professional quality". My father liked them as well.

Not only are they tasty but the texture came out absolutely perfect and they're so easy to make they're almost impossible to mess up. Fast, too. And you don't need a food processor or blender or anything. I think I'm going to make them with whole wheat flour soon (I like to follow recipes exactly the first time I make them, if possible).

Tempeh isn't bacon. However, after being marinated per the VWAV instructions, it's damn tasty. It's also thick, chewy and definitely "meaty". Almost the entire plateful disappeared before I finished making the frittata!

Speaking of the frittata, I lost my tumeric so I made it without. I also kept it in the oven quite a bit longer than indicated. I baked it in Pyrex and just kept it in the oven until bubbles stopped coming up the sides. My family likes things very well done. So well done that I have a friend who used to joke that because of how I prepared food, he thought the only way to give kosher, vegetarian food flavor was to burn it.

I made it with asparagus, fresh cremini mushrooms and black olives. My brother is deathly afraid of mushrooms, but he finished his portion anyway. He said it was the first thing I'd made that wasn't fantastic (but it was still edible, so I consider that a victory). My father said it was a winner (it was his first time eating olives) and my mother loved it and would like to eat it again.

Just like with the biscuits, the bacon and frittata are incredibly easy to make (but take a bit more time) in addition to tasting fabulous. It's the sort of food that people will assume you totally stressed out over, which earns you points when you don't feel like taking out the trash.

My brother loves Caesar salad almost as much as my mother loves biscuits. He's had it in so many different places, I consider him a bit of a connoisseur on the subject. He loved the strong dressing and the spicy croutons, doing everything but lick his plate to get the last of it. My mother is still raving about the croutons. I'm just angry at myself for serving it with romaine lettuce only; my spinach was old and I thought my arugala was basil.

I've already discussed the soup, so I won't go into much about that here, but just know that my family absolutely inhaled it. I swear, I dished out the soup, blinked, turned around and all the bowls were empty and mouths were smiling.

So yeah, if you're ever looking for a few easy, omni-approved vegan recipes, look no further. Here's your salad, your soup, your protein and your carb, all in one place (well, two books, really).

Seventeen biscuits go into the oven:



I take them out, blink and there are fourteen left:



Bacon:



Extremely well done frittata:



Mmmmmm....croutons: