It's the REAL Thanksgiving, y'all!

Starting off right - with a picture of dinner.

Because I'm a big idiot I forgot to book any time off for Thanksgiving this weekend. Both sides of the the family did the dinner thing on Sunday, so with no prospect of a big food coma inducing dinner on the horizon, I took those reins into my own hands and decided to make a fairly traditional Thanksgiving meal for just the three of us.

Pre icing

Menu
Seitan Turkey
Mushroom Gravy
Roasted Acorn Squash
Mashed Potatoes
Beets
Wax Beans
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Cinnamon Icing

The roast was pretty good. I had some anger issues when I was making it because my dough hook was being a crappy old son of a bitch, so I had to do the first ten minutes of kneading by hand. These hands are not made for manual labour, people. That was hard work. Ian's criticism is that it won't make him tired and gassy - for shame.

For the gravy, I followed the recipe I posted last week, except that I added some dried porcinis. I soaked them in hot water (one cup) for 45 minutes first and then used the mushroom water in place of one cup of the broth.

Pretty Shallots

I roasted the squash with the turkey for the last hour and a half because the oven temp was lower than I would do squash by itself. It turned out perfectly, and I just added salt and pepper to serve it.

Mashed potatoes... well if you don't know how to make mashed potatoes. I don't know what to say. I used Earth Balance and veg stock and a spoonful of dijon in mine; I also boiled them with 4 cloves of garlic. Pretty typical mashed potatoes, yes?

I like beets pretty simply done; roasted in a tin foil package with a couple tablespoons of water, some salt and pepper and a drizzle of oil for an hour and a bit (425F or so). Then I peel them, cut them into chunks, drizzle with olive oil and good balsamic and then salt and pepper to taste.

The cupcakes were dreamy. For serious. So good. Make them now and always. That's an order.

Fun Artsy Icing Squiggles

Lesson time: don't bother buying these pretty tulip cupcake papers. They're $5.50 for only 15 wrappers. They're so thin the oil is really evident. And really, they're just silly. So yeah.

Humbled

There comes a point in your cooking career - and yes, if you make dinner more often than not, even if you don't get paid for it, it's a career - where you start to think you're actually pretty good. You may consider this the point when your food is perfectly cook every time. It may be when you develop a recipe of your own. It may be when you start to cook by taste and improve on your grandma's recipe for your favorite stew. Wherever that point may be, it exists. You start to think highly of yourself. You start to shun particular types of restaurant food because you can make it better.

And then, if you're me, you colossally fuck up a majorly easy dinner and remember that you're not Gordon Ramsay. You're Brianne and human and still prone to errors sometimes. Bloody hell.

Last night I *tried* to make fried breakfast sausages with sauteed spinach, VWAV baking powder biscuits, and mushroom gravy. I made the sausages. And burnt them like only the flames of hell can burn a sausage. The spinach? Had a weird piece of plastic in it. The biscuits? Flat and over cooked.

The mushroom gravy turned out great. Thank god, because otherwise I would have quit cooking for the rest of the month. It could almost disguise the charred flavour of the sausages. Almost.

Need a great gravy recipe? Here you are.

Mushroom Gravy

3 tbsp olives oil
8 oz cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 shallots, cut in half and sliced thinly
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
3 tbsp flour
2 c veg broth

Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the mushrooms and shallots and saute until mushrooms are soft. Add the garlic and cook 30 more seconds.

Add the flour. Stir to coat the vegetables completely. Stirring often, cook the flour and oil until it is slightly golden, 5 minutes or so.

Stream in the first half cup of broth while stirring constantly. Add the rest of the broth, bring heat up to high and bring to a boil. Let boil for 7 or 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until desired thickness is achieved. Add salt and pepper to taste. Gravy will thicken more as it cools, as well.

Other things you can do:
sub 1/2 c (or more, you wino) of broth for white wine
add a tablespoon of dijon mustard to the broth
add dried herbs when you add the broth: dried tarragon would work well

Lunch!

Udon with Shittake Mushrooms and Kale in Miso Broth

Super yummy, especially great autumn food. I blogged about this last year too but everyone probably needs an increase in their leafy greens so it's worth a second visit. The recipe says it'll serve 4 people; if you are Ian and I, it doesn't go further than lunch. We either eat a lot or the recipe is lying a little; you make it and decide!

Last Night's Dinner

Vegan Mofo Day 1: Pasta.

I'm not a super sauce lover on my pasta. Tomato sauce is something we have maybe once a year. We eat curried noodles slightly more often, with a coconut milk and curry sauce, but even then, we're more likely to have curry on rice than pasta. Most recently we had the fennel and tomato 'sauce' from ED&BV on pasta, and that was pretty delicious, but not at all saucy.

So I wanted pasta last night and didn't want real sauce. I took inspiration from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Ginger Bok Choy and Soba Noodles recipe out of Appetite for Reduction. I'm still a little sick from a cold that I started feeling a week ago so ginger, garlic, and red pepper flakes are the first things on my mind. I modified it enough that it pretty much isn't even the same recipe anymore, so here you go.

8 oz soba noodles
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, cut in half then sliced thinly (I used a sweet onion because I had it; I can pretty much guarantee a red onion would be good too.)
8 oz mushrooms (I used pre sliced portobellos; use whatever you like. I wanted a more hearty component)
4 cloves garlic, 3 minced/crushed, 1 sliced
2" knob of garlic, prepared however you like (I use a vegetable peeler to peel off super thin slices; sometimes I then cut those into strips, but usually not. If you like it minced or chopped, go ahead!)
red pepper flakes to taste - start with 1/4 tsp, but if you like spicier go with 1/2 tsp
1 head broccoli, cut up into florettes
1/4 c white wine (broth would work if you don't have wine)
2 tbsp tamari

1. Start your water boiling for the noodles. The rest comes together pretty fast so it's important to get this started. Remember to salt the water well.

2. Heat the oil in a pan over medium - high heat. Saute the onions and mushrooms (add a pinch of salt, too) until the onions are translucent but not totally soft, they're good with a bit of crunch. Add the ginger, garlic and red pepper and saute 30 seconds more. Add the pasta to the boiling water.

3. Add the wine and deglaze the pan, then add the broccoli. Pop a lid on the pan and, stirring occasionally, let the broccoli steam in the wine until tender crisp, roughly ten minutes.

4. Check the pasta, and drain and return to the pot when it's done. Remove the lid from the broccoli and add the tamari. Cook off the excess moisture for 2 minutes or so.

5. Taste for salt. Dole out the pasta and then top with the broccoli. Enjoy!

Beginning of Vegan Mofo 2011

Hi! Welcome to Vegan Mofo 2011!

I'm hoping not to crap out early like I did last year. I had wanted to be doing a cookbook challenge simultaneously with Mofo but I don't think that's super realistic right now so I'll just concentrate on doing whatever I can and keeping up with the posting.

I must go make some dinner now... about which I will likely post on the morrow.

Here's to an Amazing Mofo 2011!

Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting - VCTOTW

Cookbook Challenge: Week 1

My Week 1 cookbook was Eat, Drink & Be Vegan by Dreena Burton. I actually purchased this for the spring cookbook challenge and did make some stuff out of it, but haven't really cracked it since.

As tomatoes are looking pretty lovely and are from Ontario fields right now, not just the hothouses, I decided to go with Roasted Tomato and Fennel Pasta with Pine Nuts and Capers.

The recipe is super easy, since it pretty much just involves throwing the fennel and tomatoes on a baking sheet and roasting them for a while. You boil your pasta and when it's done you add the roasted vegetables and some capers and fresh basil and chow down! I thought I had pine nuts but apparently I got rid of them in the last round of kitchen clean up so I was missing that element; bet it would have been great with them though. Although I don't really have 'staple' foods per se, I will definitely be making this recipe again. The smell of the roasting vegetables was phenomenal and alone is enticement to make it again!

I made my own balsamic dressing for the salad, an old stand by my mom taught me. It's balsamic, olive oil, a clove of garlic, a spoon full of dijon mustard, salt and pepper. Beat together with a fork until it forms a nice emulsion and voila!

Cookbook Challenge!

A website I frequent regularly has 'Cookbook Challenges.' Everyone votes on which cookbooks to choose, and those books are assigned to a week. The challenges are usually 12 weeks long and each week a thread is started wherein everyone posts which recipes they have made (we try for a minimum of three for the week) from the selected book that week and awesomeness ensues. The idea is to pull out books that you maybe haven't cook from in a while, or to choose recipes that you haven't ever used before.

The last challenge was more of a challenge than most since I had a young baby to tend to and I kind of crapped out part way through, though I did get some of it done but never blogged about. The pictures are still in Ian's black hole of food pictures which may never see the light of day, by the way. The current challenge includes a ton of cookbooks that I do not own and, as I have now once again relegated myself to the realm of poor-studentness, I do not plan on purchasing any time soon.

Therefore, I've decided that I will do my own challenge with the books I do own. The one currently getting the most use is Appetite for Reduction, which, while it's awesome and totally deserving of the spot light, means the rest of my collection is gathering dust on my shelf. Time to do something about that.

Part of the challenge happens to coincide with Vegan Mofo, which this year is the month of October. Last year I vowed I would work on veganizing favorite dishes for MoFo. Since the challenge will take up a good part of my time and 'blogging energies' as it were, I will veganize one dish / week. Plus I've only managed to veganize two dishes ever anyway. This could be a disaster. Wish me luck!