Vegan Thanksgiving

I may update this later with a post-mortem, but thought I'd go ahead and put all of my recipes in one place for selfish reasons.

This year I'm hosting and cooking 90% of the dishes for myself and 7 other people, one of whom is vegetarian. I'm paying extra for a $1.99/lb free-range fresh turkey rather than a $.39/lb frozen Butterball. My friend Tyler, who lives a few blocks away, has graciously offered us the use of his Big Green Egg to smoke the sucker, which will leave our oven free and generally be less of a hassle.

Other than that, I picked up a lentil-sage and a wild-mushroom Field Roast as the protein since I'm making lots of stuff. A chopped salad with romaine hearts & assorted veggies, choice of dressings; basic mashed potatoes (Yukon gold + soymilk + margarine + salt & pepper); Pillsbury crescent rolls, and canned cranberry sauce. Approximating the stuffing recipe on the back of the bag, 1 with turkey juice and 1 vegan with pecans and apples.

Pre-dinner noshes will be Safeway salsa + chips, assorted veggies & dip (dressing or I might make a hummus or onion/tofu dip), leftover cheese and crackers.

Others are bringing a lemon cream pie, pfeffernusse cookies and fresh cranberry sauce.

Here are my recipes for everything else:
Gram's Cranberry Sherbert
4 cups fresh cranberries
2.5 cups water
1.5 cups of sugar
Juice and zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon.
1 teaspoon of gelatin (I used 2 teaspoons of vegan cherry-flavored jel dessert)

1. Cook berries in water until berries stop popping and strain into pot, saving juice.
2. Using food mill or a fine metal sieve, a flat metal spoon and a lot of effort, smash the pulp out of the cranberries into the pot, keeping the skins out.
3. Add sugar, cook on low until dissolved.
4. Add gelatin; cool.
5. Stir in juice and zest.
6. Pour into freezer tray.
7. Beat with mixer 2 days prior to serving, refreeze and serve on Thanksgiving.

Evangeline's Brussels Sprouts, Apples and Walnut Salad
I sliced the sprouts in half and steamed them (I cooked mine for too long, they should be just underdone). Then I pan-seared them in olive oil and a couple cloves of crushed garlic, really letting the sliced sides get crispy. Just before removing them, I stirred in some maple syrup (1 tsp? 1 tbsp? a little goes a long way) and removed them from the heat before the sugar burned too much. Actually, it got pretty smoky. Good luck. I added chopped fresh apple (I used half a medium-sized apple, something tart, sweet and crispy but I don't remember what kind) and walnuts pan-roasted with a pinch of salt and a little maple syrup. I can't remember if I added shallots, but they would be good in this. I made a dressing out of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, lots of thyme, a pinch of cumin, 1-2 tsp of brown deli mustard and something sweet, either a tablespoon of honey or maple syrup again, I'm not sure which.

Praline Topped Sweet Potatoes
3 one-pound cans of yams in light syrup, DRAINED
1/2 c. margarine, melted
1/2 c. cashew cream (equal parts raw cashews to water, blended)
2 Tbsp milled flax seed mixed with 1/2 cup water (i.e. 2 large eggs)
1 c. firmly packed light brown sugar
3/4 c. chopped pecans
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. vanilla

1. In a food processor, puree yams with 6 Tbsp. margarine and 2 Tbsp. cashew cream.
2. Add flax/water and 1/2 c. brown sugar, process until blended.
3. Pour into 2 qt. baking dish.
4. Preheat oven to 375.
5. In a small saucepan, combine remaining ingredients EXCEPT for vanilla. Bring to boiling, simmer 5 mins.
6. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla.
7. Spoon mixture over potatoes.
8. Bake 20 minutes or until bubbly.
Serves 6-8.

Vegan Pumpkin Pie
(adapted from this recipe
9" store-bought graham cracker crust (because pssssh)
2 cups canned pumpkin or puréed home-cooked fresh pumpkin (see note)
1 cup low-fat soymilk or rice milk
3/4 cup granulated sugar cane syrup
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 Tbs. dark molasses or to taste
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground allspice

1. Preheat oven to 425F.
2. In large bowl, mix all remaining ingredients until smooth and blended. Pour into prepared crust and smooth top. Bake 10 minutes.
3. Reduce oven temperature to 350F; bake until filling is set, about 50 minutes. Set on wire rack to cool, then refrigerate overnight. Top with your choice of dessert topping if desired.

Brussels Sprouts with Dijon and Balsamic Vinegar

I've been trying to nail down different ways to do Brussels Sprouts. The vaguely Chinese-style is pretty easy (minced garlic, ginger powder, soy sauce, sesame seeds, maybe some rice vinegar or cooking sherry), but I really like Balsamic with them, too. I was aiming for vaguely French-inspired, although I don't do much French food since it doesn't play well with veganism as far as I can tell.

Trader Joe's Brussels Sprouts in the microwaveable bag (1 lb.)
2 large shallots, thinly sliced
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Sea salt
Dijon mustard
Cooking sherry
Black pepper
Fresh thyme

1. Microwave sprouts for 4 minutes, with a piece of bread to absorb a little of the ass-smell. Cut in half, lengthwise.
2. Heat 2 tsp olive oil in large pan on medium-high heat. Add shallots and sautee until they begin to brown.
3. Add sprouts and sautee until they begin to steam. Add a healthy splash of balsamic - 2tsp, maybe 1 TBSP. Sprinkle with 3 or 4 pinches of sea salt.
4. Cook about 5 minutes, then add about 1 tsp of mustard and a couple of healthy splashes of cooking sherry.
5. Stir well and cook for 2 more minutes. The vinegar, sherry and mustard should make a sort of paste that clings to the shallots and coats at least part of the sprouts. If it's too thin, keep cooking it down; if it's too thick, add more sherry.
6. Remove from heat, grind some pepper on top and tear the leaves off of a few sprigs of thyme. You don't need too much. Stir together and serve immediately.

V-con dinner

This is curry-marinated baked tofu, garlic saffron rice and cornmeal-masala roasted Brussels sprouts from the Veganomicon. 3 mix and matches, all vaguely Indian spices inspired.

Sam, the thieving bastard, has been hoping I forgot about my large glass casserole dish for the past several weeks so I've been going crazy trying to figure out where it was and making things in smaller containers. Tonight it would have helped, but instead I baked the tofu in my George Foreman G-5 for a hella long time on medium-low, which kinda worked.

The cornmeal sprouts really didn't turn out as advertised. Way too much oil, I got a batter rather than crumblies, and it never really toasted up in the oven. This may be because the rack was a bit low, or maybe it would have done better on foil or a cookie sheet. I cooked it for an extra 10 minutes, too.

I used brown jasmine rice instead of white, so I cooked it for 40 minutes instead of 20, and then forgot to move it off the heat and open the lid after 10 minutes so it got a bit squishy.

All in all, though, still yummy, just some things I would change for next time. Like, say, use 3 tablespoons of oil instead of 6 in the sprouts.