still alive - be thankful!

I know other bloggers have gone far longer than a week without a post, but I am not normally among them so it feels like forever.  I hope you'll excuse my absence, considering how busy I've been preparing for Thanksgiving and Black Friday - or I should say it like this:

1. the first Thanksgiving (or holiday at all) that I've hosted in my own home!
2. the first Black Friday I've worked retail in fifteen years.

Fortunately, both went off pretty well, yet both were fairly stressful in the days leading up to them.  Additionally, I just haven't felt like I had anything interesting to say.  I realized recently that one of the reasons I've found blogging to be so much fun and so fulfilling in the first two years of this little blog was because I was still learning how to cook new and interesting things, so I was always trying to make something I hadn't made yet so I could come up with a unique post.  Over the last several months, I've found myself perfectly happy to repeat "favorites" from the last few years, and although I only rotate recipes every few months, I still didn't have anything interesting to say about making "this" dish again.

Here is a quick recap of my Celebrate Vegan mini-menu:

The two pasta dishes (Pasta with Shallots and Chard and Pasta with Red Peppers and Basil) were just like I remembered them - relatively easy with a ton of flavor.  Neither of them made as much as I thought I remembered, but believe me, with Thanksgiving coming up, there was no place in our fridge for leftovers anyway.

I made one new recipe from the book I wasn't able to make before because it needed tweaking for Mister's intestinal safety, the Jambalaya and it was quite tasty and fake-meat-alicious!

So let's switch gears.

There's a lovely song by Josh Groban (which you can hear a beautiful cover of here) with the following lyrics:

Some days we forget to look around us.

Some days we can't see the joy that surrounds us.

So caught up inside ourselves, we take when we should give,

So for tonight, we pray for what we know can be,

And on this day we hope for what we still can't see.  

It's up to us to be the change,

And even though we all can still do more...

There's so much to be thankful for.

I'm thankful for a great many things, not the least of which being how well my first Thanksgiving as the cook and hostess turned out!  Here was our menu:

When my parents arrived, we set out mixed olives, veggie crudites with Muhammara (from Celebrate Vegan) and store-bought dill dip (thanks, Mister), and Spanakopita (from The Accidental Vegan).  The main course was a Torfurky Roast which Mister has wanted since his first non-meat-eating Thanksgiving and I was thrilled to be able to give it to him.  Alongside the Tofurky was mashed potatoes, roasted broccoli, and my mom's becoming-famous salad, then dessert was Apple Pie with Vanilla "ice cream" by So Delicious.  Dad brought two delightful bottles of my favorite wines - Apothic Red and the 2009 vintage of Georges deBoeuf Beaujolais-Villages, as well as a four-pack of mini-champagnes "for after work."

Oh?  You wanted a picture parade?  Okay!

I began my preparations on Monday or Tuesday night, starting with the Muhammara dip since it would taste the best after sitting in the fridge for a few days.  I figured it was best to make it the same night we had Pasta with Shallots and Chard since my home already stank of an onion sibling (and since I already had the book out).  After simmering three chopped red peppers with a chopped onion and sliced garlic for an hour, I dry-toasted some walnuts,

And then placed everything in the blending machine...

and pureed it until it was mostly smooth and homogenously orange.

After it cooled a little, I scooped it into a "tupperware" and stuck it in the fridge, to be forgotten until Thursday.

Wednesday night, I intended to make the spanakopita because I've found that it sticks together better if it's made the night before it's eaten.  So I chopped up a shallot to substitute for the revolting onion in the recipe and sauteed the onion and spinach while the lentils cooked.

Added the brown lentils (I'm not actually sure why, either)

and then a big heap of crumbled feta tofu,

and stirred it all together.

This is where it gets fun.  By the time I started making this, I'd only worked one eight-hour day at work (the others went long in preparation for Black Friday) and after that 8-hour day (of being one half of the sales force, since one person got sent home with an eye infection) I had a 2.5 hour hair appointment (oh, how I missed you, Candi KaBoom!), so I really wasn't on my most... "with it" behavior.

I realized after all the work of assembling the spanakopita, including gluing sheets of phyllo together with olive oil while listening to the darkly angelic voice of Amy Lee through my earbuds, that I had missed one step of the two-step process required to preheat my ancient oven.  So, finding (at 2am) that my oven was still cold after it was "preheating" for 30 minutes, I covered the spanakopita with plastic, put it in the fridge and went to bed.

It came out just fine when I baked it the next morning.

Then came the piece de resistance.

Mister's long-awaited Tofurky Roast, complete with wild rice stuffing.

I put it in a little Corningware casserole dish and surrounded it with quartered potatoes and carrots, then poured half of the sage marinade over it and stuck that puppy in the oven.

It's not a real puppy, by the way.

appetizers - from the top: Muhammara, Dill dip, olives

more apps: Spanakopita, crudites

The Torfurky, all basted and roasted and ready to eat!

Sides: mashterpaters, roasted broccoli, and the canned
cranberry "sauce" Mister insisted we needed

I realized in a panic a few days before Thanksgiving (and a few days after I constructed the menu) that I had completely neglected to get/make gravy.  In an incredible (and incredibly fortunate) coincidence, my dear Mama Pea posted this recipe to save my butt.  It was good and easy to make in a pinch, but a little too thick to become a regular occurrence in our home, so next year we'll think ahead and find something a little more pourable.

Next year?

That's right!  It seems my parents enjoyed themselves enough to consider sharing the holidays - with any luck, that means I will always host Thanksgiving and they can have Christmas :)  In any case, thanks to my hard-working dishwasher and helpful husband, it didn't take all that long to clean up after dinner, allowing me to get to bed by nine(ish) since I had to be up at 3am to go to work.

In case you were wondering, Philadelphia is incredibly quiet and peaceful (and dark) at 5am.

perfect timing!

I never realize how many e-magazines and other lifestyle websites have my email address until this time of year.  This past week, I've been bombarded with emails from Real Simple, Martha Stewart, and probably some others, on how to have a healthy, happy, full-of-variety, outside-the-box-but-still-traditional, cholesterol-free, chocolatey Thanksgiving.

I do actually intend to pick through each and every email, especially since I get to host Thanksgiving this year!  This is mega-exciting for me.  One of the biggest reasons Mister and I moved from our old closet to a slightly larger one (think "dressing room," folks) is because I love to entertain but had no space to do it in our old apartment.  I am so excited about Thanksgiving, I've even managed to block out the anticipated trauma of Black Friday (the first time it's mattered in 17 years).  I will be wandering off shortly to sift through emails and websites and.....

My new cookbook which arrived just today!  Woo hoo!  This is probably one of the best Mondays ever: my make-up came out great and garnered several compliments from customers, my dad came to visit and we made plans to have Thanksgiving at my home this year, I sold more than anyone else in the store (closest person "behind" me was over $2000 behind), and I came home to Celebrate Vegan, the long-awaited second cookbook from Philly's own Urban Vegan, Dynise Balcavage.

I'm sure you can imagine the sole source of next week's menu.

I will be posting a review of this book, just in case I haven't already enticed you into purchasing your own copy.  Hey - Black Friday Christmas is coming!  Time to make those lists!

Ironically, I made my favorite recipe for Sloppy Joes last night, and I remember thinking, "Gee, I hope I get my new cookbook soon...I love these sloppy joes, but I could just drool thinking of those new recipes [that I haven't beaten to death and will do again tomorrow night]."

In fact, tonight's dinner was Farfalle Rotini with Cabbage and White Beans from Vegan on the Cheap and when I saw that I had the new Celebrate Vegan and a pile of shallots, I almost abandoned dinner to remake this sure-to-be-classic/heavily-rotated recipe.  I was too busy daydreaming to take pictures of tonight's dinner, but let me assure you, the most interesting part was Angst wishing he could overturn one of our dishes and steal all the "slimy," wilted cabbage.

It's a good thing I have so many more tasty things left on this week's menu, because I'm already looking forward to plotting next week's (and Thanksgiving! so off I go).  Sweet dreams are made of this!

done with leftovers, on to soup

Sometime after I finished last night's post, Mister and I both decided we were hungry again.  I do think my hunger was partially due to the power of suggestion as a friend had mentioned (via Twitter) that she wanted to be hungry again so she could eat leftovers.  That got me thinking about the leftovers we had in the fridge from "greek thanksgiving," so I pulled out the broccolini, olive oil, and Mediterranean Sea Salt blend and sauteed me some greens.  I started with half the broccolini, but it was just so good, I went back and had the second half, too.  Ignoring the olive oil (I'm good at that), how many calories can a green veggie really have?

About 10 minutes after I scarfed down finished savoring the last of my broccolini, the scents wafting in from the kitchen got to Mister and I found him foraging through the fridge and cabinets.  He asked what there was to eat, I made a few suggestions, and he decided he was too lazy to eat (i.e. too lazy to make something to eat).  I asked him if he'd like me to make him something, he smiled, so I got to work reheating the last bits of Savory Sausage and Peppers in the same pan I used for my broccolini, allowing the garlic-herb-salt-tinged oil to add more flavor to the leftovers.  As that was sizzling away, I warmed up the last of the mashed potatoes in the microwave (I'll admit, I use it begrudgingly, but there have really been times that microwave has come in handy), then laid a little pillow of mashed potatoes at the bottom of a bowl and scooped the sausage melange over top and delivered it to my hungry Mister.

The only leftovers we have, well, leftover, are of the apple pie persuasion, and I believe the plan is to heat our last slices up in the oven once our bellies have emptied a bit from dinner.

Segue, anyone?

Before I started cooking tonight, there were three choices left on our 5-option menu, but I already knew I wanted to make the Caldo Verde from Vegan on the Cheap.  Today was the first day we didn't have to do anything at all and we both took full advantage of that, drinking cup after cup of the Snickerdoodle coffee I bought at a Coffee Bean out in California.

It was so good.  It was about 3:30 before either of us made any effort to do something a person could define as productive.  For me, it was taking a shower so I could go get kitty litter (yes, I live the glamorous life, try to tone down the envy).  Mister, at 3:45 PM, decided he wanted to try his luck at Black Friday so he could buy a multi-terabyte hard drive for very little money that my dad told him about last night when he was flipping through store circulars while Mister amused himself on his iPod and Mom and I cooked.  I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn that they were all sold out.

Anyway, the total ten minutes I was outside to get the kitty litter (and spy a new "bakery" in the neighborhood - Cookie Confidential grand opening today) was quite enough to make me want soup for dinner.  The best part is that it's going to be even colder tomorrow!

The soup smelled phenomenal simmering away on the stove while I tried my hand at freeform "cheese" slicing.  I mentioned in a previous post that I picked up cheddar Vegan Gourmet "cheese," but it only comes in block form.  Fortunately, the block is about the same size as a piece of bread, so I just sliced off two big slices and plunked them onto the bread I already had toasting on the skillet.  As you can see, the package declares with great enthusiasm that this cheese substitute melts.  I'll grant that it took me three tries to get the Rice Vegan to finally melt all gooey like it's supposed to, but even on the first try it came far closer to melting than this stuff did... I'm sure it tried, but I was skeptical from the get-go; after slicing the pieces for the sandwiches, I cut off a little more to taste and the texture was so much like a cross between hard-boiled egg whites and extra-firm silken tofu that I couldn't see how it would melt.  Mister was a trooper - he coated his sandwich in ketchup and plowed through it in about 6 bites.  I took my time, trying to gauge how I feel about this one, despite that there was nothing that resembled melting going on.  It has a pleasant flavor, but it smells a little like mildew and scent is kind of important.  Nevertheless, the cheapskate in me my frugal side won't allow me to give up and chuck what's left, so I'll probably try broiling it on an open-face sandwich tomorrow or Sunday, just to see if I can actually convince it to melt.  I don't think it will ever find its way past Mister's lips again, though.

The soup was good - hearty and full of potatoey-kaley goodness, but nothing spectacular, so if I make it again, it will probably be by accident or a year from now.

I had this horrific moment today when I thought tomorrow was Monday.  Mister and I did a little dance in the kitchen (the only place with enough room to dance) when he informed me that tomorrow was actually Saturday - I am absolutely not ready for Monday yet.  I have laundry to do, a new menu to plot and shop for, a Christmas tree to set-up and decorate, and I really want to make Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes from VCTOTW.  Also, heaven forbid a weekend should pass without a new oatmeal recipe!  See you tomorrow, MoFos!

twice as thankful

I love holidays.  Yesterday marked the beginning of my favorite time of year - "the holiday season," or as I like to call it, Christmastime.  I have a strong desire to do my meager Christmas decorating tomorrow because I know me and I know what my schedule looks like between now and the blessed day, and if I don't decorate before Monday, it won't happen.  There is a minuscule part of me that even wants to hit up some of the Black Friday madness, only because I know that if I don't start soon, I'll end up doing all of my shopping on Christmas Eve again and that really doesn't allow me to enjoy my favorite time of year much.  Minuscule.  As in, maybe I'll make it to Borders but probably not.

Anyway, my parents are counting their blessings for having raised a child who loves holidays enough to sit on an overcrowded train for nearly an hour to come out for Thanksgiving the day after celebrating it with 100 of our closest Greek relatives.  Okay, there weren't 100, but there were times it felt that way! (if I haven't said it before, the movie is absolutely true)  My mother had come up with this awesome idea; ordinarily (see last year), she cooks a turkey breast and two sides at her house and I cook tofu turkeys and two sides at my home and then we join together.  This year, Mom says to me, "Why don't we cook together?"  So I sent her a list of ingredients for the Savory Vegetable Cobbler and when Mister and I had settled in, hung up our coats, and after Dad and I opened the Beaujolais Nouveau, Mom and I got to chopping and steaming and mincing and laughing and simmering and smushing and finally...baking.

look at all those pretty fresh herbs!

Mom, with her adorable mini-cutting board, mincing sage

after artfully smudging the biscuit batter over top of the veggies-n-gravy, I decided to sprinkle a garlic-herb blend over top for extra fun

came out looking pretty rustic, don'tcha think?

pretty caramelized almonds my mom makes for the salad

So, that was dinner: Savory Vegetable Cobbler, salad with mandarin oranges and those killer almonds, and an apple-yam-walnut bake that made my mouth happy.  Even though I've been pretty good about not eating my way into the much-talked-about "food coma," I still feel like Marilyn Monroe had the right idea and I feel some celebrity emulation coming on:

sardines for thanksgiving

We spend every Thanksgiving Eve celebrating the holiday with my Father-in-law, et al.  His home is certainly adequately sized for his needs - only he and his wife live there, but there are guest rooms for when the grandchildren (or out of town children!) come to visit.  After about 5-6 people, it starts to get a little crowded.  Mister and I spent the evening navigating one of those puzzles with the blocks you have to shift around to make a picture, where this person needs to go left so this chair can move in so I can go over there.  We definitely had the opportunity to test the bounds of Mister's "natural" claustrophobia and my people-in-close-proximity claustrophobia.  We love our family, but sometimes, things get a little scrunched up.

The spread, as always, was magnificent and we were given the tour of which food was "safe" for us and which was not.  "Greek Rice" is not terribly descriptive, but when Mister skips it and it appears that there is as much grey ground beef as there is rice, you don't need much of an imagination to think that's probably not veg-friendly.  Obviously, the dead bird on the table was also not something veg-friendly.  For us, though, there were mashed potatoes, haricots verts (no, we can't just say green beans, that would be uncouth), broccolini, rolls, and a big oval Le Creuset dutch oven filled with sweet potatoes swimming in brown sugar broth.  Despite Mister's hatred for yams, I think I need to roast yams for Thanksgiving next year just to show people that there are actually other ways to prepare those suckers.

By the way, I am deeply in envy of my Mother-in-law's cookware.  They are definitely a couple who abide by an "only the best" philosophy of life, so their plates are Lenox, their silver is real silver, and their cookware is All-Clad and Le Creuset.  They were so pleased when we registered for Waterford china that they bought us all 8 place settings, then gave us a mahogany chest of the same silver they have.  To quote my FIL, "It's what Greeks do."

Anyway, dessert consisted of two pumpkin pies, pecan pie, French apple pie, lemon meringue pie, cherry cheesecake, and a cranberry cake a cousin made, which was vegan :)  That's a lot of pies considering that though it was crowded, that was still about 1 pie for every 3 people, including the little ones, of whom there were 4.  Speaking of entertaining little ones, has anyone else seen the movie Polar Express?  If so, how freaking terrifying was the animation on those children?  It was horrible!

On the way home, we drove through West Philly via Market Street for the first time in the 9 years we've been going to Thanksgiving Eve, because until now, they had the area closed at 63rd St for work on the Market-Frankford line that took nearly a decade.  It was quite a ride - just because they took their construction vehicles away doesn't mean it's not still a ghetto.  Woo hoo.

Tomorrow, we'll be heading out to my parents' home again.  Mom wants to cook together, so we'll be making Savory Vegetable Cobbler.  I never quite got the hang of cooking on electric ranges, so we'll see how that goes, but the idea is for Mom and I to have fun together - if dinner is a fail, there are always the side dishes!

omni-vegan feast

Where to begin? Thanksgiving was really an adventure, challenge, and delight. As it turns out, my mom and I were almost matched dish for dish on the dinner table. Representing the Omnivores, she had prepared a hunk of turkey, our family tradition - pineapple casserole, a sweet potato casserole, and a salad with some biscuits. On the Vegan team, I brought my tofu turkeys (absolute triumph), spiced potatoes and green beans, and chai applesauce. Mom also had pumpkin pie and chocolate ganache sandwich cookies for dessert. Buckle your seatbelts, folks, I think this is going to be a long, picture-filled post.

here's the dinner table, all decked out for the holiday and covered with more food than I think any of the four of us had anticipated.
here's the Chunky Chai Applesauce, looking quite regal in gold and ivory
Tofu Turkeys keeping the Sweet Potato Casserole company
Spiced Potatoes and Green Beans in front of Mom's traditional Pineapple Casserole
my happy little plate, with my tofu turkeys bathed in just a bit of the gravy I made from the leftover marinade...which my father liked so much he wanted to keep it to use on his turkey leftovers this week!
And here's Dad, showing the whole world that he DID eat a tofu turkey. He also liked it so much that he had a second turkey with no prompting! I'm so proud.

Speaking of tofu turkeys, I ended up with a bunch of tofu leftover after I cut out the cute little turkeys, so I packed all the pieces into tupperware, covered with water, and sealed those suckers in there. Today, around brunch-time, I thought, "What a perfect day to make scrambled tofu!" I have never actually made scrambled tofu, but the idea has been growing on me for a couple of months at least, but probably more like since I got my copy of Vegan Brunch. I didn't have any nutritional yeast, so I consulted How It All Vegan because I seemed to remember Sarah Kramer also having a love of scrambled tofu. Sorry, Isa, but hers is much easier... So I heated some oil in a fry pan, blotted some of the leftover tofu on a paper towel and then "crumbled" it into the fry pan. I let it sizzle for a little while, then I sprinkled it with some turmeric, cumin, and garlic powder. I stirred it for a good while (at least a minute), then I sprinkled in some tamari and let it soak in for a bit. I think the whole process took a little more than 5 minutes and the effort was so worth it that I'm kicking myself for not doing this sooner...not that I frequently have scraps of leftover tofu lying around.

seriously - who needs eggs?

Tonight, then, we had the last thing on last week's menu - Beef and Cabbage Stir-Fry with Peanut Sauce. It didn't come together quite as smoothly as I would have liked, but I think I could have been a little more organized. I was rushing myself because I got a late start and because it is my opinion that stir-fries should be fast, adrenaline-pumping experiences. I got to use my new juicer to get the 1/3 cup orange juice I needed (2 oranges, if you care) for the sauce. It came out very delicious and looking much like its picture, which always thrills me.

Now, on to this week's menu:

1. Saffron-Spiked Moroccan Stew on couscous, from The Vegan Table. I have stayed away from things that call for saffron, since it is excessively expensive, or I just substitute turmeric if it's not a main ingredient. I have decided, upon reading this recipe, that it is worth the cost of the saffron to try it out.

2. Orzo Pilaf with Roasted Red Peppers & Peas, also from The Vegan Table. This looks like a fun and savory pasta risotto kind of dish.

3. Cuban Black Bean Soup, also from The Vegan Table. I read this recipe three times, mulling the ingredients over in my head before deciding I want to make it. It is really a weird soup if ever I've made one, which both intrigues me and worries me. I have little doubt that I will think it's fabulous, but I never know how Mister will react to some of my more adventurous dinners.

4. Hearty Stew, also from The Vegan Table. I have made this before, but I want to make it again now that I have discovered the amazingness of Ray's Seitan. Yes, I know amazingness is not a word - spell check told me so, but I don't care - it's the best way I can think to describe this stuff. If you've ever been to Horizons, you'll understand.

5. Chickpea Stew with Fried Polenta from Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook. I love this enough to have made it a few times in recent history, and it'll make a fast, easy dinner on one of my insanely busy nights next week (which one? pick one).

6. Thai Pineapple Stir-Fried Rice from Vegan Express. I would be lost without this book. What amazes me is that I have been relying very heavily on his book since I got it and I still find new things to make every time I go in there! This looks fun. It looks like it may be a lot of work, but her recipes really never seem to take longer than a half an hour, so I think I can make it happen.

7. Pasta with Beans & Chard also from Vegan Express. Okay, so I've made this one before... I didn't say I never repeat a dish.

I didn't forget! Yesterday was Thanksgiving and I should have started then, but I was too fat to type. Today, then, is day one of Operation Gratitude Attitude. Remember our deal? I'll start with my four things:

1. I am grateful that I have enough money to keep my home as warm as I want it to be.

2. I am grateful my parents love me and support my crazy aspirations and experiments.

3. I am grateful that I have over 145,000 miles on my car and it hasn't given me any real trouble yet.

4. I am grateful to be able-bodied enough to walk to the grocery stores tomorrow.

Your turn! What one thing are you grateful for today?

'twas the night before feasting

This will likely be a two-part series, the follow-up obviously being about the Thanksgiving holiday itself, as well as the official start of Operation Gratitude Attitude. I actually kind of hate works-in-progress, but I am having so much fun with my Thanksgiving cooking contributions I couldn't wait to share.

I'm also having fun with a new favorite thing...
Definitely not a French Martini, but it is an adequate substitute. Apparently, a champagne flute is also an adequate substitute for a martini glass.

Anyway, after running around in the mist and muck all day, I returned home in triumph with the last turkey cookie cutter they had at the restaurant supply store across the street from my home. That store has saved me on prior thanksgivings, when I didn't have the right-sized casserole dish, for example. I played Christmas music on my piano for a little while, then set about chopping peppers and eggplant for my dinner: Cumin-Roasted Eggplant with Sweet Peppers and Chickpeas. The title doesn't really lead to a need for explanation - I think the more astute readers can figure out what was in it...
Since the whole shebang roasted for about a half an hour at the highest heat my oven makes, it definitely needed to sit a while and think about what it did, so while I waited for dinner to cool, I made my first applesauce ever! Chunky Chai Applesauce is not your standard applesauce, but it's still my attempt to bribe my father into willingly consuming a tofu turkey.

before 5 happy Grannies met their fate
after they spent some time with Apple Cider and Spices

It really blew my mind to uncover the pot after those cubes of apple were simmering with the apple cider for 20ish minutes and find that they needed no mashing. It also blew my mind that after adding 1 cup of brown sugar, as well as the chai spices, you can still taste the tartness of the Granny Smith apples.

While I waited for the applesauce to cool so I could store it in tupperware in the fridge, I got to carving my turkeys and heating the marinade. I am so excited to see how this all comes out, I can't even express myself. Of course, that could be the pomegranate martini, too. I will leave you with a picture of my little tofu turkey army and a promise to update on all fronts tomorrow.

Truly the coolest thing I have ever done with tofu

one down, one to go

Work days, that is. In a stroke of good fortune, as well as possibly the stupidest combination of responsibilities, there are only 2 [very very busy] days in my work week this week. I managed to get through today...well, I should rephrase that and let it read more like this: today completely took over and before I could blink I was 75% through my work day and upon completing aforementioned blink, the imaginary whistle was blowing and it was time to go home. I imagine tomorrow will be very much the same way and despite the joy it brings me to just work my normal workday, there is a part of me that thinks I should head in early tomorrow so I can leave on time, and I don't see HOW Monday will happen without overtime. Did I mention I was a little busy?

I was also kind of a babbling idiot by the time I got home from work tonight and my mind just stopped spinning with myriad thoughts about 15 minutes ago after forcing myself to focus on providing my sister with an answer to her question about Jews, Muslims, and pork (as well as their apparent mutual exclusivity). Fortunately, dinner required almost no thought and relatively little effort. I think the total hands-on time for the Lentil-Edamame Stew was approximately 5 minutes, including the time to put it in bowls and set them on the table. This is a great recipe for those days when you simply cannot focus on a dinner that requires constant attention.
Speaking of dinners which require all of your attention every minute - I made that one last night. The first meal of the "week" is always the hardest because I have everything I need for all of the recipes and can choose any one I want, really. Once you pick one, though, the rest are easy. I consulted with my tastebuds to see what we were feeling - the answer was a resounding "umami" so I decided to go with the Seitan Stirfry with Black Bean Garlic Sauce.
It was very good and quite simple as well = a pound of seitan, a pound of green beans (I'll admit, I used frozen), a wok. I added some bok choy because I had some leftover for reasons I'll probably never know. Also, I finally broke down and bought Cooking Rice Wine. I have dozens of recipes that call for it, which I have generally overlooked because I thought, "What an esoteric ingredient! I'll end up with a huge useless bottle to use only when I make that recipe....a few times a year." Somewhere along the line, though, I realized that I have a bunch of recipes like that, so it might not be quite as esoteric as I thought...it smells really good.

By the way, I'm still trying to figure out where November went. Anyone?

Finally, I did make cookies last night and I'm proud as hell that they made it to my work potluck because they smelled SO good baking. I think Mister and I deserve some serious kudos for only doing our quality analysis on two samples... I made Banana-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies from the July 2009 issue of Cooking Light.
I veganized the recipe very easily. I mean, seriously? Banana-anything cookies/muffins/cake beg for another banana to replace the eggs, so that was a no-brainer. I also replaced the butter with 1/4 cup canola oil. They were a big hit - they smelled just like banana bread, but had the toothsome texture of whole oats and the squishy sweet surprise of dark chocolate chips. Hopefully, they provided a healthful polemic to the Turducken one group brought in. The smell of the turducken = utterly revolting and at least somewhat nauseating. Not one, but 3 roasted corpses, each one crammed into the next size up...mmmm..... NO.

Actually, that is probably the best segue I'll have to throw out this little thought-nugget: my sister emailed me an article from the New York Times. It's an Op-Ed by Gary Steiner, a vegan professor at Bucknell University. In the [very well-written] article, Professor Steiner points out the stunning dichotomy present in the growing concern over how Thanksgiving turkeys lived prior to having their heads chopped off, feathers plucked out, and being roasted in an oven for a bunch of gluttonous Americans to eat. Free-range poultry is all the rage, as omnivores everywhere try to assuage their consciences of any guilt that might be associated with killing a big bird that you know you won't finish, so you make sandwiches and soups and other stuff from the plethora of recipes that come out about this time of year to help you use up the leftover turkey. How often, though, does someone stop and think about how little it matters whether the turkey was happy before you ate it because it was bred, born, and raised specifically to DIE and be roasted on the fourth Thursday of November?

That's enough from me - I'll let the good professor [angrily] make his point.