I didn’t bother documenting my preparations for Thanksgiving because I didn’t do anything unique, unusual, creative, or different, so I figured I’d spare the world a boring post. But then it occurred to me that I might be interested to know what I did this year, next year. I only cooked for me and Mark. We went to the parental homestead, but my parents make a traditional meal and there’s no way I could ever convince them to eat vegan on Thanksgiving. Maybe some other day, but not Thanksgiving. My mother does make vegan portions of her dishes where possible, so I was saved from making a few things like mashed potatoes. It took me about three hours to knock out the following:

1 seitan “turkey”
stuffing
green beans
“turkey” gravy
cranberry sauce
1 loaf of bread

In the past, I’ve spent more than three hours simply trying to decide what to make, perusing my cookbooks and the internet, looking for recipes and ideas. I’ve found it’s so much easier to just go into the kitchen and make stuff up as I go along!

I cheated on the bread: I had frozen a loaf before the final proof on Sunday, and just popped it out of the freezer and into the refrigerator the night before, then proofed for longer than usual before baking. And it wasn’t for really for Thanksgiving as my mother had two different kinds of rolls. The bread was for leftover “turkey” sandwiches later. Mark was so excited about the “leftover” sandwiches he started eating them the night before!

Everything I made (other than the bread) was totally off the cuff, and since I wasn’t planning to post it, I didn’t even try to mind measurements. But here is approximately what I did:

Seitan “Turkey”

2 1/4 cups (1 box) vital wheat gluten
1/2 cup soy flour
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp poultry seasoning
1 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp white pepper
2 cups vegan “chicken” broth

Mix dry ingredients together. Add broth. Form into log, wrap in cheesecloth, tying off ends like a Tootsie Roll, then pressure cook for 45 minutes. Remove from pressure cooker, set in foil inside a baking pan, and baste with some sort of sauce (I used one from the Tofutti site: some apricot preserves, soy sauce, pepper, and water). Bake at 375 degrees for an hour, basting periodically.

Stuffing

10-12 slices whole grain bread, sliced and cubed
1/2 onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1/2 half Granny Smith apple, chopped
1/2 tsp rubbed sage
1/2 tsp cracked rosemary
freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup vegan “chicken” broth

Because my bread was pretty fresh, I spread the cubes out on a baking sheet, then after baking another loaf, turned the oven off, let it cool for a few minutes (it had been at 430 degrees Fahrenheit), stuck the sheet in the oven and let the bread cubes dry out for somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. Then in a cast iron pan, I sauted the onion and celery until soft, then added the apple, sage, rosemary, and pepper and stirred, then mixed in the bread cubes. Then I poured the broth over everything and combined until the cubes were mostly soft. I moved the mixture to a Pryex baking dish, patted it down, and baked at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for half an hour. Mark was obsessed with the stuffing and tried to eat it all before we even made it to my parents’.

“Turkey” Gravy

2 Tbsp Earth Balance
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
1/2 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper
4 cups vegan “chicken” broth

In a heavy-bottomed pot, melt the Earth Balance. Whisk in the flour and other dry ingredients to form a roux. Slowly whisk in the broth, adding a little at a time to avoid lumps. Heat until thickened.

Non-Casserole Green Beans

1 pound green beans, trimmed
shallot salt (from Penzeys)
fried onions

I used to loooove green bean casserole, although my mother always made it with cream of celery soup instead of cream of mushroom because I hate mushrooms. Even as late as last year, I would make vegan versions of the traditional green bean casserole. But the idea of adulterating green beans that way sort of makes me ill these days, so I cooked the green beans for 5 to 7 minutes in boiling, salted water, then drained, tossed with shallot salt, and topped with fried onions. They were almost entirely cooked, but I left myself a little leeway for continued cooking when reheating them the next day. If I were serving them right away, I would have cooked for another minute or two.

Cranberry Sauce

12 oz fresh cranberries
1/3 cup agave nectar
1/4 cup orange juice

Heat all ingredients in heavy-bottomed pot until cranberries have all burst and mixture is somewhat thickened (it will thicken more upon cooling). Refrigerate for at least an hour.

My mother made a vegan dessert! Look!

It’s wacky cake! Here’s the recipe:

Classic Wacky Cake

Serves 6 to 8

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
5 T. vegetable oil
1 T. white vinegar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup water
confectioners’ sugar for dusting

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.

Whisk the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in the prepared pan. Make 1 large and 2 small craters in the dry ingredients. Add the oil to the large crater and the vinegar and vanilla separately to the small craters. Pour the water into the pan and mix until just a few streaks of flour remain (but break up lumps). Immediately put the pan in the oven.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 30 minutes. Cool in the pan, then dust with confectioners’ sugar. (The cake can be stored at room temperature for up to 3 days).

Mum’s tip: don’t dust with the confectioners’ sugar until just before serving because the moisture in the cake will soak it up, causing it to “disappear”.

From “America’s Best Lost Recipes,” by the editors of Cook’s Country.

Per serving (based on 8 servings): 238 calories, 3 grams protein, 9 grams fat, 1 gram saturated fat, 37 grams carbohydrate, 2 grams fiber, 0 milligrams cholesterol, 264 milligrams sodium.

After we humans ate dinner, my parents’ silly dogs got some dog treats. This is Shannon scarfing them down:

This is him smiling about it:

Those treats were lip-smacking good!

Sophie Mae didn’t want to be photographed eating, but here she is being wary of me:

And that’s it for today! I hope all my American friends had a great Thanksgiving yesterday (or last month for the Canadians), even if the Australian Muck accidentally wished me a Happy Independence Day instead.

Will I ever get tired of posting pictures of my tempeh?! Probably not; I’m always so shocked when it turns out. This was my best batch yet. I therefore wanted to show it off in a tempeh-intensive dish: one that showcased how well the tempeh turned out. I decided to simply braise it.

Broth-Braised Tempeh

1 lb tempeh, chopped into 3/4″ cubes
1/2 cup white wine
5 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1/2 tsp yellow mustard seeds
1/2 tsp brown mustard seeds
3 Tbsp capers
1 cup vegan broth of some sort
1 tsp dried tarragon

Heat some olive oil in a large, hot frying pan. Add the tempeh.

Fry until golden.

Add the wine and then the garlic, mustard seeds, and capers. Saute for 2 minutes.

Add the broth and tarragon.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, loosely covered, for 20 minutes or until broth is almost completely dissipated.

Serve! I chose sauerkraut and baked carnival squash as accompaniments.

I started making my own sauerkraut tonight! Here’s a sneak preview:

I don’t ordinarily think of myself as having any “signature” dishes because I like to try new things so often; in fact, I’m the type of person who will host a dinner party and serve all-new, completely untested or totally made-up recipes. I’m daring like that. But I guess if I were forced to pick a recipe that I’m known for, UnRibs would be one of the top dishes. (Spicy Tofu is another.) But just because the UnRibs are everyone’s favorite (including mine and Mark’s), that doesn’t mean I don’t try other “rib” recipes from time to time, so when I was flipping through some of my “neglected” cookbooks today, it’s not surprising that I decided to make the Barbecued “Ribs” from Bryanna Clark Grogan’s Almost No-Fat Holiday Cookbook. And although I usually improvise barbecue sauce, I made her smoky chipolte barbecue sauce as well, because Bryanna said it was good and Bryanna is almost always right.

Barbecued “Ribs”
From Bryanna Clark Grogan’s Almost No-Fat Holiday Cookbook

Baked Gluten Balls

2 1/2 cups vital wheat gluten (I just used one box, which is just about 2 1/2 cups)
2 cups cold water

Smoky Chipotle Barbecue Sauce
(I cut this recipe in half from the original and it made plenty; follows are the halved measurements.)

1 medium onion, diced
4 cloves garlrc, minced or pressed
1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes (or whole tomatoes that you’ve crushed in a blender or food processor)
1/2 cup brown sugar or Sucanat (or turbinado sugar with 2 Tbsp molasses)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 Tbsp vegetarian Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp chipolte chiles in adobado sauce
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp mustard powder
1 tsp liquid smoke

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

I got the barbecue sauce cooking first. As it’s an almost-fat-free cookbook, Bryanna suggests “steam frying” the onions and garlic, but I just put a little olive oil in the pot and sauted as usual.

While the onions were cooking, I measured all of the other ingredients into my new Fire King batter bowl: another cheap find due to a chip in the rim.

When the onions are soft …

… add the remaining ingredients to the pot, bring to a boil, the reduce heat and simmer for half an hour.

While the sauce is cooking, place the vital wheat gluten and water in a medium bowl.

Mix until the vital wheat gluten is entirely incorporated and it looks like a brain.

Bryanna says to cut the gluten into eight dozen pieces, so using a bench knife I cut it into four pieces …

… then eight …

… then each eighth into eight to twelve pieces, not worrying too much about ending up with exactly 96 pieces, but rather mostly same-size pieces.

I placed them on two half-sheet pans.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until puffy and golden brown. I put mine much closer together than the “couple of inches” apart Bryanna recommended, so I just used kitchen shears to snip them apart where they had merged.

Most of the puffs will deflate almost immediately after removing from the oven.

When the barbecue sauce has cooked down a bit …

… puree it with an immersion blender or in batches in a regular blender.

Because I have my oven set up in such a way for bread baking that unless I start moving a lot of very heavy (and very hot if I’ve preheated it) items (a huge baking stone and a large cast iron pan I use for steaming), I essentially only have one baking shelf, I moved half of my gluten balls to a smaller, glass baking dish so I could stick it in side-by-side on the same shelf as my brussels sprouts:

I don’t recommend doing this though. Leave ‘em on the baking sheet so they are spread out and can get a little crispy when you bake them again. Cover with some of the sauce, but not this much:

They were sort of drowning. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

I couldn’t resist taking photos of the balsamic-roasted brussels sprouts I made to accompany the ribs:

Serve! In addition to the brussels sprouts, I also made the Potato and Green Bean Salad that was on the page right after the Barbecued “Ribs” (although it was for a different holiday).

As Bryanna suggested, I decided to freeze half of the gluten balls for another day. I also froze the rest of the barbecue sauce, so now I have a super easy, super fast dinner waiting for me after some future long day at work.

I got some comments that people were missing the cats lately. They’ve been extra lazy lately and have been sleeping through dinner preparations, so I went hunting for them before downloading the pictures from my camera. I found Tigger on my reading chair; he was startled by my appearance.

But he quickly went back to sleep.

The Toonse was hangin’ out by the “water cooler”, one of her favorite spots.

By the way, if your cats are as demanding of fresh water as mine are, they and I both really like the Catit Cat Waterer. I’ve tried a couple other brands of cat fountains and they have all broken after a year or so, and also got clogged up with Brachtune’s long fur very quickly. I’m not entirely sure why Toonsey’s fur doesn’t get in the Catit fountain, but this thing stays amazingly clean, and Brachtune is ALWAYS hanging around it. She never paid much attention the previous fountains, but she loves this one; I think perhaps because she gets to lick plastic without me yelling at her. (They can either lick the dome, which has a thin film of water running down all over it, or drink out of the basin it flows into.) Tigger still demands that we turn the kitchen or bathroom faucet on for him (RIGHT NOW! I DON’T CARE IF IT’S 4 A.M.! WAKE UP AND TURN THE FAUCET ON, STUPID HUMANS!), but I guess he’s always going to be a special needs cat.

Here’s a more complete view of the fountain:

And that’s it for tonight! I’m going to be attempting to make homemade sauerkraut this week – too late to have it ready by Thanksgiving, unfortunately, but I’ve been wanting to try it for a while. I made pretzels for the first time yesterday and they turned out well; I’ll do a tutorial next time I make them. (This paragraph brought to you by the German part of my heritage.)