VeganMoFo: Thanksgiving

TOFURKY ROAST

It was okay. My sister disliked it, but she also said she dislikes "all things with tofu". Are you, my sister, even Asian? My mother thought it was a good thing to have, if only for the sake of having something that looked that part of the usual centrepiece. She said it made it more exciting. The texture was okay, but I couldn't really taste anything. There were tastier things on my plate...

MASHED POTATOES (VWAV - GARLIC & SPINACH VARIATION)

Yum! I can't believe how easily the potatoes fluffed, and the spinach was a nice touch.

PUNK ROCK CHICKPEA GRAVY (VWAV)

The gravy was delish, but it would have been better. It was my fault - I forgot the 1/4 cup nutritional yeast at the very end, so there was quite a distinct lemony taste that the nutritional yeast would probably have mellowed. All the diners enjoyed it though. I think my dad actually prefered the extra sour lemony flavour. Ha!

VEGETARIAN STUFFING (VEGWEB.COM)

It's for certain: homemade stuffing is much better than any storebought (including the over-salted mush inside Tofurky's Roast). The apples and raisins were nice additions to the traditional recipe. The ingredients are so varied and all-encompassing that I think that we can forgo a Tofurky next time and just eat stuffing, which is the best part anyway. I think I'll add more vegetable broth - I do like my stuffing a bit mushier. Speaking of vegetable broth, I made my own today! I've always been totally intimidated by homemade broths. I don't know why now, because it was so darn easy! I had a few vegetable scraps I'd saved up before in the freezer. So easy. So adaptable. I kept dumping in various scraps from the vegetables I was chopping up for other dishes throughout the simmering process.

CORNBREAD (THEPPK.COM)

This was the not-as-sweet Isa recipe, which I still found plenty sweet. I think I love all cornbread, so this was a no-brainer yum!

GINGERBREAD APPLE PIE (VWAV)

I got rave reviews! Our friend said it was professional, to which I said aw shucks, it was only the recipe. And really it was. I had no idea how to make a pie, and ta-da! a pie! With a pie crust that doesn't require rolling!

I didn't get indivdiual pictures, but here's a picture (with poor lighting, unfortunately) of the spread:

In the middle of mixing the stuffing ingredients, and my proud vegetable stock in the background: Stove-top action (big silver pot: mashed potatoes; saucepan in foreground: gravy):

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!

VeganMoFo: T'was the Night Before Thanksgiving...

I'm slightly embarrassed to say that when it comes to cooking in the kitchen, more often than not, I become freakishly uptight, hyperactive, volatile. I'm often slamming cupboards open and close, banging pots, pans and knives, and crudely butchering an onion at the very last minute before the oil over the stove explodes or something. Oh yes, the kitchen is my war zone for a hour or so. Even so, there's something about a little BP-raising frenzy in my day that totally has an appeal. It's kind of exciting not knowing for absolutely sure what the result will be.

Still, I making amends with my disorganized ways. Today, I reorganized my little spice nook.

It's kind of cute if I must say so myself. I know I can't tell what the spices on the pink rack (newly stolen from our bathroom) are, but I like the little labels I made for the ones in the plastic containers. Now, I just need circular stickers to label the top of those black-capped spice bottles on the rack.

And knowing that I'll be tripping over myself cooking up the big Thanksgiving spread tomorrow, I pre-baked the pie today - the Gingerbread Apple Pie from Vegan With a Vengeance. I hope I didn't kill it in the process. When I first added the apple mixture to the crust, I refrained from adding all of the liquid, because I worried that it'll make the crust too soggy. Then with ten minutes remaining in the oven, I decided the filling looked too dry and proceeded to dump the rest of the liquid into the pie. Was that wise? I tried popping the pie in a few minutes to see if the filling will "bubble" but it never did.

My mother was a little sad that I made the pie the day before, prefering a pie fresh out of the oven, but she really loved the few slices of apple that she fished out.

Also, to minimize the frantic speed cooking that I'll probably be doing, I've written a battle plan - a couple of notes on details I should remember but will forget. I'm such a crazy cook. It should be fun tomorrow!

VeganMoFo: What Thanksgiving Used to Look Like

Thanksgiving used to be fun. I guess. "Fun" five years ago is very different from "fun" today.

In my big extended family, any big public holiday essentially was equated with getting together at my aunt's place for a big noisy buffet dinner. Oh you have a birthday and you want to celebrate it with the fam? Saturday night! Easter? Saturday night! Christmas? Saturday night! (Actually, it was more like a consecutive string of buffets for the night before Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Boxing Day. It gets tiring.) Thanksgiving was no different; there was just an extra carcass on the table, next to the glob of ham and fried pork chops.
It's different now. Yes, there's still the big buffet table with the same quintessential buffet items, but there are new faces and new wrinkles on the old ones. The kids have grown up and are less likely to show. Or less willing...

Without going into the deep and personal, or spinning off into a pitiful self-examination of my psyche, I'll just say that I do not particularly connect - or feel the need to connect - with my big extended family. That is where I am, right now. The person I am right now is going on a different path. I suppose I'm lucky? It seems to me that the youth, the young generation, in trying to find themselves, are constantly striving to be not like their parents. We will not be pinned down and be easily defined by the precedents that have been set for us.

Okay, I totally digressed, when in the same breath I said I wouldn't. Ha.

Today, I bought the most of the ingredients for the awesome Thanksgiving dinner that I'm cooking Monday evening for my parents, my sister, and my mom's friend. It's going to be entirely vegan, which I'm pretty excited about. I have a lot to be thankful for.
The menu looks like it's going to be:
+ mashed potatoes with spinach
+ chickpea gravy
+ cornbread (still iffy)
+ stuffing (maybe...)
+ tofurky roast - first time! I'm hoping that it'll turn out well. I guess I should make the iffy sides just in case tofurky sucks.
+ roasted carrots, parsnip, and onions
+ gingerbread apple pie