Roasted Root Vegetables

Before anything else, I have to mention that today is my oldest son's birthday. As Sandy Denny once asked, "Who knows where the time goes?"; let's just say that I think we're both feeling a lot better today than we were all those years ago, and it is impossible to imagine my life without him. So: happy birthday to the first great love of my life!

Holiday Side Dish Week continues, with a dish that never fails to appear - with minor variations - at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sweet potatoes, carrots, and onions are a constant, but after that, pretty much anything goes: brussels sprouts, beets, asparagus, cauliflower, fingerling poatoes, parsnips, even (if you happen to roll that way, which we don't) turnips....if it grows underground, chances are it will respond well to being rubbed with oil and spices and then roasted in the oven.

Roasted Root Vegetables

Ingredients
~ 1/4 cup olive oil
~ 1 tsp. each: salt, thyme, tarragon, rosemary (and/or any other herbs you may prefer)
~ A few grinds of black pepper
~ 4 large sweet potatoes, cut into chunks
~ 1 lb. carrots, cut into 2' slices on the diagonal
~ 2 large onions, coarsely chopped
~ 1 lb. asparagus, cut into 3" slices (not technically a root, but nice all the same)

Directions
~ Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
~ Place the chopped onions, carrots and sweet potatoes on a large, rimmed baking sheet or casserole, then pour the oil/seasoning mixture over them.
~ Now (this is the fun part!), get in there with your hands and make sure that everything is well coated.
~ Cover with foil and cook about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.
~ Uncover, stir, add the asparagus, and combine thoroughly with the other vegetables. Continue cooking another 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until everything is roasted to autumnal beauteousness. Serve hot.

Classic Sage and Onion Stuffing

"Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs Cratchit said with great delight...they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows!"

This Thursday is, of all the good days in the year, Thanksgiving here in the US. That being the case (and since I'm hosting/cooking), this week's MoFo posts will be largely devoted to dishes that appear on my family's holiday table, year after year. Thanksgiving, as we all know, is a day set aside for the ostensible purpose of expressing our gratitude for the bountiful good fortune with which we have been blessed; this gratitude generally translates to the consumption of an enormous meal in the company of family and friends. Of course, it is also associated with genocide and cultural imperialism - to say nothing of the systematic slaughter of millions of turkeys, who have very little for which to be thankful - but since my theme is supposed to be traditional foodstuffs, let's just get this party started with a giant pan of baked carbohydrates, shall we?

As the reader is certainly aware, the "it" in the quote above refers not to a Thanksgiving turkey, but to a Christmas goose - which Dickens describes as "the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon," and "the theme of universal admiration" in the Cratchit household - but both are traditionally accompanied by sage and onion stuffing, which gets a fair bit of attention in the text. This is as it should be, since my own favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner was always the stuffing (in our family, Christmas meant roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, and horseradish, which is another subject for another post); if left to my own devices, I'd have happily made a meal of it, optimally surrounded by a lake of gravy.

My mother's rendition was a very traditional, old-school recipe, and was always baked separately, since my restaurateur father considered cooking it inside in the bird to be unhygienic (it's also greasy and disgusting). As an adult, I've stuck with essentially the same method; I just substitute margarine for butter, and vegetable broth for the chicken stock my mama would have used. Suffice to say that if you're looking for something sophisticated or adventurous to spice up your Thanksgiving table, this is probably not the recipe for you, but "eked out" by mushroom gravy, this bread stuffing remains one of the tastes of my childhood, and I can still make a meal of it!

Classic Sage and Onion Stuffing
Ingredients
~ One large loaf good bread, lightly toasted and crumbled (a baguette is nice)
~ 3 tbsp. olive oil
~ 3 tbsp. Earth Balance
~ One ginormous onion (or two normal-sized), chopped
~ Half a dozen big stalks celery, diced
~ 1-2 tbsp. minced garlic (optional)
~ 1 tsp. each: salt, sage, marjoram, parsley
~ 1/2 tsp. each: thyme, rosemary
~ Pinch of mace or nutmeg
~ Lots of freshly ground black pepper
~ 3-4 cups vegan "chicken" broth; more or less as needed (I swear by Better Than Bouillon)

Directions
~ Preheat the oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit, and coat a casserole with cooking spray.
~ In a large, deep pot, heat the oil and margarine and add the onions. Cook over medium heat until turning golden, about 5 minutes.
~ Add the celery, garlic, and seasonings, and cook 5 minutes more, until the vegetables are tender and fragrant.
~ Stir in the toasted, crumbled bread and mix thoroughly, then add as much of the vegetable broth as you need to get a moist stuffing consistency (you might not need it all, but do bear in mind that it will dry out as it bakes, so it should look a bit mushier than you might imagine it ought to do).
~ Cover with foil and bake at 375 for 20 minutes.
~ Raise the heat to 400, remove the foil, baste the top with a little extra broth, and cook another 15-20 minutes, until the top is golden and crispy. Serve hot with all the usual trimmings (gravy, cranberry sauce, mashed potato, Tiny Tim, etc.).

Scalloped Potatoes and Vegetables

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -
November!
~ Thomas Hood

I find November remarkable for the stripped-down quality of the light, and for its overall spareness: the leaves have fallen from the trees and been (mostly) raked away, the branches and the ground are bare, and everything seems to be waiting for the first snowfall to shift things definitively from fall to winter. There's a stark beauty about this time of year that puts me in a pleasurably moody, Brontë-esque frame of mind; hence the photo of Top Withens, the ruined Yorkshire farmhouse whose windswept situation has long been associated with the setting for Wuthering Heights. As the text tells us, "'Wuthering' being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed, in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there, at all times, indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind, blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few, stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun." (How awesome is that? Talk about atmosphere!)

So, with the moors on my mind, and winter drawing on apace, it's back to the comfort food chez nous. I made this for an unusually outrageous (even for us) weekend brunch, but it would make an excellent holiday side dish, or a substantial main course for a more ordinary dinner. I hereby issue my standard disclaimer that this is A. seriously, er, "fortifying," and B. makes a lot, but it's also the sort of thing that reheats nicely, so why not make a huge pan of it on Sunday, and feed off it for a few days? With all this vegetabley, potatoey, cheezy goodness going on, it's hard to imagine that even a twisted misanthrope like Heathcliff could have stayed grumpy when presented with a plateful; if only Nelly Dean had left off gossiping long enough to bestir herself in the kitchen, things might have ended differently for him and Cathy!

Scalloped Potatoes and Vegetables
The Filling
Ingredients
~ 1 package tempeh bacon, cooked and crumbled (or a batch of your favorite home-made version)
~ 1 tbsp. olive oil
~ 1 large onion, chopped
~ 1 lb. mushrooms, sliced
~ 1 tsp. salt
~ 1/2 tsp. each: marjoram, tarragon, rosemary
~ Black pepper to taste
~ 1 10 oz. package fresh spinach, chopped
~ 6-7 large baking potatoes, sliced (as Mr Creosote would say) wafer thin

Directions
~ Preheat the oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit and coat a 9 x 13" casserole with cooking spray.
~ In a skillet, heat the oil and saute the onion over medium heat, about 2 minutes.
~ Add the mushrooms and seasonings, stir, and cook 5-7 minutes, until the mushrooms are fragrant and have released most of their liquid.
~ Stir in the chopped spinach by handfuls, mixing with each addition until just wilted, then stir in the crumbled tempeh bacon.
~ Set aside while you make...

The Cheezy Sauce
Ingredients
~ 2 tbsp. Earth Balance (or other vegan margarine)
~ 2 tbsp. flour
~ 1 tsp. salt
~ Black pepper
~ Pinch nutmeg
~ 4 cups plain, unsweetened soy milk
~ 1/2 cup plain soy yogurt
~ 2 cups grated Daiya cheddar (or other vegan cheese)
~ Paprika for garnish

Directions
~ In a saucepan, melt the Earth Balance over low heat, then add the flour, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Cook over low heat for a minute or two, stirring to make a roux.
~ Gradually add the soy milk, stirring constantly to prevent lumps, then add the yogurt and Daiya. Cook, stirring, 5-7 minutes, until thickened and smooth.
~ Reserve 1.5 cups of the sauce, and add the rest to the vegetable mixture, making sure everything is well combined.

The Assembly
~ Arrange 1/3 of the thinly sliced potatoes in the bottom of your greased casserole, making sure there are no gaps.
~ Ladle half the vegetable mixture over the potatoes, then repeat with another layer of potatoes, and the remaining vegetables, ending with a layer of potatoes.
~ Pour the reserved sauce over the potatoes, smoothing and pressing down slightly with a spatula, to make sure the sauce oozes between the layers a bit.
~ Cover with foil and bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, until bubbling.
~ Remove the foil, sprinkle the top with paprika, then return to the oven and bake another 20-25 minutes, until browned.
~ Allow to set up (about 10-15 minutes) before serving.

Hünkar Beğendi

The name of this Turkish eggplant dish is variously translated as "the sultan swooned," "sultan's delight," or even simply, "the sultan liked it," but whatever it means, there is no question that this stuff is delicious. It's traditionally made with stewed lamb ladled over the spiced eggplant puree, but my version is every bit as swoon-worthy, with then bonus of being kind to our frolicking woolly friends. Because really - as the good people at Food Fight put it - what kind of asshole eats a lamb?

Hünkar Beğendi
Ingredients
~ 2 large eggplants
~ 2 tbsp. lemon juice
~ 1 tsp. salt
~ A few grinds of black pepper
~ 3 tbsp. vegan margarine (I used Earth Balance)
~ 3/4 cup plain, unsweetened soy milk
~ 1 tsp. garlic powder
~ 1/2 tsp. each: smoked paprika, cinnamon
~ Dash nutmeg
~ 1/2 cup plain soy yogurt

Directions
~ Preheat the oven to 425 fahrenheit.
~ Slice the eggplants in half, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and place cut side down on an oiled baking sheet.
~ Bake for 40-45 minutes, until the skins are blackened and collapsing and the flesh is completely soft. Set aside and allow to cool.
~ Scoop out the pulp and transfer to a saucepan, discarding the skins.
~ Add the lemon juice and salt, and simmer over low heat, stirring often, for about 10 minutes.
~ Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, melt the margarine, add the flour, and allow flour to brown, stirring constantly.
~ Add the margarine/flour mixture to the eggplant and combine thoroughly.
~ In the microwave or a small pot, mix the soy milk, garlic powder, paprika, and nutmeg, and bring to almost boiling.
~ Slowly add the milk mixture and continue stirring until you get a thick porridge-like consistency.
~ Stir in the yogurt and cook another minute or two.
~ Serve hot over rice pilaf.

Soy Curl Fajitas

We're three caballeros
Three gay caballeros
They say we are birds of a feather
We're happy amigos
No matter where he goes
The one, two, and three goes
We're always together.

Indeed.

Today I'm breaking out of my recent "traditional comfort food" groove to bring you yet another excellent use for those beloved and muy versatile staples of the vegan larder, soy curls. Fajitas are more exciting than enchiladas or burritos because you make them yourself, and more exciting than tacos (which are also very hands-on), because they sizzle! This can be a really fast and yummy meal if you put the soy curls in to marinate before you take off for whatever you do in your "real" life. Then when you get home, all you have to do is cook them up, saute your veggies, roll everything into tortillas with some salsa and guacamole, and - ¡Ay, caramba! - dinner is served.


The Soy Curls
Ingredients
~ 2 cups Butler soy curls
~ 1.5 cups water or vegetable broth
~ 1/2 cup orange juice
~ Juice of 1 lime
~ 2 tbsp. minced garlic
~ 2 tsp. each: chili powder, cumin
~ 1 tsp. each: salt, smoked paprika, cilantro
~ 1/2 tsp. cayenne (more or less to taste)
~ 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
~ A few generous grinds of black pepper
~ 2 tbsp. olive oil

Directions
~ In a beaker, combine the broth and seasonings, then add the soy curls.
~ Cover and bring to a boil in the microwave, or in a pot on the stove top.
~ Allow to sit, covered, for at least an hour (the longer the better), until the liquid is mostly absorbed.
~ In a large, deep skillet or wok, heat the olive oil over medium heat.
~ Add the soy curls and any remaining marinade, and cook, stirring frequently, until all the liquid has cooked off and they're getting slightly "charred," about 10-15 minutes.

The Vegetables
Ingredients
~ 1 tbsp. olive oil
~ 1 large onion, sliced into crescents
~ 1 each: red, green, yellow bell peppers, thinly sliced

Directions
~ Heat the olive oil in a skillet or wok, then saute the onions and peppers over high heat for about 15 minutes, until wilted and just starting to brown.

You also need...
~ Flour tortillas, warmed
~ Guacamole
~ Vegan sour cream
~ Salsa

Assembly!
~ Bring the soy curls and vegetables to a - dare I say it? - sizzle.
~ Now spread some guacamole on a tortilla, top with soy curls, veggies, salsa and sour cream.
~ Roll up the tortilla to enclose the filling and eat!

Giving Thanks (Or: Desdemona Does Tofurky)

Looking back on this month's posts, I can't help noticing the preponderance of traditional western "comfort foods" among the recipes: nary a curry or a miso soup in sight. In fact, my partner quipped that in our case, Vegan MoFo might as easily be called MoPo - Vegan Month of Podge - and he's absolutely right (not that he's complaining).

On reflection, I think there are several factors to account for this urge to produce stolid, hearty dishes baked in casseroles and/or amenable to being coated with gravy. The most obvious is the onset of colder weather and earlier sunsets, but there's also the recent loss of my mother, the completion of my MA thesis and degree, the departure of one son for college, and my decision to apply to PhD programs, all of which underscore the transitional nature of this past year.

As an old friend used to say, "we're always going through the changes," and never has that seemed truer than in 2010. My crystal ball has become a snow globe, and while the future is filled with exciting possibilities, the fact remains that it will be awhile before the picture clears, and I have a better sense of how that future will actually look.

So you don't need to be Sigmund Freud to figure out what's going on here, right? Unsettled times lead us to lean more heavily on the elements in our lives that seem most reliable: family, friends, pets, home, hearth, and the things (including food) that we associate with those reassuring touchstones. That this feeling should intensify as the holidays approach is unsurprising, and my hope is that my eldest and youngest sons' birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's - all of which were spent with my mother last year, and from which she will now be conspicuously absent - will have enough pleasant moments to carry us through the more difficult ones, and allow time to reflect thoughtfully on what remains, even as we acknowledge things that have changed.

What does any of this have to do with Tofurky? Well, I've found that many omnivores consider it axiomatic that when "turkey day" comes around, vegetarians and vegans get excited about eating Tofurky; the New Yorker even ran an ad last year (for something wholly unrelated, which I don't remember) featuring a family welcoming their son's herbivorous fiancee into the fold by presenting her with a turkey made of tofu.

Now, I have nothing against Tofurky or other meat analogues, and I like a big plate of ersatz chicken at Grasshopper or the Loving Hut as much as the next girl, but I confess that my approach to vegan holiday meals has just been to cook stuff we like, which generally means all the "usual" stuff, sans the meat. However, during an epic grocery shop with my hilariously funny youngest son - seriously, I should make him come along every time for sheer entertainment value - we spotted a Tofurky in the frozen hippie food section, and somehow the thing wound up in the cart, and from thence (within an hour or two) in the oven.

The whole thing felt a bit silly, but I decided to approach the experience in the spirit of scientific enquiry; I confess that my first thought upon unwrapping the thing was, "What the hell?" For the uninitiated, an uncooked Tofurky resembles nothing so much as a beige, yet-to-be-steamed Christmas pudding, and I feel certain that if Mrs. Bob Cratchit had been with me, she would have recommended we douse it with brandy and set it alight, "like a speckled cannonball...bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top."

Instead, I read the singularly unhelpful directions, and quickly determined to blaze my own Tofurky trail, put together a simple marinade/basting sauce in which to bathe the weirdly spherical object, and popped it into the oven. Between bouts of basting, I made some rice pilaf and old-school green beans almondine from the NY Times Cookbook, heated the gravy, and - since cylindrical condiments seem appropriate for a spherical main course - opened up a can of cranberry sauce; by the time the dinner hour rolled around we had a proper mini-facsimile of a "traditional" holiday dinner.

The verdict? It was actually pretty good, and while I'm sure that owed more than a little to my marinade/basting technique, I wouldn't mind repeating the experience every now and again. That said, Tofurky will not be forming the centerpiece of our meals this (or probably any) holiday season; if there is one point on which my extended family is united, it's an insistence on home-made food, particularly for special occasions.

Although my mother never got used to the absence of turkey (or whoever the "main course" happened to be) on my plate, she was happy to tuck into the roasted root vegetables, bread stuffing, and the rest of the "holiday" foods I produce, year after year. Without question, this year's table will have a big, deep, empty space - much larger than the 5' tall woman who ordinarily inhabited it - but the food will still be made by my hands, and those of her other children (and grandchildren), rather than the good people of Turtle Island Foods.

So, what have we learned? Well, maybe that our culture's atavistic attachment to certain foods at certain times of the year can lead us to eschew a sublime white bean cassoulet for a ridiculous (if somewhat yummy) processed food, simply because it rhymes with "turkey." And that the uncertain feelings provoked by the loss of a loved one can make us want to revisit the foodstuffs that make us feel cherished and cared for, be they noodles, casseroles, muffins, and/or pies.

As this more-than-usually demanding holiday season approaches, it feels important to acknowledge what has brought comfort in the past, while figuring out how to negotiate the brave new world of the future. And if the gentle reader - supposing that s/he still is reading - feels like checking out a Tofurky, I highly recommend that you proceed as follows and let me know what you think. Gobble, gobble; and God bless us, every one!

Desdemona's Wacky Tofurky Experiment
Basting Mixture
~ 1/2 cup olive oil
~ 1.5 cups water or vegetable broth
~ 1 tsp. vegetarian stock concentrate (I use Better Than Bouillon)
~ 1 tsp. Liquid Smoke
~ 1 tbsp. minced garlic
~ 1/2 tsp. each: sage, marjoram, thyme
~ A few generous grinds of black pepper

Also:
~ 1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
~ 2 carrots, cut into 2" pieces
~ 2 stalks celery, chopped into 2" pieces

Directions
~ Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit
~ Place your unwrapped Tofurky in a casserole, the pour the basting mixture over. Ladle the liquid over the top a few times to coat.
~ Add the chopped vegetables, baste the Tofurky a few more times, then cover tightly and cook at 350 degrees for about 2 hours, basting every 30 minutes to prevent it drying out.
~ After 2 hours, uncover, baste again, and raise the heat to 400. Continue cooking another 15-20 minutes, basting every 5 minutes, until browned. Since this was an experiment, I went the whole hog (so to speak) and used the Tofurky "giblet" gravy. It was perfectly serviceable, but next time I'll make my own; use whatever gravy suits your fancy!
~ Serve cut into slices, accompanied by whatever you consider "traditional": mashed potatoes, stuffing, butternut squash, roasted brussels sprouts, cranberry sauce, something that incomprehensibly involves marshmallows and/or canned soup...go crazy, and be thankful!

Gingery Mashed Fruit Muffins

As anyone with even a cursory acquaintance with this blog (or blogger) knows, I'm inordinately fond of making muffins. They're fast, easy, endlessly adaptable, notoriously forgiving, make the kitchen smell wonderful, and impart that nice feeling of "Hey, I just baked something!" without a huge investment of time or effort. This recipe is particularly good for using up fruit that's just a little past its prime. The day I typed this up, I just happened to have a rotting banana and some mushy Bosc pears on hand - mmmm! - so in they went, but you could easily substitute whatever superannuated fruit you may have lying around. With the addition of some fresh ginger and chopped apple, these turned out moist, fluffy, and filled with fruity, gingery goodness; the perfect breakfast or snack with peanut butter, jam, or just on their own.

Gingery Mashed Fruit Muffins
Ingredients
~ 3.5 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or all purpose, if you prefer)
~ 1.5 tbsp. baking powder
~ 1/2 tsp. baking soda
~ 1 tsp. cinnamon
~ 1/2 tsp. each: salt, nutmeg
~ 2 apples, chopped into small dice
~ 2 cups mashed, over-ripe fruit (I used a banana and 2 pears)
~ 1/4 cup canola oil
~ 1/4 cup maple syrup
~ 6 oz. plain or vanilla soy yogurt
~ 3/4 cup apple cider (or juice)
~ 2 tbsp. ground flax seed
~ 1-2 tbsp. minced fresh ginger (depending on how gingery you like things)
~ 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions
~ Preheat the oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit and lightly coat two muffin tins with cooking spray.
~ In a large bowl, sift all the dry ingredients together. When well combined, add the diced apple and toss to coat with the flour mixture.
~ In a separate bowl or beaker, combine the mashed fruit and all remaining ingredients.
~ Make a well in the dry ingredients, add the wet mixture, and mix with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula (don't overmix!).
~ Spoon the muffin batter evenly into your greased muffin tins, and bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Makes two dozen warm, friendly muffins.