Thanksgiving has come and gone

My plate from bottom left: stuffed, roasted seitan with mushroom gravy, salad, potato kugel, roasted veggies and figs, herbed orange-cranberry relish

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and most people have moved on, but I'm still dragging my feet about my Thanksgiving post. Please indulge me while I do a little blurb about our feast so I can move on, too. We had the whole family at our home this year which was a unique treat for us since we've not lived in the same city with all our kids in a long time. The guests brought contributions to the meal so the work was spread around a little. I got so caught up in the celebrating that I forgot to photograph some parts of the feast, like the delicious potato kugel brought by our oldest son and daughter-in-law. This is an old family recipe that came to the U.S. with my Russian great-grandmother, and appears at nearly every family holiday event. It just wouldn't be a holiday without it. I forgot to photograph the Thai coconut corn soup based on a recipe in "Vegan Express" by Nava Atlas. I love this soup, and have served it to a LOT of people. (My adapted recipe appears at the end of this post.) And I didn't photograph the mushroom gravy.

The main dish for Thanksgiving at our house is always stuffed seitan. Here you see it (uncooked) in the baking dish with the stuffing. My husband's fingers are keeping the very elastic seitan from shrinking down into the pan while I do a photo shoot. The stuffing is brown rice, wild rice, home-made-bread cubes, mushrooms, celery, shredded carrots, onions, dried cranberries, herbs and spices, and maybe other things, too.

The seitan is first rolled out and then transferred to the dish, where it's filled, and the top folded over and sealed. It's always a stressful and comical process to roll out the stretchy seitan and get it into the dish before it shrinks up, but this year I made a brilliant discovery. I rolled the seitan onto a large sheet of parchment paper, and it seemed to stick in place. My husband and I then lifted the whole thing up and placed it, paper and all, into the dish, to be stuffed. (I also added chickpea flour to the seitan mix which may have made it more pliable.)

After the stuffed seitan was baked, we lifted it out of the baking dish and onto the serving platter using the paper. It was so much easier then trying to un-stick it from the pan! I raised the seitan up a little with a spatula and slid the paper out.

In the photo above you see the vegetables — Brussels sprouts, turnips, carrots and potatoes — before they went into the oven to roast. When they were nearly done, dried figs were mixed in. I forgot to photograph the veggies after they were roasted to perfection with olive oil and herbs.

For starters, we had various raw veggies, olives, pickles, crackers, hummus and Tings. (Yes, that's right, Tings.) We also had bowls of Thai coconut corn soup. This soup takes only minutes to make but tastes like it took hours.

Here's the herbed cranberry-orange relish I blogged about recently. This time I remembered to decorate it.

This is the fabulous salad brought by our middle son and his girlfriend. It was delicious.

We had two desserts. We had almond twilles filled with pumpkin mousse. (Our mini-guest was particularly taken by the mousse and wanted more, more, more...)

And we had a pumpkin chocolate spice cake from this recipe, minus the anise (I HATE anise. Ugh.) and with only 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne. (note: The ganache from the recipe didn't work for me — there was way too much liquid and it turned into chocolate milk. Luckily I had extra chocolate on hand and made my own version of ganache using only 1/4 cup of non-dairy milk, 1 tablespoon of coconut oil and 1 tablespoon of Earth Balance.)

Because I've made several alterations to the coconut corn soup recipe, and because the original appears in several places on the Web, I'm going to share my version, here. This is the perfect soup to make when you want something that doesn't take much time or effort but tastes great.

Thai coconut corn soup (adapted from a recipe by Nava Atlas)

• 1 tablespoon light olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 to 5 scallions, white and green parts, thinly sliced
• 1 medium red bell pepper, cut into short, narrow strips
• One 15-ounce can light coconut milk
• 2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
• 1½ cups rice milk
• One 16-ounce bag frozen corn
• 2 teaspoons good quality curry powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Thai red curry paste, more or less to taste
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• juice from 1/2 small lime or lemon
• ½ cup minced fresh cilantro or Italian parsley

1. Heat the oil in a small soup pot. Add the garlic, the white parts of the scallions, and the bell pepper. Sauté over medium-low heat until softened and golden, about 2 to 3 minutes.
2. Add the coconut milk, rice milk, broth, corn, curry powder, the green parts of the scallions. If using the curry paste, dissolve it in a small amount of hot soup before adding to the pot.
3. Bring to a rapid simmer, then lower the heat. Cover and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Season with salt and citrus juice, and remove from the heat.
4. Serve, with cilantro or parsley and fresh ground black pepper.

Yield: 6 servings of spicy soup.
You can substitute two cups of rice milk for the vegetable broth if desired. I've done it both ways and I like the broth version best, but both are good.

Banana-coconut-yogurt cake

I live in a university town, and there's an old joke here that when you take a cab, your driver probably has a PhD. There's actually a lot of truth to that, and as I've discovered over the years, it applies to more than cab drivers. The story goes that people come here for their degrees, fall in love with the city, and never leave, causing a glut of overqualified job seekers. But there's more to the story than just too many qualified workers. Some of these highly educated folks decide to take a different path. Take the handyman who cleared our walks this winter, caulked the tub and made me a new cutting board. He's a (too young to retire) retired engineer who builds decks and pergolas, trims trees, does woodworking, etc. And in a conversation with the painter who is working on our house trim, I discovered that he used to be a social worker/ psychotherapist. He also sold plants at the farmers market for 10 years. He prefers painting, which he started doing to put himself through school, to therapy. These are two people who have found what they really want to do, love their work, and love where they live. This is one of the little tidbits that comes to mind as I get closer to leaving the city that I love so much. There will probably be more . . .

So how do I connect that little blurb about my favorite city to a banana cake? Well, the house trim will be brown - about the same color as the bananas that were sitting on the counter looking ready to explode. They were past the point where anyone would want to eat them, and were crying out to be baked into a cake and not wasted. Each morning as I passed them on my trip through the kitchen before going to work, they cried a little louder, until I finally took action. There was also a jar of leftover coconut milk waiting to be used, and a carton of the most tangy (damn sour) unsweetened soy yogurt in the fridge, that needed a purpose. The words "banana sour cream cake" were assaulting my brain, even though I've never had such a cake, let alone made one, but now I've done both. Not real sour cream, of course, but sour yogurt must be kind of the same once it gets into a cake, don't you think? The cake far exceeded my expectations (and apparently my son's since he ate about half of it after I went to bed!) It was substantial without being heavy, not too sweet and with an almost velvety texture. Delicious!



Banana coconut yogurt cake

• 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour, sifted or stirred well before measuring
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup evaporated cane juice (like Sucanot)
• 2 very ripe bananas (3/4 cup)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened soy yogurt (I used Wildwood)
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1/4 cup non-dairy milk (I used soy milk)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

1. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and sugar.
2. Mash the bananas well and mix with the yogurt. Add the oil, coconut milk, soy milk and lemon juice and mix together.
3. Add the liquid to the dry and fold in until all the flour is incorporated. Don't over-mix.
4. Bake in a lightly oiled 9" square pan for about 40 minutes in a preheated 350 degree F oven. The baked cake should pull away from the sides of the pan and spring back to the touch. Don't over-bake.

This cake was especially charming while still slightly warm.

note: When I put the batter into the pan I was sure the pan was filled too high and would overflow, but it baked up perfectly. (I was so worried I even put foil around the edge just in case, but it was unnecessary.)

Tofu and veggies in ginger-garlic sauce

I love cookbooks, and even though I own a lot, there are always more I want. But, recently, something happened that made me ask this question: "What might make you suspect you own too many cookbooks?" We had been to the library a few weeks before, and brought home several cookbooks to try. We made a couple of dishes from them, and found one book in particular very appealing. Then, as I sat reading in the living room one evening, my husband walked into the room carrying our favorite of the borrowed cookbooks. "We own this," he said. "Huh?," I responded. "We own this cookbook. I just found it on the shelf." Yikes. I really should try to use our cookbooks more often, or at least get a grip on which ones are on the shelf.

So when I needed something to make for dinner did I turn to one of my many cookbooks for a recipe? Nope. I found an interesting mushroom recipe in my collection that I'd clipped from Better Homes and Gardens back in 2007, but had never made. (attributed to Catherine Wilkinson) I've adapted the seasonings and expanded it from a mushroom side-dish into a main dish that includes veggies and tofu.

My son and I cooked dinner together with me doing the cutting and him doing the cooking. I precut and measured all the ingredients into little dishes, just like the TV chefs, and cooking was fast and easy, just the way I like it. What a team! The dish was wonderful, and I think it's one I'll make often.



Tofu and vegetables in ginger and garlic sauce (serves four)

• 1 tablespoon vegan margarine (Earth Balance)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 cup green onions, chopped
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
• 4 large cloves garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup chopped cilantro
• 1 teaspoon chili garlic sauce (tuong ot toi) or 1/4 to1/2 teaspoon Thai red curry paste* (optional)
  
• 12 ounces baby bella (cremini) mushrooms (or portabella or shiitake)
  
• 2 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce (I used low-sodium)
• 1/3 cup unsweetened coconut milk (I used light)
• 1 to 2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lime juice (I used 2)
• 2 cups broccoli, cut into narrow strips
• 1 large carrot, julienned
• 6 to 8 ounces tofu, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• cooked brown rice (I used basmati)

1. Steam the broccoli and carrots briefly in a small amount of water in a covered pot until the broccoli turns bright green and is crisp-tender. Uncover and set aside.
2. Heat the margarine and oil in a large skillet. Add the tofu, green onions, cilantro, ginger and garlic. Cook and stir for 1 minute.
   
3. Stir in the mushrooms and soy sauce and cook for 2 minutes.
4. Stir in the coconut milk and chili-garlic sauce. Add the broccoli and carrots. Bring to boiling, turn down heat and simmer, uncovered, about 5 minutes.
5. Remove from heat and stir in lime juice.
6. Serve over cooked rice.

*Thai red curry paste can be very hot so use discretion. If using this, you might want to start with 1/4 teaspoon, depending on how spicy you like your food.

Just want to mention that the weather has certainly taken a turn for the better here in southern Wisconsin. Over the weekend the thermometer soared into the 40s (: D), and combined with the sunshine, it felt like spring to us. But what do we know? We unbutton our coats when it hits 30! (Not me, of course. I admit that 30 feels pleasantly balmy, but I still require appropriate clothing. I keep my long underwear on until at least March.)

In addition to the great weather, I had another pleasant weekend experience. My friend Claire won two tickets to the operetta Candide, by being the first person to call in to a radio station, and she invited me along. (Don't you sometimes wonder who those people are that win the radio call-in contests?) We had dinner together and then attended the performance, which was wonderful and hilarious. What a great evening — and I stayed awake for the whole thing.