Not a Holiday, Holiday dinner

Here's that "holiday" dinner I promised you..........I made the Vegan Turkey Roast from Everyday Dish. Mine doesn't look as appetizing as Julie's, but it was still tasty. Mairin really liked it, and she doesn't like much!! Rob and I were both pleased with the results. Only, I wish I had an electric slicer so I could make the slices thinner. This was a trial run for our Christmas meal, and while we were all satisfied with the seitan roast, we decided that it's probably not the best thing to feed to our entirely omnivorous family. I know that when I became vegetarian I would not have enjoyed eating seitan, it took a long time for me to come around, so plopping a big seitan roast on the table is probably not the best thing to do for Christmas dinner!!

We had all the fixin's along with the roast; mashed potatoes, dressing, green beans, and brussels sprouts. The brussels sprouts were sauteed in olive oil along withe some yellow pearl onions. When they were nicely sauteed I added in about 1 Tbs of Earth Balance and enough bread crumbs to lightly coat. This is by far one of the best ways to eat brussels sprouts.

In other news......two of my sweet readers nominated me for the butterfly award. Thank you to Chessa and Elizabeth. I really appreciate the award and I'm so glad that you still put up with me considering my recent lack of blogging. I promise to reciprocate your generosity, and play along with the butterfly award, just as soon as I have some time!!

Spicy Stir Fried Brussels Sprouts

This isn't so much a recipe as it is a method. But, none the less, I think it's my new favorite way to eat brussels sprouts. I simply shredded them very fine then stir fried them in a mixture of sesame oil and olive oil. When they were almost cooked I added a few splashes of tamari and a few dashes of crushed red pepper flakes. Yum.

I served these brussels sprouts with a terrific Curried Tofu Scramble from Super Natural Cooking. I kind of had it set in my mind that I'd have to fix the kids something different for dinner, but much to my surprise and delight the both gobbled up their tofu scramble and asked for seconds, and thirds!!

Agave Baked Lentils

Tonight we had my agave baked lentils with mashed sweet potatoes and Golden Crusted Brussels sprouts. You'll find the recipe for the lentils in my post from Nov. This time I used the same basic recipe, only I omitted the garlic, simply because I forgot. I also sauteed the vegetables before adding them to the baking dish. And lastly I used basic green lentils instead of the Puy lentils I like, because I have less than 1/2 cup of Puy's on hand. The flavor was just as delicious as last time, however the lentils didn't hold up as well, and some were a bit mushy.


Instead of baking the potatoes, this time I boiled them. When they were finished I added in a small amount of lactose free milk, a few spoonfuls of brown sugar, and a good bit of cinnamon. They were very good.

We also had Golden Crusted Brussels sprouts. I first saw the recipe in my book Super Natural Cooking, and then also came across it on Heidi's blog. My photo of the sprouts doesn't look quite as good as hers (in addition to being a cook, she's also a professional photographer), but I assure you they are outstanding brussels sprouts.


As it turns out, we weren't the only family eating agave baked lentils tonight......hop on over to Chez Mama, and check out what the Dalai Mama's family had for their Sunday dinner......I

think you'll find it quite humorous!!!!!

The Christmas Feast

OK folks, get ready, this is going to be a LONG post. I'm covering two days worth of cooking in this one post because I've been too swamped to get around to posting.

So, as you saw, we got the cookies for Santa made and we had one more batch left to make on Christmas Eve. That was these babies, Chocolate Mint Melties, from Eat Drink and Be Vegan. They are sooo good, although, not as minty as I had hoped they would be. I will definitely be making them again, only next time I will add more chopped chocolate bar to the batter.

While the cookies were baking I started up the Traditional Cranberry Sauce, also from ED&BV. I wanted to make this the day before so it would have time to chill because I wanted to serve it cold. I don't usually like cranberry sauce, this recipe however has changed my mind. It is super easy to make and incredibly delicious. I'll never buy or serve prepared cranberry sauce again. Unfortunately, when the time came to set up the buffet on Christmas evening, I forgot to get the sauce out of the refrigerator......so, guess who's been eating cranberry sauce like it's going out of style the last 2 days!!

Also on Christmas Eve I prepared the gravy, as the recipe said it was better left to set over night and gently reheated. I used the vegan gravy recipe from vegweb. I thought the gravy was delicious. My family of meat eaters weren't too impressed. Actually, no one said they didn't like it, but the fact that no one said they did says it all. Needless to say, I've got loads of gravy sitting in the refrigerator as well.....too bad gravy doesn't go so well over cranberry sauce!!

Anyway, after I got the gravy cooking I went ahead and chopped up all of the veggies I would need for various things the following day, just to save myself some time in the kitchen. I also made homemade pumpkin ice cream for a pumpkin ice cream pie that I made (no picture, sorry). I just poured the soft, freshly churned ice cream into a pre made graham cracker crust and froze it.

The final thing that I prepared on Christmas Eve was the cinnamon rolls that were for breakfast on Christmas Day. I used this Orange Cranberry recipe that I saw on tv while Rob and I were laying in bed relaxing on our recent trip to Chicago. These are the rolls before they've been baked and iced. In all of the excitement of present opening on Christmas morning, I forgot to take a picture of the cinnamon rolls. By the time I remembered over half of them had been devoured and the icing was hard, cracked, and disgusting looking. Sorry, I'll snap a picture next time I make them. By the way, the cranberry's are a wonderful addition to the cinnamon rolls.

Whew!! I was exhausted Christmas Eve night (I'm getting tired again just typing about all I did!). So tired, and hoping to get in bed early, but guess what........the teeter todder that the girls got "from Santa" took almost 2 hours to put together, and Mairin's stable nearly an hour.......Santa didn't get to bed until after 11pm.

So, on to the big day.....I'll spare all of the details of present opening, etc. and just get right to the food, since that's what this blog's all about anyway. Well, obviously, breakfast was cinnamon rolls and coffee. The cinnamon rolls required 40 minutes in the oven, so we snacked on a loaf of Panera's Holiday bread while we were waiting.

Rob's family wasn't able to stay for dinner, so we made lunch for them. Our lunch was the "No Chicken" Noodle soup that I blogged about last week. We also had some shrimp cocktail for snacking, as well as some cheddar cranberry cheese and crackers.

Then came the big meal. We had 16 people for dinner, both friends and family. I was the only vegetarian. Turkey and ham were provided by my mother and my grandfather for the meat eaters. I supplied pretty much everything else. We went with a traditional Thanksgiving type meal since we missed Thanksgiving as a family this year. Again, in all of the excitement, I forgot to photograph our feast, so the following picture is a shot of my plate of left-overs that I ate for dinner last night.

The menu consisted of: Mashed Yukon Golds with Vegan Gravy, Golden Crusted Brussels Sprouts from Super Natural Cooking, Baked Sweet Potatoes with Maple Syrup, brown sugar and cinnamon, Vegetarian Stuffing (which by the way, my mom swore couldn't be make without chicken broth......it was, I made it with my home made veggie stock, and it was enjoyed by all), and a broccoli casserole supplied by my good friend Steph (thanks for the vegetarian dish Steph!!).

We had such a wonderful Christmas. We are truly blessed to have such great friends and family. This was our first year having Christmas at our house, and even though it was a lot of hard work, I hope it isn't our last.

There probably won't be too much new to blog about over the next few days, we're kind of busy until the New Year, but there will be plenty to blog about in 2008!!