Friday, November 25, 2011

Our Turkey-less Thanksgiving


Needless to say, my Thanksgiving was turkey-less. We did not eat To-Furkey because….well….To-Furkey? That sounds frickin nasty. I love tofu in lots of things, but it is turkey or no turkey for me. I LOVE thanksgiving! So….here are the recipes for the yummies that we ate.
Thanksgiving Lentil Casserole
(I found this one on vebweb.com, I highly suggest making a gravy with it because it is good by itself but gravy gave it some extra phizazz J)
2 cups brown rice (I used lentils)
½ cup cashews or walnuts chopped (I used ¼ cup of each)
2 slices of whole wheat bread chopped into small cubes
1 cup of vegetable broth
½ cup of soy milk (I used almond milk)
2 tbsp nutritional yeast (I used 3 tbsp)
1 rib celery, diced (I used 3 ribs)
1 small onion, finely chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
Herbs to taste: sage, majoram, thyme, pepper, rosemary (I used about a tsp of each)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 8 or 9 inch casserole dish with cooking spray
While rice (lentils) are cooking, sauté the celery and onion in the olive oil. Mix all of the ingredients in a large bowl. Spread into a casserole dish and bake for 45 minutes. That’s it! Super easy!
Golden Mushroom Gravy
This was frickin’ amazing! YUMMMMMMMM! I got this one out of my ‘1000 Vegan Recipes’ cookbook by Robin Robertson
1 tbsp olive oil
½ cup chopped onion
1 cup cooked or canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 ½ cups vegetable broth (I ended up using about 2 cups)
1 ½ cups sliced white mushrooms
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp savory
1 tsp sage
Salt and pepper
Heat oil on medium heat in a medium saucepan. Add the onion, cover and cook until softened. Add the chickpeas and ½ cup of veggie broth. Stir until all ingredients are softened
Take chickpea/onion mixture and put into blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. Set aside. In the same saucepan, combine the remaining veggie broth and mushrooms and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat to low and add the chickpea mixture to the mushroom and veggie broth. Add all of the spices and stir. You can serve this right away or store it overnight. I made this the night before and when I reheated it, I had to add more broth. I served it over the Lentil Casserole.
Ginger Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Apples
What the yum?! I got this one out of my ‘Appetite for Reduction’ cookbook. Her recipes are also at the Post Punk Kitchen blog that I follow. This was SOOOO simple and yummy!
1 lb apples (about 2 average sized apples. I used fuji) cut into chunks
2 lb sweet potatoes or yams cut into ½ inch chunks
 *the recipe says to peel the apples and potatoes, but I LOVE the skins so I left them on
¼ cup water
¼ tsp salt
1 tbsp agave nectar
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ginger
Bring water and salt to a boil. Add the apples and potatoes. Cover and reduce heat to low. Stir often. Slowly let them steam so they don’t burn. Steam for about 20 minutes until they are soft and tender. Drain. Mash with a potato masher. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Serve. YUM!
The Salad
Literally, this was nothing special. I just mixed dried cherries, spinach, cucumber and tomatoes. The best part was the dressing. I used Walden Farms Balsamic Vinaigarette…..um what…no calories. None. All natural. Check out Walden Farms website. Some of their stuff frickin rocks!
Vegan Walnut Brownies
Ok, so these are NOT necessarily good for you. I tweaked the recipe a bit, though…sooo they are better than they are supposed to be. I will give you the regular recipe and I will put in the changes I made.
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar (I used 1 cup of sugar and ½ cup of stevia)
¾ cup of cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup water (I used 1 ½ cup water)
1 cup oil (I used ½ cup of oil)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup chopped walnuts
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Mix up all of the ingredients and spread into a greased, square pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes (*because of the changes I made, I had to increase the baking time to 40 minutes).



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