Vegan Practically

I adore good food. So holiday dinners are the sort of thing I plan for. I’ll be partaking on Christmas day with my family. They’re omnivores, and normally I would make a Gardein Stuffed Turk’y and gravy for myself. As I have said before, they are delicious. I made a package of them just this week for an early Christmas dinner on Zoom with my friend, Diane. But they are single servings, so it doesn’t really give anyone else the option to try. And since I am all about cultivating curiosity among the omnivores to try new vegan foods, I decided that this year I would make something that yields enough for everyone to sample if they choose.

I pulled this recipe featured on the From My Bowl site (by Caitlin) from a friend of a FB friend, on a thread about tofu “turkey” preparation on American Thanksgiving. I had considered some seitan-based options, but in order to make my dish maximally accessible, I want it also to be gluten free. Since seitan is made with vital wheat gluten (or gluten flour) as the key ingredient, there is no way to make gluten free seitan, and many “roast” recipes are predominantly seitan. If you’re interested in that route, It Doesn’t Taste Like Chicken (Sam Turnball) has its Best Vegan Turkey Roast and Post Punk Kitchen (Isa Chandra Moskowitz is my favourite vegan cookbook author) has an elegant-sounding Seitan Roast Stuffed with Shiitakes and Leeks.

The From My Bowl recipe says it’s “the best,” but I guess we’ll have to see. It’s a stuffed tofu loaf-style dish, where the main substance of it is tofu mixed with chickpea flour and seasoning. I have the tamari, “poultry” seasoning, and other ingredients ready to go.

I’m making a wild rice stuffing from Marisa Moore that I made back in October for Canadian Thanksgiving. It’s vegan and gluten free. And since no such dinner is complete without gravy, this mushroom gravy from Detoxinista has no flour or butter and is thickened with potatoes. I may be more excited about the gravy than seems reasonable, but the website describes it as “life-changing.”

With that will be a number of family stand-bys: roast potatoes and sweet potatoes, carrots, cauliflower with white sauce (made with plant-based milk), green beans, and maybe parsnips. Definitely cranberry sauce.

I haven’t thought all the way through to dessert yet, but I am considering a carrot halwa trifle from the Veggiecurean that has intrigued me for a few weeks now (I have been reading recipes for leisure since childhood. If you haven’t spent any leisure time reading recipes, I highly recommend it as a satisfying pasttime). But I also have in the freezer more coconut laddoos than I know what to do with. I have the original batch where I forgot to finely grate the coconut, and then a new batch where I did it right. I also have some truffles in the freezer, and the truffles mixture that I decided would be even better as chocolate mousse. I can whip up some coconut whipping cream with a bit of icing sugar to make a topping for any of these desserts (except the laddoos, which are really more like candies to be eaten on their own with strong tea or coffee).

And though starters are usually a bad idea because they make it harder to feel full enough for a feast, I have a batch of Put It on Everything Cashew Sauce from Bon Appétit that is more like a spreadable dip than a sauce. This is an excellent recipe that can be endlessly varied depending on what fresh herbs you’ve got around. This version is deliciously dilly, with some parsley as well. So good on crackers or for dipping crudités.

That’s what’s on deck for me on Monday. How about you?

Bon Appétit and Happy Holidays!