Holiday Goodies

I'm not Jewish, but sometimes I wish I was. They get EIGHT days of celebration for Hanukkah and let's face it, dreidels are pretty darn cool. So are matzo balls and latkes. To celebrate the first day of Hanukkah on Monday, I made the Autumn Latkes from Veganomicon:

Shown here with a dollop of Tofutti sour cream, these babies are far from the traditional potato latkes. They're made with shredded beets, sweet potato, and carrot. I needed to use up some sweet potatoes and I knew these were good (it was the first dish I tried from VCon when I got it last Xmas), so it seemed an obvious choice.

I also whipped up some Apple Sage Sausages from a recipe I found on Get Sconed!

The recipe originated on the PPK from Jayne (aka Virginwithamemory or VWAM), but it's reprinted in full on Jess' Get Sconed site. They're gluten-based sausages steamed using the Julie Hasson method and get their awesome flavor from dried sage, dried apples, and a bit of mashed potato. These have been perfect for breakfasts this week with leftover Fruitcake Muffins (see last post).

Finally, I've been giving out Xmas gifts of homemade Chocolate Fudge from The Joy of Vegan Baking:

All I can say is, WOW! I'd never made fudge before, but it's super easy and this stuff tastes just like the non-vegan fudge I remember. It's very rich, and really addictive. I can't stay out of it. But who cares? It's the holidays.

Speaking of holidays, I'm fixin' to sit down with a cup of soy nog-spiked coffee and watch Earnest Saves Christmas for old time's sake. I'll going to be parents' house tomorrow for gift time, followed by Xmas breakfast at Granny's, and Xmas with my boyfriend's family in Clarksville.

Happy Holidays, Ya'll!

Happy Solstice!

Tonight is the longest, darkest night of the year and it marks the beginning of winter. So I celebrated by opening gifts with my six cats and my dog, Datsun. Here's Polaris getting into the holiday spirit:

Yes, I'm one of those people who tortures her cats with silly costumes ...

Datsun loves to unwrap gifts! Here he is unwrapping a new rope ball - one of the only kinds of toys that he cannot destroy in five minutes.

The kitties — Akasha, Pandora, Polaris, Gelfling, Ozzie, and Seymour — shared a stocking filled with catnip mice, jingle balls, and other goodies. Pandora especially loved the fluffy cat teaser:

Seymour preferred the toy mice. He's the baby kitty, and he's painfully shy. He prefers to eat in a separate room away from the other cats and he hides when anyone comes over:

Yesterday, I went to my Me-Maw's for a Christmas lunch with my mom's side of the family. I brought the Peppermint Chocolate Cupcakes from Pudge-Free Holidays by Happy Herbivore:

I was a little scared to make cupcakes without oil, but they turned out great. They totally didn't taste low-fat, and my family loved them. They were super-duper minty because I subbed Vitasoy Chocolate Peppermint soy milk in place of the regular chocolate milk in the recipe.

Last night, I made a batch of Pecan Pie Truffles from VegNews to give out with my Xmas gifts:

Sorry for the crappy photo. My borrowed digital camera wouldn't focus for some reason, even though I used the close-up feature. It doesn't have the option of manual focus. These are phenomenal though! They only have a few ingredients — pecans (I used local ones from my uncle's farm), bourbon, brown sugar, maple syrup and graham cracker crumbs. My chocolate shell isn't as pretty as it could be, but hey, it was my first time making truffles.

Finally, I made the Fruitcake Muffins from VegNews to bring to a Solstice potluck tonight (before opening the gifts with the pets):

Wow! I love these! They're made with whole wheat pastry flour and no sugar. The only sweetener is maple syrup and they're chock full of dried fruit, walnuts, and pecans. I had a few leftover, so I know what I'm having for breakfast.

Dijon Pecan, Take Two

A few days ago, I posted a picture of some Dijon Pecan Tofu that I'm testing for my cookbook. The flavor of mustard and crunchy, Southern pecans made for a tasty coating, but I wasn't happy with the soft texture of the tofu under the heavy breading. So I vowed to try again using seitan in place of tofu. I did that tonight. Here's my Dijon Pecan Seitan:

They were more like seitan nuggets because my homemade seitan always ends up in little nuggets or chunks. But it could be rolled out and shaped better, I'm sure. Unfortunately, this wasn't really what I was hoping it would be. It tasted okay and the texture was better this time, but that seitan really soaks up oil when fried resulting in a pretty greasy hunk of wheat gluten. Tasty, but damn, I feel fat after eating that stuff.

Since I already have a few fried faux meat recipes for the book, I've decided to try this flavor combo yet again ... but next time, I'm going to bake it. So it'll be kinda healthy. Southern food doesn't always have to be about fat and grease, right?

On the side, I made the Maple-Glazed Veggies from Pudge-Free Holidays by Happy Herbivore (head over there to get your own copy!):

The recipe calls for two cups of whatever veggies you want, but I followed the suggestion in the intro and used carrots and parsnips. These were so yummy, and I believe they were even fat-free (no oil!). The fat-free part made me feel a little better about my fried seitan. Frying doesn't always bother me, but some days it does. Probably because I didn't have time for the gym today.

Here's the whole plate:

I'll keep ya'll posted on the next incarnation of the Dijon Pecan Seitan. And hopefully, I'll have some yummy Solstice and Xmas sweets to show ya'll soon.

Sweet Potatoes Vs. Yams

Honestly, I don't really know what a yam is. I've read (thank you, Wikipedia) that the sweet potato is not even related to the yam, even though Americans tend to use the names interchangably. I've never even seen a yam in the grocery store. When a recipe calls for yams, I use sweet potatoes — like in this dish, Farmhouse Chedda and Yam Soup from The Uncheese Cookbook:

I'm not sure how it would have tasted with actual yams, but it was delectable made with sweet potatoes. Remember that Campbell's condensed cheese soup in a can? I used to be obsessed with that stuff when I was a kid. This is kind of like that, only with far more complex flavors and none of that funky processed canned soup crap.

It's made with yams (or sweet potatoes), nooch, carrots, onions, and green pepper. But everything is pureeed, so the veggie flavors meld together and get all creamy. This was perfect for a cold winter night, served alongside crusty whole wheat garlic bread and a salad with vegan ranch and faux bacon bits.

I Got My (Sweet Potato) Hash Pipe

Yea, I know ... cheesy post title. But I don't care. My breakfast this morning was so good, it might as well have been a hash pipe. I made my own recipe for Sweet Potato Hash and served it alongside Sprouted Grain Toast with Brother Juniper's Blueberry Spreadable Fruit:

The hash is my own recipe that I'll be putting in my cookbook. You can't really see here, but it does have soy burger crumbles in it. I usually use the frozen Morningstar Farms brand, but this time, I only had Boca Vegan Burgers on hand, so I smushed a a couple up with a fork and tossed them in.

I outta change my blog name to Sweet Tater Crunk, cause you'll be seeing plenty of them in future posts. I'm working my way through a huge box right now. Hope ya'll are ready to get crazy with the sweet potatoes. I know I am.

In other news, I've been given TWO blog awards. I received this one courtesy of the lovely Breedale of Perpetually Creating (check out the clove-studded oranges on her blog now).

Here's what it means (excerpted from Breedale's blog): "These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

Thanks lady! And then I also got the Proximity Award from the awesome Pixiepine Palace (who just got engaged):

Here's what it means: "This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

So it's kinda the same thing (only one has some other language that I cannot read), but with different pictures. Thanks guys! And I know I'm supposed to pass these on, but I really think all my blogger friends are deserving and there's so many more than eight. So I pass both awards on to all my peeps!

Mama's Cornbread Dressin'

My mom makes the best cornbread dressin' on the planet. And I'm not just sayin' that cause she's my mom. It's a proven fact. Everyone who's tasted her dressin' has said it's the best. When I made the decision to go vegan the day after Thanksgiving in 2004, one of my biggest concerns was the fact that I'd never be able to eat her dressin' again.

But thankfully, the following Thanksgiving, my mom figured out how to veganize it with homemade vegan cream of celery soup in place of the canned stuff in the non-vegan version. Now on Thanksgiving, "my" dressin' tastes way better than the old kind. Unfortunately, my mom isn't really the type that writes down recipes.

I had to go to a Winter Solstice potluck yesterday, and I really wanted to try my hand at Mama's Dressin' and in the process, record a recipe for my cookbook. Here's what it looked like:

I used my own cornbread recipe (that's also going in my cookbook) and made a triple batch since I knew there'd be about 30 people at this potluck. The result: Good, but not as good as mama's. I think I need to tweak my cornbread recipe because, as it stands now, it contains a lot of flax in place of eggs. The result when making a larger batch (and thus using more flax) was a little more gummy that I would have liked. So next time, I will use egg replacer instead of flax and see what happens (that's what my mom does in her vegan cornbread).

But it was still really good. And the leftovers were excellent served alongside the Garlicky Sauteed Kale with Tahini Sauce from Vegan with a Vengeance:

Though I've seen this dish on numerous blogs, it was the first time I'd tried tahini sauce on my kale. And now I doubt I'll ever eat kale without it.

Family Favorites

I don't have any fancy recipes or pictures of cookbook experiments to share with you today. Instead, I want to talk about one of the simplest, most sentimental snacks I can think of — My Daddy's Favorite Microwave Nachos:

Yep, it's pretty simple — just blue corn tortilla chips, Follow Your Heart vegan cheddar, and Trappy's pickled jalapenos from a jar.

But when I was little kid, this was one my dad's favorite quick late-night snacks. He'd take a handful of plain ol' tortilla chips, toss some shredded cheese and jalapenos on top, and nuke it for a few seconds in the microwave. Instant nachos. And if I saw him in the process of making himself a plate, I'd always request one too, sans the peppers.

I'm sure he still makes this every once in awhile. But it had been years since I'd had this quick snack. Then one day, a few months ago, the memory of daddy's quick nachos came to mind, and I felt compelled to try it with vegan cheese. Turns out FYH melts in less than 20 seconds in the microwave.

Since that day, I've been bringing this one out every once in awhile. Today, I ate the nachos for lunch along with baba ganoush on pita bread. And as expected, a wave of childhood memories washed over me. It's weird how certain foods can do that. How about ya'll? What are the most memorable foods of your childhood?