Way too much Thanksgiving food

Here is a rundown of Thanksgiving. We had Seitan Turkey Roulade with herb stuffing, Cornbread stuffing, Leahey Foods Chicken Style gravy, Green Bean Casserole, Mashed Sweet Potato Casserole with marshmallows on top, Pumpkin rolls, and Pumpkin Pie.

Here are pics:


Seitan Turkey Roulade:




The seitan roulade is from this recipe (double the recipe at the bottom of her post). After cooking, brown on all sides in a non-stick skillet with some olive oil.

Green Bean Casserole from 1000 Vegan Recipes:


I added more thyme, added sage, lots of pepper and some soy sauce. Also deglazed mushrooms with white wine.

Sweet Potato Casserole with Dandies vegan marshmallows:

I think we were a bit heavy handed with the marshmallows. I knew I shouldn't have asked Mike whether there were enough marshmallows on top before baking! :)

Stuffing:


Pumpkin Pie:

Pie was meh and was a recipe of my own invention, so you don't really want that recipe.

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

With all that fresh pumpkin in the fridge, a batch of muffins occurred this weekend. Although I have a couple of good pumpkin muffin recipes, I saw this one by Nicole at Another One Bites the Crust and it looked healthier and easier than the other recipes. These muffins are 100% whole wheat! And, they are really good.





Modifications:
- High Altitude -> 375 F temperature, 1.5 tsp baking powder.
- I topped mine with some cinnamon sugar.

Now don't ever buy canned pumpkin again!

Ok, you can buy pumpkin puree in a can, but please, just don't do it in the fall when you can make it yourself. It's so easy and I'm going to show you how step by step.

First, you want to get some Sugar Pumpkins. These are small cooking pumpkins.


Preheat oven to 375F. Then, cut the pumpkin in half.

Thai Green Coconut Pumpkin Curry & Asian Pear Chutney

I borrowed a copy of the Millenium Cookbook and found a great recipe for Pumpkin Curry with Asian Pear Chutney. I've borrowed this cookbook in the past and the recipes always look so complicated. But, this recipe look approachable and I had some buttercup squash all chopped up and ready to go in the fridge. The great thing about this recipe is the green curry paste made from scratch (and the vita-mix ground up the paste like a champ). It is so yummy! Here is a pic of the final dish:



The pumpkin is cooked and blended up into the sauce along with coconut milk. For the vegetables, I used more pumpkin, potato, carrots, green beans, and cauliflower. I par-boiled the vegetables because the recipe called for them to only cook for about 7 minutes and there just ain't no way a potato cube is cooking in 7 minutes at high altitude. In any case, I would recommend parboiling the vegetables for a few minutes (potatoes and carrots longer than the rest) to give them a head start. I served this over some brown basmati rice.

Psst. Here is the recipe (pages 134-135).

Lucky me, I have about some green curry paste leftover in the fridge for another meal!

Roasted Pumpkin Walnut Manicotti

Last night we made Vegan Dad's Roasted Pumpkin Walnut Manicotti. It was pretty good. The picture is awful but they tasted pretty good. Served with my favorite roasted brussel sprouts. This recipe takes a long time to make and I'm not sure I'd do it again. I think it'd be easier to just make it into a lasagna.

While I liked it ok, I thought I added too much sage, but thought it would have been bland without it. I thought it needed something else... maybe caramelized onions or vegan sausage (everything is better with vegan sausage, right?

I can't stop making these Skanky Pumpkin Squares

These might be the best thing ever. Every time a pumpkin comes in the house we make these pumpkin squares. And a pumpkin comes into the house about once a week from our CSA.

The recipe is from Vegan Addict. I have tried these with both AP flour and also with White Whole Wheat flour. The latter is a little grainier, but I can't decide which I like best.

I have had a bit of a problem with the middle sinking a little, but that hasn't affected the flavor at all. It just provided a larger vehicle for the frosting. I guess I just need to keep making these until I figure out the right high altitude adjustment. :P

Silk Pumpkin Soy Milk

For the last MoFo post, I merely have a product review. Silk has a pumpkin soy milk that is in the refridgerated section of the grocery store that is crack. It is so good. It smells much spicier than it tastes. It is smooth, sweet, and lightly pumpkin flavored. So, quick, off to the stores with ye to get some before this seasonal soymilk is gone. Oddly, I could find no mention of this product on the Silk website so I have no picture or link to point you to.

In other news, I made the pumpkin black bean casserole again last night and it was not nearly as spicy as last time (thankfully) so I must have really screwed up the spice measurements last time. I got another boatload of pumpkin from the CSA this week so were are again immersed in pumpkin dishes. I put 7 cups of baked and pureed pumpkin into the freezer last night and have 2 more small sugar pumpkins on the counter. I'll gladly trade a pumpkin for an acorn squash right about now.

Pumpkin Curry

With all that pumpkin in the house, I decided it was time for a pumpkin curry. I was try to recreate a dish that an Indian friend made for me once. I was close and this was good, but we felt like it was missing a sweet element. We never did decide what we would change next time on this so if any of you Indian food cooks out there have an idea, let me know. Maybe it needs tomatoes... or tamarind... or fenugreek.... or... ?

Pumpkin Curry

1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 Tbsp canola oil
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1" ginger, minced
1 jalepeno, minced
1 Tbsp Garam Masala
2 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp tumeric
1 tsp salt (add more to taste at the end)
1 cup water
4 cups pumpkin, cut into 1 inch pieces
4 red baby potatoes, cut into 1 inch pieces
2 carrots, cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 large red bell pepper, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 can coconut milk
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
2 Tbsp cilantro, chopped


Add canola oil to a large pot and heat over med-high heat. When the pot is hot, add the mustard seeds and cumin seeds. Cook stirring until they start to pop. Add the onions. Cook until the onions brown (about 7-10 minutes) stirring occasionally to keep the spices from burning. Add the garlic, ginger, and jalepeno. Cook for a minute or two until fragrant. Add the spices and salt. Cook another minute.

Add one cup of water, stir to deglaze. Add the vegetables. Add the can of coconut milk. Cover and lower heat and simmer 30 minutes. When the vegetables are starting to get tender, add the chickpeas and cook another 10-15 minutes. Add the cilantro and server over brown rice.

Psst - Kim if you are reading this, I was trying to recreate that dish we had at your house last fall after pumpkin/apple picking. Find out what I am missing, please!!!! :)

Pumpkin and Black Bean Casserole

Isn't this casserole beautiful. It made the house smell as good as it looks.



This is a Pumpkin Black Bean Casserole, recipe from Fat Free Vegan. It has layers of thinly sliced pumpkin, layers of a mexican chile flavored black bean mixture with tomatoes and corn, and then a cheesy sauce. It tasted like a spicy, cheesy chili. Since it was pretty spicy, I think I may have goofed and added more Ancho or Chipolte than it called for. I'll be making this again so I'll know the answer next time if it doesn't come out as spicy. This goes great with some blue corn chips.

Things that I think I will change next time: I think I will saute the onions first. My onion was really really strong and overpowered things a bit. And, I think that 1/2 way through the baking time I will add some crushed blue corn chips to the top. Now I can't wait to make it again. You may see this one again next week!

This week has been brought to you by the vegetable: Pumpkin

Holy Pumpkin! I have a lot of pumpkin. So, don't be at all surprised that almost everything I post this week will be made with Pumpkin! In addition to the 3 main courses I made over the weekend (for next week - but that's another post), pumpkin cookies, and pumpkin muffins... I still put 4 cups of pumpkin puree away in the freezer. This big guy, an Aluminum Squash, made 6 cups of pumpkin puree! We forgot to get a picture of this pumpkin until after we sliced it open:



The first cup of this pumpkin puree went into Pumpkin Cookies. This recipe is from Dabbles with Apples. These are soooo good and the crunchy brown sugar in the frosting is the best! They are like little cupcakes in the shape of cookies. I didn't change anything about this recipe, but I did need to add a little more powdered sugar to the frosting.



Psst - Liz... you need to make these!

Rustic Pumpkin Bread

Did you see this post by Vegan Dad? When I saw it, I knew I had to make this recipe for Rustic Pumpkin Bread. I could not find Kamut flour at my grocery so I subsituted Barley flour (after asking Vegan Dad's opinion). I also reduced the final yeast by 1/2 since I am at high altitude. Here are some pics:





This bread is great. It is so moist with a dense crunchy crust. If you have the time, you should definitely make this.

Thanksgiving desert redux - Pumpkin Cheesecake

Tonight I made a Double Layer Pumpkin Lemon Cheesecake (recipe linked) with a Pecan Oat Crust from The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. This pie was really tasty and the crust was fabulous. You should definitely make this crust the next time you make a pie that calls for a graham cracker crust. It was so nutty and rich. I only made 2 small modifications to the cheesecake. I added some lemon zest and a pinch of salt to it.

I really don't think that last night's pie fiasco was a result of a bad recipe. I really think the canned pumpkin was bad. I had two cans of pumpkin yesterday - 2 different brands. One can went into the pie and another can went into the rolls. When I opened the second can for the rolls, I noticed that it smelled much better and had better color. The previous can was more solid. I just chalked it up to the fact that they were different brands, maybe the pumpkins weren't as great the day the other can was canned... but now I wonder how sick I would have been if I had eaten more than a 1/2 bite. Weird.

Muffin mania, Part 1: Pumpkin Carob Chip

I had intense urge to make muffins this weekend. Unfortunately, I found too many that I wanted to make and didn't have enough days in the weekend. This means that next weekend will be part two.

Pumpkin Carob Chip Muffin
Today I made pumpkin carob chip muffins. They were outstanding. The recipe comes from The Vegan Lunchbox. The muffins were not only healthy, but had a nice rich pumpkin flavor. I might have been a little heavy handed with the cinnamon sugar topping (as seen in the picture).