A Vegan Thanksgiving

The day before Thanksgiving began with a successful second loaf of vegan cornbread to supplement the loaf which I made the previous day for stuffing.  What resulted was a wonderfully golden loaf of corny goodness that was not too dense, not too sweet, and entirely irresistible.  Needless to say, I have been picking at it all day and can only hope that there will be enough to do my cornbread stuffing tomorrow! That was the entire reason I made this gorgeous loaf, pictured below, but I think it will turn into a standard in my repertoire.  Not to mention it's vegan!
Amazing Vegan Cornbread
Ingredients:

- 1 cup white whole wheat flour
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 Tbsp if flaxseeds ground mixed with 1 Tbsp of unsweetened almond milk
- 1/3 cup agave (can add more for a sweeter bread, mine is for stuffing)
- 1/2 cup apple sauce (unsweetened)
- 1 cup almond milk

Instructions:

Just pop it in the oven in a glass baking dish (sprayed w/ oil) for 20-25 minutes at 400 F, until it is deliciously golden brown!  Like I said; it is a really easy mixture of ingredients.  I proceeded to cut it into tiny cubes and lay the pieces on a baking sheet on top of the stove (since I had more oven-work to do) to dry out for the stuffing.

The stuffing I made with it turned out to be fantastic as well:

Vegan Crustless Sweet Potato Pie
 My next effort in the culinary works was roasting 4 sweet potatoes in the oven for my vegan, crust-less pie.  All I used was a blender and a spoon. How ridiculously awesome is that?


Ingredients:

- 1.5 cup almond milk (unsweetened)
- 1 Tbsp cornstarch
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 2 Tbsp ground flaxseed
- 2 cup mashed, roasted sweet potato (yum! feed Ian the skins :D)
Mix these together in the blender (purée) and add to it:
- 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
- 1/2 - 3/4 cup light brown surgar (depending on sweetness at this point)
- 1 Tbsp molasses
- 1/4 tsp. each ground ginger, ground cloves, and ground nutmeg
- 1.5 tsp. ground cinnamon

 Instructions:
Let it whirl until totally puréed in the blender and pour into a pie plate (ideally 9").  It rises quite a bit during the cooking process and gets a really nice crust on the top.  The sides act as a sort of crust as well, and it doesn't require the heavy pastry that is so characteristic of a pie.

Try out this avante-garde style of pie-making, and see what people say when there is no buttery pastry to bite into.  I guarantee only the staunchest of pie purists will even chide you as they gobble down this marvelous concoction regardless!  My family, omnivores and pie-enthusiasts alike, gobbled it up, and my dad, one who does not like dessert in the least, actually raved about it as well.  I was amazed.

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Dolsot Bibimbap

Photo by Alice Gao

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My Kosher Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving, I ate at my grandparents' house in New Jersey. What was special about this meal is that it didn't have all of the trappings of a normal thanksgiving meal.  Our thanksgiving mixed ethnic dishes with the traditional thanksgiving fare. The meal was kosher fleyshik, meaning it was a meat meal (since turkey is counted as meat) and so no dairy products could be used as ingredients in any of the dishes, in addition to normal laws of kashrut (no pork being the most famous, etc.).

The normal Thanksgiving dishes were there for the most part, though those were not exactly the highlights of the meal. There was a distressing lack of stuffing and gravy, which was problematic because the turkey was fairly dry (though there was a decent cranberry sauce). The mashed sweet potatoes made with bits of pineapple and topped with gelatin-free marshmallows were good, but a little bit too sweet. The freshly baked multi-grain rolls were great, as they were hot and had a nice full, but not overwhelming, flavor.

The Jewish components of the meal were the stand outs. A pareve (no dairy or meat ingredients) pea soup with barley was the first thing served, and in addition to being tasty, it wasn't too watery or too stew-like. At the table we also had potato knishes, which at our table were mashed potatoes inside round dough sacks; when hot, they went quite well with mustard (though eventually they became cold and fairly tasteless given the lack of seasonings inside). The salad course consisted of Israeli salad, which is essentially diced tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions with creamy tahini, which is made from ground sesame seeds and other flavors (lemon juice, salt), used as a dressing. The highlight of the afternoon, undoubtedly, had to be my Savta's (grandmother's) braised brisket.  The night before, my friends parents were kind enough to let me try some of their brisket, which had just finished smoking and was very hot and very good. However, the one during the meal blew that one out of the water. The smell of it was enough to make me forget about everything else on the table. The taste, the juices, and the tenderness of the slices all combined to form an amazing meat dish. Overall, what the traditional meal lacked in taste the ethnic foods more than made up for.

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Challah

My mom is Jewish, which of course means a lot that is completely extraneous to this blog. One very relevant result is that I know how to make the same challah that has been in my family since, well, forever. The Appelbaum (my mom’s maiden name) challah is not like the one you will find in fro gro, which is quite good. I’m warning you that it is not sweet and therefore goes very well with honey. I love it though and can eat (and have eaten) the entire bread in one sitting!

Ingredients:

1 package yeast

1 cup warm water

3 eggs (you only need the yolk for one of them)

2 Tbl oil

1 Tbl sugar

1 tsp salt

A little less than 4.5 cups flour

1. Mix the yeast with the warm water. Stir until dissolved

2. Add 2 eggs, oil, sugar, salt. Mix.

3. Here’s where it gets a little touchy-feely. Add about 4 cups of flour until you can knead the dough. Stop adding flour once the dough feels a little sticky.

4. Knead

5. Brush a little oil on top

6. Cover with a damp towel for 2 hours – 1 day

7. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

8. Knead. Add more flour if needed until the dough is just a little sticky.

9. Braid

10. Brush the egg yolk all over the top and sides

11. Let the bread rise for ½ an hour

12. Bake for about 20 minutes. I like to undercook mine so this could theoretically take anywhere from 15-40 minutes.

Remember – don’t be stingy on honey!
Photo by Dana Robinson

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A Bountiful Feast (part two)

The Friday after Thanksgiving was significantly more laid back. A little more than 1/10 the people were in attendance and there was a discernible beginning and end to the meal, as opposed to the hungry pillaging of Thursday. Only one turkey this time but it elicited quite the positive buzz. My boyfriend was able to sit down with us on Friday (Thursday was a hectic bustling between both our houses that ended in separate meals but plenty of relative interactions) and claims he has never had such a juicy turkey - quite the bold proclamation considering his mother was responsible for their thanksgiving turkey. The turkey was grilled on a charcoal grill and had a similar taste to the smoked turkey (in fact, the most common reaction was to the smokeyness) but was by far the most moist and tender of all four turkeys this year. We served it with the (inevitable) leftover mash potatoes and my mother's intensely handmade gravy. Turkey neck, giblets, hearts, and wings were roasted in a pan filled with chopped onions and apples sprinkled with rosemary, thyme, parsley and sage. After the pan had accumulated the coveted "brown bits" at the bottom, it was basted with hard apple cider. Meanwhile, apple cider and chicken broth reduced in another pan. The apples, onions, and basted turkey bits were added to the cider and chicken broth along with cream and more seasoning for a worth-the-labor apple turkey onion gravy. She has made it every year and people are newly impressed each time.

Dessert was the leftovers from Thursday. Knowing I would have to write this blog I admitted for the first time this year to my family, and I will do so publicly here, that I, Hannah Keyser, do not like pie. I realize this makes me unAmerican or even insane but it's true. Why separate the sweetness from the comforting carbs into two separate elements? I recognize that this makes me uniquely unqualified to comment of Thanksgiving dessert but I suffered through a few bites of pecan pie and I can tell you that if I liked pie, I would have loved this pie. I even when back for a second bite. But Thursday I indulged in dessert worth indulging in: chocolate cake. The same culinarily ambitious aunt responsible for the fried turkey has recently pursued a cake decorating hobby that results in multilayer confections that are almost too sweet to eat. This particular one was a chocolate cake base, a chocolate mousse, a while chocolate mouse and chocolate ganache on the top and outside. It was not Thanksgiving at all and I loved it.

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Saturday Blog Lovin' - Because you still have leftovers

Blog: Not So Humble Pie


Get ready to be more thankful for your leftovers.  Check out this blog for a recipe for turkey eggs benedict. 




Note: Click here to see the original post.

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Turducken

This Thanksgiving, I thought I knew what I was going to eat, you know, the regulars: turkey, mash potatoes, stuffing, a dinner role, and a piece of pumpkin pie. While your family members may be a little more surprising, the food of Thanksgiving will be the same year in and year out. This Thanksgiving though, one of my culinary dreams was unexpectedly realized, my aunt made a Turducken.

I have wanted to try Turducken since I first hear about it a few years ago. There is something completely novel about stuffing two birds inside of another bird, and filling that with stuffing. I have tried in vain a couple of times to convince my family to make Turducken, but since many of them subscribe to a vegetarian lifestyle, that was a hard sell. So I thought I would have to wait to try Turducken until a friend's family took pity on me or until the time came that I would have to make a large meal for many people, an event still many years off.

My aunt ordered it off the internet, and I regret not asking the website so that I could investigate the stuffing that came in the bird(s). I believe it was a traditional stuffing of offal, bread and nuts. The meats were not immediately distinguishable, which was funny, as we were all sitting around the table asking, wait, which one is that? After a few taste tests we were able to determine what was duck and what was turkey, but the chicken remained elusive, and no one is really sure there was a chicken in there at all. The tastes of the meats and the stuffing melded together through the long cooking process. The duck did not taste exactly like duck, and the turkey tasted a little different too, but in any case, it was delicious.

The Turducken was a truly a dream realized, so this Thanksgiving, I was thankful for my extended family who love a good gastronomic adventure.

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My Martha Stewart Thanksgiving

Last night was Thanksgiving dinner at the Russo house. We had all finally settled around the large dining room table that had already been set with the festive table covers, tablecloth, flowers, and food on the buffet station. My grandpa started talking by telling us this ha…ha…ha…. joke, and then my mom gave us all a prelude to the meal. Apparently, everything came from Martha Stewart. She wanted us to decide whether it was worth it or not for her to come out of jail to make this meal for us. So with that we all went up to try some of the Martha Stewart food we did want to get cold.

First on the line was a buttery potato dish that was just so inviting. I’m quite certain butter makes everything taste and look good. Next was cornbread. I had already sneaked a bite in before dinner so I knew it was delicious. Following the cornbread in the lineup came the string beans, roasted vegetables and squash, wild rice with cranberries and chopped pecans, and finally the turkey.

My eyes satisfied, I proceeded to the tasting part of the meal. The potatoes were so mushy and buttery they just melted in my mouth. They were so incredibly rich. The cornbread had that taste like it was doughy, but it wasn’t! It’s kind of like undercooked bread that I find so delicious. I actually held off on the string beans. The vegetables and rice were, I’m sorry to say, not so enticing. The turkey however, was amazing. As always, my mom knew exactly how to cook it. The meat was so juicy, the apple juice sauce so sweet, and each perfectly cut that everyone gave her so many compliments. We had a 15 pound turkey for seven of us, meaning there were definitely plenty of leftovers!

My family time during all of thanksgiving was so nice. The food, of course, was a major highlight, but I think the best part is having my mom, dad, grandpa, and siblings all together to laugh at each other and occasionally with each other, and have these few times to share together. I hope everyone else’s Thanksgiving was as good as mine and that they are having a great time with their or someone else’s family!

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Thankful For You, and You, and You, and You, and..

There are a lot of people at my Thanksgiving. We only gather with my Dad's side of the family - but he has 10 brothers and sisters and among them all I've racked up something like 30 cousins. It is not usual for our dinner to count to reach 60. And the amount of food we serve could feed twice that - and does with a follow up party the following day. My family is slightly crazy and completely unabashed and there are plenty of hilarious stories that provide conversation fodder for years to come - but that's a different blog.

The best part about all those people and all that food is all the options and innovations it allows for. For starters, there are four turkeys (technically, only three are served Thursday and one debuts on Friday). Here's the rundown:

1. Smoked: People love this Turkey. But even if they didn't, my Dad would make it anyway just for the sense of manliness that comes from smoking an entire turkey all day. All dinner he can't stop talking about the subtle flavors different woods impart - hickory this year. The favor is (predictably) smokey and the meat moist from hours of brinning pre-smoke. That's him with his masterpiece to the right.

2. Fried: My aunt and uncle fry an entire turkey and, like most fried food, it is sinfully good - crunchy skin, tender meat and surprisingly rich in flavor.

3. Charcoal Grill: This is today's turkey so so stayed tuned for an update on the the newest method.

4. Turducken: That's right, we had a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken stuffed with stuffing courtesy of my culinarily ambitious aunt. When cut open it was a bit of a showstopper and people raved. One slice was almost enough for a full meal but on a holiday as decadent as Thanksgiving why not have meat with meat with more meat... plus everything else. The stuffing in the Turducken was bread and wild rice based with no meat - just different enough for people to take notice.

Side Dishes:

1. 30 pounds of mash potatoes: enough said.

2. cornbread: Ok, so the cornbread fell short this year. My grandmother offered to takeover one of my usual obligations and whether through ailing eyesight or negligence ended up using something other than corn. But we forgave her because her other carb contribution lived up to to its usual heady expectation.

3. homemade sourdough and pretzels: My grandmother has been making the bread for her family since my Dad sliced it for sandwiches in grade school. Nowadays, all 30 grandchildren flock to her house for fresh baked bread from miles away. My brother, Sam, is particularly enamored.

4. Cranberry sauce: This one has subsets. My immediate family takes great pride in our cranberry sauce and we whipped up options before the big day and were greeted by two more variations. Our classic cranberry sauce has a port wine base and lots of orange peels to add flavor (after a few days the peels become candied and are my favorite part). For a twist this year, we also made an "exotic" variation that included cardamon and tons of vanilla. It was certainly exotic, but for foodies looking to add some spice to one of the most classic meals of the whole year, it was a worthwhile adventure. The other chefs in the family (those responsible for the fried turkey and turducken) supplied a simple cranberry sauce and retro cranberry jello-like mold full of pineapple and strawberries. I regret being turned off by the texture because from my unscientific polling, it won in the "seconds" round.

5. Empanadas: So maybe the pilgrims and Native Americans didn't share these Spanish treats!

To save you any more salivation, I'll save the desserts for the round two wrap up after tonight's dinner. Happy Eating All!

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Black Truffle Fettucine Alfredo Recipe

This recipe produces a delicious, rich pasta dish – a true comfort food. The fragrant earthy flavours of the winter black truffle (which, at $700 a pound, cost more than silver) transform this dish into an elegant example of haute cuisine. Of course, if you are not ready to invest in few ounces black gold, this dish may be prepared without the truffles and will still taste quite good!

Black Truffle Fettucine Alfredo:

For the Sauce:

2 cups cream
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
½ cup grated Parmagianno Reggiano
½ cup grated Pecorino Romano
Salt and freshly-cracked pepper to taste
1-2 grape-sized black truffles, peeled. (available at most gourmet foods markets)

1 pound fettucine, cooked al dente

Over medium heat, warm the cream and 7 tablespoons of the butter. Meanwhile, slice truffles thin, but not paper-thin. Sautée with remaining one-tablespoon butter over medium heat until aromatic and lightly browned. Once cream comes to a simmer, stir in cheese until melted and sauce is smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Finally, toss with pasta and serve.

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