Friday, November 28, 2008

carcass-free thanksgiving #2

I made dinner for my mom, aunt & uncle, cousin, grandpa, and my mom's friend Jim.

I made a hubbard squash the size of a portly dog.
a squash the size of a dog body
Actually I only made half of it because that is all that fit in the oven.

I made some warm artichoke spinach dip.
spinach artichoke dip
I didn't use a recipe, but it is just a sliced leek and 4 minced cloves of garlic sauteed in olive oil, mixed with a block of frozen spinach (thawed) and a can of artichoke hearts (drained-n-chopped), 4 ox of tofutti cream cheese, a scoop of tofutti sour cream, salt, pepper, a tiny bit of cayenne, and a little sprinkle of nutritional yeast. Bake til hot. Serve with pita chips so everyone ruins their appetite and forgets to be angry that there is no turkey.

Speaking of no turkey.
fake turkey
The fake turkey was really good and definitely worth all of the work. Although I guess I could have arranged it a little nicer on the platter. Nonetheless, is MUCH better than tofurkey - the texture is much better, it is not rubbery at all. Next time I wouldn't do the roulade though. The stuffing inside was a little damp and the structure of it made it puff up in a stupid way while it was cooking and it was hard to turn. In loaf format I think it would be perfect.

thanksgiving dinner
Pretty standard: mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry chutney, stuffing, squash, fake turkey, roasted brussels sprouts, the ubiquitous Pillsbury crescent roll.

I made a rather dreadful pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. Luckily I also made some backup sparkled ginger cookies.
sparkled ginger cookies
You can see the bad cheesecake there lurking in the background. I should have just made regular pumpkin pie. I feel deprived about it now so I will have to make one to go with the leftovers.

More pictures.

2 comments:

Jemnifer said...

woah that dip looks yummy. sad about the cheesecake. the chocolate cheesecake turned out pretty good, you should make it. what recipe did you use for the pumpkin cheesecake? and what does hubbard squash taste like? oh and what recipe did you use for the cranberry chutney? and next year can we have thanksgiving together somehow?

hthr said...

I used the double-layer pumpkin cheesecake recipe from Fatfree Vegan Kitchen and the pecan crust from Joy of Vegan Baking. It was just gross. The filling was too dense and tangy and tasteless and the crust was like wet cardboard. Bleh. But I will try to JoVB cheesecake before I completely give up on vegan cheesecake.

Hubbard squash is kind of like butternut but it has a less paste-y consistency. More wet and chunky. In a good way. I was thinking of making soup out of the other half.

The cranberry chutney recipe:
http://www.oprah.com/recipe/omagazine/recipes/200812_omag_recipe_chutney
It is really sweet though. At first I didn't like it because it's not like cranberry sauce. It is good though. I would probably add less sugar next time. Oprah loves sugar.

Also, yes!