Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving Past

For the past two years, my mom and I have really cooked up a storm at Thanksgiving. I get excited about cooking in a "guest kitchen" that is big and has actual counter space and I like introducing my family to my vegan foods, as much as they may protest. The past two Thanksgivings, I have also tried some new dishes that have been great additions!

My favorite dish is what I call Chickpea Meatballs. It is adapted from the chickpea cutlets of theppk.com. Last year I tried the cutlets and I found the cutlets to be a little dry. Here are some shots of the chickpea cutlet process:

First I mashed up the chickpeas. 

Added the ingredients and the vital wheat gluten, which I had used for the first time, made it meat-like. 

My very own meat-like substance. 

The cutlets waiting to be cooked. 

Cooking the cutlets. 

But I was not a fan of the cutlet format, so a couple days later I tried the meatball format. I made some changes to the recipe, too. Mainly, I changed the order of which I put in the ingredients. I put in all the wet ingredients and the spices in first. Then I pre-mixed the vital wheat gluten and the breadcrumbs and them mixed it all together into a dough-like substance. I also add a little extra veggie broth at the end. It keeps them nice and moist. Then I roll them into little balls, sprinkle them with paprika then fry, then finish them off in the oven for a very short time. 

Cooking the chickpea meatballs

Ready for the oven. 

The chickpea meatballs at this year's Thanksgiving. 

These chickpea meatballs have been great. I have eaten them plain, with mushroom gravy (keep reading for this one) and as you would eat meatballs in pasta with red sauce. 

Another hit of the Thanksgiving meal for the past two years has been the mushroom gravy. Again, I got the recipe from theppk.com. And this year we made it again, thinner, and used it as a pasta sauce. Very yummy. 

Last year, mixing the onion, garlic and mushroom for the gravy. 

Last year's gravy on the stove. 

Last year's gravy. 

This year's gravy, a little thicker. 

Last year I also made my own stuffing. I have a problem with onions, though. So this is as far as a I got chopping the onion last year. 

This year my mom did any necessary onion chopping and I hid upstairs. My eyes are very sensitive. The stuffing came out really well last year:

I love a lot of celery and there is the onion my mom finished chopping. 

Toasting bread. 

And here is the stuffing. 

This year we opted for the Whole Foods brand vegan stuffing mix in order to save time and energy. I recommend it. It is tasty. 

Both years we also made the standard mashed potatoes and yams. 

Last year we made A LOT of potatoes and yams. This year we really cut back. 

Last year I did well with garnish. 

Here are last year's yams. 

This year's yams came out much better. 

The potatoes this year were a little garlic-y but good. I slacked on the garnish. 

We also made vegetables each year...

Last year's Thanksgiving plate...plastic

This year's Thanksgiving plate... fancy

And here is this year's Thanksgiving table (meat made by my mom for the rest of my family is strategically hidden). 

All in all, two years of great Thanksgiving meals. And who says Thanksgiving is all about the Turkey?

I am back! And...Loaf cakes!

After being asked many times to revive my blog, the peer pressure finally got to me and I am back! I have many pictures stored up and plan to update you on my cooking adventures of the last year as well as share current cooking creations. This was a busy year and it was hard to find time to cook let alone post. But I am going to attempt to catch up and to cook more!

Update on my vegan-ness. I am TOTALLY vegan now. Before I would always cook vegan but sometimes eat things like cookies that had eggs and milk cooked no. No more! 100% vegan... but I do eat honey. So maybe more like 99.9%.

I have recently been really into these loaf cake recipes fro

m my favorite vegan recipe site theppk.com.

Chocolate Pumpkin Loaf

and

Marbled Banana Bread

I made them both in one night which took some maneuvering around my small kitchen. But they came out really well.

Then this weekend for Thanksgiving I made the Chocolate Pumpkin Loaf into a Bunt Cake and made a Maple Syrup Glaze for the top. It was good but I needed to adjust the cooking time for the bunt shape...I will know for next time. I also did not have the proper amount of powder sugar so the glaze was a little grainy. But still tasty and a good vegan dessert among all the non-vegan pies the rest of my family ate.

I also made another Banana Marble Loaf this weekend but it came out too banana-y because I used a very interesting mutant banana! In the peel, it looked large. Then when I opened it, it was a conjoined twin banana! REGRET: I did not take a picture. I don't know what I was thinking. It was cool. But the largeness of this mutant banana made the cake very banana-y. I should have measured the pureed banana but fell victim to laziness.

All in all, the loaf cakes have been great to add to my repertoire and I have a feeling they will become standard dessert fare for me .

It's good to be back. More soon... I promise.