Thanksgiving

I always try to make a lot of sides for Vegan Thanksgiving. That way, the focus isn't on the "turkey" (which is usually a poor substitute for the real thing).

Here is my Thanksgiving menu (see below for recipes and a discussion of various brands of fake Turkeys):

Corn bread

Mashed potatoes
Savory Herb Gravy
Maple Cinnamon Sweet Potatoes and Apples

Stuffing

Cranberry Sauce

Seitan "Turkey," baked in a phyllo dough "skin"

Pumpkin Creme Brulee

Carrot Cake (from Cafe Indigo)

Lemon Rosemary Shortbread Cookies

Assorted Chocolate Truffles (from Butterfly Bakery)

Silk Nog

Hot Mulled Cider

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Sweet Potatoes and Apples:

2 lbs. sweet potatoes
2 medium green apples
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 cup orange juice
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
2 tbsp. soy margarine
1/3 cup sherry

Cook the sweet potatoes then slice, remove skin and layer in a casserole dish with thin slices of green apples. Heat all of the other ingredients in a sauce pan to make the cinnamon butter sauce. Pour over the layers of sweet potatoes and apples and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees F.

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Stuffing

1 loaf bread, toasted and cubed
1 small onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 tbsp. poultry seasoning
salt and pepper to taste
Soy milk (enough to moisten the mixture)
Soy margarine

Mix ingredients in a bowl. Add enough soy milk and soy margarine so that you can knead the mixture into a loaf. Bake at 350 F for 1 hour.

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Cranberry Sauce

1 bag cranberries
2 cups sugar
1 cup OJ

Combine ingredients in a sauce pan and dissolve sugar in OJ. Heat on stove until the cranberries start to explode. Allow the sauce to thicken slightly (should become red and syrupy) before removing from heat. The dish turns out best when about half of the cranberries have exploded and the other half are still in tact. Serve warm.

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Pumpkin Creme Brulee

Add 1/3 cup of canned pumpkin, 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice, 1 tsp allspice and an extra TBSP of cornstarch to the vanilla creme brulee recipe from my "Cheesecake and Creme Brulee" entry (before heating the mixture). Note: in this recipe, don't add vanilla beans to the white sugar.

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Lemon Rosemary Shortbread Cookies

1 stick (4 oz.) soy margarine, softened

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp. finely chopped rosemary

1/2 tsp finely grated lemon zest

2 "eggs" (use 3 tsp. Egg Replacer plus 6 TBSPS water)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/3 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking power

1/4 tsp. salt

Turbinado sugar for decorating

Beat sugar, butter, rosemary and lemon zest until creamy. Beat in "eggs" and vanilla. Whisk together flour, baking power and salt in a bowl. Add to butter mixture and beat until just combined. Shape into a 1-inch wide log, wrap in wax paper and chill for at least 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spray baking sheets with cooking spray. Slice cookies into 1/3 inch-thick slices. Cover the top of each cookie slice with turbinado sugar, then place sugar-side up on baking sheets and bake for 10-13 minutes (until the sides of the cookies just start to brown).

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A note about "Turkey":

I used to buy an UnTurkey every year for Thanksgiving until Now and Zen stopped making them. For the past two years, I have had to settle for a Tofurkey, which have a spongy texture. This year I decided to order a seitan turkey from Cafe Indigo, which I baked inside of a phyllo dough crust (to resemble skin). The seitan turkey was delicious!

Macaroni and Cheese

Non-vegans are always confused when I get excited about vegan versions of meat and dairy dishes. The inevitable follow-up question is always: "Why do vegans want to eat imitation versions of non-vegan foods?" Some people use this as supporting evidence for the theory that my body craves these dishes because HUMANS ARE SUPPOSED to eat meat and dairy. I firmly believe that the real reason that I crave these dishes, however, has little to do with biological impetus and much more to do with the comfort associated with eating the foods that I was raised on. The quintessential "comfort food" that comes to mind is macaroni and cheese, so I will dedicate this entry to discussing its vegan analogues.

There are a number of restaurants that make dairy-free macaroni and cheese. Unfortunately, I have yet to find one that gets it right. Here are my takes on some of them:

1) Soul Vegetarian - It's hard to say anything too specific because the preparation is highly variable. Sometimes the macaroni are swimming in oil, other times they taste too much like nutritional yeast. Occasionally Soul Veg bakes the macaroni with herbs mixed in, which hides the nutritional yeast flavor and makes the dish taste more like a casserole.

2) Karyn's Cooked - Overpriced is probably the best adjective in this case. A tiny bowl of bland-tasting macaroni and cheese will cost you $4 (it's about $1 per forkful). The color is fairly off-putting - rather than the traditional yellow or orange, the macaroni and cheese at Karyn's is beige.

3) Chicago Diner - Of all of the restaurant versions of macaroni and cheese that I've tried, the Chicago Diner's LOOKS the most appetizing. The macaroni and cheese is covered in breadcrumbs and sprinkled with paprika, then baked. The outside edges are slightly crispy and the inside is warm and gooey. The dish would be great if only the flavor matched the appearance. Instead, it tastes like noodles dipped in soy sour cream.

4) New Ethic Cafe - If you order the vegan macaroni and cheese at New Ethic Cafe, you'll get a generous helping of orange, buttery-tasting noodles. The problem is that the butter flavor is the only flavor in the dish. I wouldn't have known that it was supposed to be macaroni and cheese if it hadn't been for the color and the name listed on the menu.

VERDICT: Don't order vegan macaroni and cheese at any of these restaurants. Particularly if you still remember what good macaroni and cheese tastes like. You will almost definitely be disappointed.

Cheese(less)cake and Creme(-free) Brulee

Once upon a time, I was non-vegan and I loved cheesecake and creme brulee. One of the biggest disappointments in going vegan was not the lack of dairy-free versions of these amazing desserts but rather the large number of restaurants that serve very poor imitations. I think that serving a bad vegan version of "normal" food actually does vegans a bigger disservice than not selling the food in the first place, since it propagates the idea that vegan food is a substandard version of normal food.

For the sake of vegans everywhere, the following restaurants should immediately stop selling cheesecake (or get a new recipe): Soul Vegetarian East, The Chicago Diner, Candle Cafe, Lifethyme Vegan Bakery, Cafe Indigo, My Thai Bubble Tea & Bistro. The only restaurant that I've been to that makes a convincing vegan cheesecake is Red Bamboo in New York City. Red Bamboo's cheesecake has the right texture and is appropriately dense (ie. it's not overly "fluffy" like a mouse). The cheesecake does not have a soy aftertaste.

As for Creme Brulee, I have only found two restaurants that make a bona fide vegan version. The Inn of he Seventh Ray (Malibu, California) serves an almond milk creme brulee and Counter (Manhattan, New York) serves a soy milk creme brulee. Interestingly enough, the creme brulee at Counter resembles cheesecake more closely than many of the vegan cheesecakes that I have tried. Needless to say, it did not make a very convincing creme brulee. The creme brulee at The Inn of the Seventh Ray had the right texture and did not have a soy aftertaste. However, the flavor was still a little off.

VERDICT: Avoid vegan cheesecake unless you are at Red Bamboo (or any of the other restaurants in the NY/PA area that serve desserts from the same bakery).

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Side Note: Matt and Teresa sent me this creme brulee recipe and I think it comes about as close to creme brulee as anything that I have tried in a restaurant.

Mix thoroughly in a saucepan (no heat yet):
1/3 c vanilla sugar (to make this, combine 1/3 c white sugar with the interior "dots" scraped from 1/2 vanilla bean)

2 Tbs + 1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt

Gradually stir in 1/3 cup unsweetened "vanilla" almond milk to make a smooth runny paste.

Whisk in another 1 and 2/3 c almond milk.

Stirring constantly, heat the mixture (over medium heat) until it begins to thicken. Reduce the heat to low, stirring briskly, bring to a simmer and cook for 1 minute.

Pour the pudding into the bowl or cups, then press plastic wrap directly on top to prevent a skin from forming.

Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

When you are ready to serve the dish, sprinkle white sugar on top and blowtorch until the sugar is caramelized.

I think that the texture is about right, but I'm still working on the flavor. "Real" creme brulee borrows a lot of its flavor from the egg yolks, so that has been one of my bigger challenges to overcome. I've been toying with the idea of making a "Silk Nog" creme brulee for the holidays, but I'm not convinced that this will lend the right "egg" flavor. Last year, I made a pumpkin creme brulee for Thanksgiving that turned out pretty well, but that was mostly because the taste of the pumpkin spice masked the flavor.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions on how to improve the taste of my creme brulee recipe (or, if you have a good recipe for vegan cheesecake, please send it my way!).

Vegan Day-Trips from Hanover

Hanover, NH has to be one of the LEAST vegan-friendly college towns in the country. Sure, most restaurants have the token veggie burger on the menu, but usually that's it. Fortunately, there are a number of other towns "in the area" with good vegan options:

1) Concord, NH

Location: about 50 minutes Southeast from Hanover on I-89

Restaurant(s): Cafe Indigo is an all-vegan restaurant which features sandwiches, soups, salads and homemade vegan desserts. The restaurant is closed on Saturdays, but on Sundays it features what is arguably the best vegan brunch in Northern New England. For $15, you get all-you-can-eat from the salad bar and the dessert bar, unlimited cups of tea and coffee (which comes with Silk soy creamer) and your choice of entree.

Area Attractions: It's fun just to walk around downtown Concord. There are a number of eco-friendly stores (Earth Made, Gondwana, Lotions-n-Potions) and coffee shops.

2) Montpelier, VT

Location: about an hour Northwest from Hanover on I-89

Restaurant(s): Kismet Kitchen is a cute localvore cafe with a number of vegan items on the menu. The food is creative: for example, the tofu scramble comes with a side of roasted root vegetables and your choice of polenta or a (vegan!) crepe. In addition to the standard coffee and tea drinks, Kismet serves a "dandelion latte," sweetened with Vermont maple syrup. This place is reason enough to make the trip from Hanover. However, I find it easier to justify spending the gas money by staying in town for the afternoon and studying at the Langdon Street Cafe, which makes wonderful soy coffee drinks and usually has vegan cookies or brownies at the counter. I like to stock up on Liz Lovely vegan cookies when I'm in Montpelier - The Hunger Mountain Co-op usually has 6 or 7 different flavors.

Area Attractions: Montpelier is built on top of two rivers, so there are covered bridges at every turn, not to mention the majestic gold-domed capital building and surrounding parks. It's a very charming place to walk around. There are a number of bookstores to explore, ranging from bestsellers (Bear Pond Books) to antiquities (Book Garden, Rivendell Books) to a worker-owned anarchist book collective (Black Sheep Books). Montpelier is also home to a number of coffee shops, vintage clothing stores and art galleries.

3) Burlington, VT

Location: about 90 minutes Northwest of Hanover on I-89

Restaurant(s): The New Ethic Cafe is an all-vegan cafe which specializes in comfort food. They have a large selection of vegan "chicken" dishes, sandwiches, nachos, cornbread, and dairy-free macaroni and cheese. My favorite menu item is the "chicken" ranch sandwich with coconut "bacon." On Saturdays, they make homemade vegan donuts. A Single Pebble is a Chinese restaurant that features vegan mock-meat versions of almost everything that appears on the regular menu, not to mention a large selection of exotic teas.

Area Attractions: Burlington is home to the University of Vermont, and has a nightlife to match the needs to college students. There are tons of bars (alcohol and hookah), concert venues and late-night coffee shops. Church Street is a pedestrian street that features a large number of locally-owned boutiques and sidewalk cafes.

4) Northampton, MA

Location: about 90 minutes South of Hanover on I-91

Restaurant(s): Evolution is an all-vegan cafe in nearby Florence, MA (if you're on Main Street in Northampton, just continue past Smith College for five minutes and you'll get to Evolution). Evolution makes sandwiches, amazing vegan nachos and the BEST VEGAN CUPCAKES I HAVE EVER EATEN. Seriously. Evolution also usually has a selection of vegan scones, cookies, chocolate peanut butter rice crispy treats and other wonderful dairy-free baked goods. They also make incredible vegan brunch on Sundays, including lemon blueberry corn wafles and vegan shitake mushroom omlets. Green Bean is a trendy cafe in downtown Northampton. It is only open for breakfast and lunch. It has really tasty vegan cornmeal pancakes and biscuits smothered in almond gravy. There are a number of other vegan items on the menu, including chocolate cupcakes (although I like the cupcakes at Evolution a lot more). Haymarket Cafe has a coffee shop upstairs and a restaurant downstairs, both of which are incredibly vegan-friendly. The coffee shop features a large number of vegan baked goods (including the chocolate ganache cake pictured above). Northampton is also home to the Whole Foods and Trader Joe's branches that are closest to Hanover.

Area Attractions: Northampton has a number of stores featuring hip clothing, local handicrafts, and exotic imports from Africa, Asia and South America. The Pleasant Street Movie Theater showcases a good selection of foreign and independent films (including films by local filmmakers) and sells vegan cookies at its concession stand. The Iron Horse Music Hall and the Pearl Street Nightclub feature performances by nationally-renowned music groups.

First Entry

I'm starting a blog with two real purposes in mind:

Like many vegans, I am obsessed with good food. Unfortunately, good vegan food is hard to find, especially when you live in rural New Hampshire. As a result, I spend a lot of my time driving to cities with vegan-friendly restaurants. Often, I review these restaurants on www.vegguide.org, but I've found that restaurant reviews aren't always the best venue for directly comparing specific dishes across restaurants. This blog will enable me to give my honest opinion in a series of food match-ups. 

Because there isn't much good vegan food where I live, I often resort to cooking. I never used to cook when I didn't have to (I'm a busy grad student!) but sometimes I can only handle so many flavorless burritos and greasy Asian stir fry dishes before I find myself scouring the pages of the 30+ vegan cookbooks on my shelf. I thought I would post some of the better recipes here so that others can get inspired to try a new vegan recipe every once in a while.