Thanksgiving. Oh how I love Thanksgiving! We had ours early this year. My Beloved works retail which means he’s never home on Thanksgiving Day, or that whole (Black Friday) weekend for that matter. So our Thanksgiving feast is always either before or after the proper day. This year we celebrated on the Saturday before and boy did we celebrate! This is only my second all-vegan Thanksgiving.

     While last year’s feast was delicious, this year’s was even better. Last year, I had only been vegan for a few months and was still learning the ropes. I basically took all my typical non-vegetarian recipes and vegan-ized them. Thankfully, I took notes last year and was really fully prepared this year.

     There were some very notable improvements, most especially in my stuffing. My old version called for chicken stock which I made from scratch, days in advance. I would use roasted vegetables and the bones of a whole chicken. I should have known back then that I was meant to be a vegan, or at least a vegetarian. I ALWAYS dreaded making chicken stock as the thought of even looking at the chicken carcass made me gag. My amazing sous-chef, my Beloved, who happens to have the stomach of steel, would do the heavy work of placing the skeletal remains of the poor chicken into the stock pot. Blegh! Just the thought still makes me cringe.

     Disappointed with the lack of flavor of my stuffing last year, I went on a quest to make a vegetable stock that would compare. I’ll bore you with that recipe another time. Today’s recipe focuses on the best stuffing I’ve ever made, and eaten, for that matter.  Thankfully there are companies out there that actually make vegetable stock. I found it at Whole Foods and although it’s pricey, it makes a good substitute for my homemade vegetable stock.

     If I’m making stuffing for Thanksgiving, I always double the recipe. At every holiday meal it’s the first food item to go and it’s the recipe I’m asked for the most. I think next year I’ll triple the recipe.

Vegan Stuffing

What you’ll need:

Large casserole dish (9×13 glass Pyrex pan works great)

Large mixing bowl

Soup pot

Oven

Broiler (optional)

Ingredients:

2 tablespoon vegan butter, divided, plus more for bread slices and casserole dish

1 tablespoon olive oil

¾ cup diced onion

A few pinches of sugar (optional)

¼ teaspoon salt

1 loaf of whole wheat bread

OR 1 bag of plain unseasoned stuffing bread (I prefer whole wheat)*

¼ cup carrots, pureed (about 1 large carrot)

2 – 3 cloves of garlic, pureed

¾ cup diced celery

1 teaspoon rubbed sage

1 teaspoon thyme

1 ½ teaspoons poultry seasoning

½ teaspoon pepper

1 cup (roasted) vegetable stock**

1 ½ cup vegetable broth (or non-chicken chick’n broth)

1 vegetable bouillon cube

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Heat a large sauté pan and add 1 tablespoon of vegan butter and olive oil. Add diced onions and slightly caramelize (about 15 – 20 minutes).

3. Meanwhile, lightly butter the bread slices and then arrange them, buttered side up, on the top rack of the oven. Don’t worry if the oven hasn’t reached 350 degrees at this point. Toast the buttered bread slices for about 3 minutes. If you happen to be lucky enough to have a separate broiler, broil the buttered bread slices on low for about a minute or 2, watching them very carefully so they don’t burn.  DON’T WALK AWAY FROM THIS STEP IN THE PROCESS. Your bread slices can easily burn.

4. Remove from oven (or broiler) and set aside, spread out, to cool.

5. Back to the onions -  don’t stir too often. Allow them to brown. Add a pinch or 2 of sugar (optional) after about 10 minutes and stir.

6. While the onions cook, puree the carrots and garlic in a blender or food processor, scraping the sides often.

7. Once the onions have reached a slightly caramelized state, add the carrot and garlic puree and the salt to the onions. Stir and mix well. Sauté for 5 minutes.

8. Add diced celery and the remaining 1 tablespoon of vegan butter. Continue cooking until celery is tender.

9. Remove from heat and transfer to large bowl. Allow to cool.

10. In a pot, heat and mix vegetable broth, vegetable stock and vegetable bouillon cube. Stir well and heat until bouillon dissolves completely. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.

11. Meanwhile, cut the cooled toasted bread slices into ½ inch squares. Add the bread squares to the large bowl of cooling sautéed veggies as you cut.

12. Season with rubbed sage, thyme, poultry seasoning and pepper. Stir well.

13. Slowly add broth/stock, a ½ cup at a time, mixing until saturated but not soaking.

14. Grease casserole dish with vegan butter.

15. Add stuffing to casserole dish. Slightly smooth, and then cover with foil.

16. Bake in the middle rack for 25 minutes.

17. Optional step: after 25 minutes, raise oven temperature to 375. Remove foil and cook for an additional 5 to 10 minutes (check for crispiness after 5 minutes) or until slightly crispy on top.

*It’s been challenging to find whole wheat stuffing bread. In fact, I gave up looking for it altogether. I also gave up looking for stuffing bread that doesn’t have high fructose corn syrup or other artificial crap. I just use a loaf of store-bought whole wheat bread and cut it up into cubes. Not as easy as simply opening a bag but worth the extra steps.

**If you can’t find vegetable stock, simply substitute with 1 cup of vegetable broth, an additional vegetable bouillon cube and a tablespoon of tomato paste. Heat and stir until the bouillon and tomato paste are fully dissolved. Or, stay tuned for my veggie stock recipe.

Moroccan Lentil & Garbanzo Soup 

Warning: your house will smell so so very very delicious when cooking this soup. You better make a whole lot for seconds and thirds. It freezes great, tastes better the next day (will need a little reconstituting) and makes a perfect autumn dish.

I’ve used butternut squash and banana squash, chopped into ¼ inch cubes but you can use any squash in season or leave it out altogether. My taste buds are only just beginning to enjoy spicy foods so I use a small about of cayenne pepper, about ½ teaspoon. Be sure to add the entire can of diced tomatoes, juice and all – do not drain the cans. I puree the garlic, onion, fresh parsley, and ginger in my nifty Ninja blender with a 1/2 cup of water.

I serve it with brown rice and if I have the time, some homemade naan bread or homemade pita bread. Add a little hummus to the pita and make a nutty salad and you’ve got yourself a 3-course meal that’s protein packed and incredibly healthy.

Ingredients:

½ to 1 cup cooked brown rice per person

10 cups water (plus more water needed later)

1 bag of lentils, washed and rinsed

3 cups cooked garbanzos (or 2 – 15oz cans)

1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons veggie base

3 garlic, puree

1 onion, puree

½ cup packed fresh parsley, puree

2 tsp. ginger (1 inch square) puree

(add 1/2 cup water to blender or food processor)

1 green pepper, seeded and diced

3 celery stalks, diced

2 carrots, diced or sliced

4 green onion, diced

1 cup chopped (¼ inch cubes) squash of choice (optional)

2 cans diced tomatoes (UNdrained)

The juice of 1 lemon (about 2 – 3 tablespoons)

1 tablespoon cumin

1 ½ tsp. coriander

½ tsp. black pepper

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. ground cayenne red pepper (more or less depending on how spicy you like it)

½ tsp. turmeric

1 tsp. sugar

3 tsp. sea salt

Pepper to taste

1. Wash and cook brown rice according to package instructions.

2. In a large pot, boil water.

3. Add lentils, garbanzos and oil to pot once the water reaches a boil

4. Lower heat, add veggie base and stir

5. Meanwhile chop, dice and puree all the indicated ingredients: Puree the onion, garlic, ginger and parsley together – add to the pot and stir

6. Add the remaining ingredients to the pot as you chop/dice and stir

7. Add spices and canned tomatoes, stir

8. Cook for 25 minutes on low heat, covered, stirring occasionally

Add more water if needed, up to 5 more cups

Serve with rice

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