very vegan christmas eve
A few months ago C expressed a desire to make a tofurkey around Christmas time. I suggested my place as it was much bigger than his, and we could have few people to join us...
Fortunately the office closed early on Christmas eve so I went to the market near work on the way home to pick up the last few things we needed. Borough Market has a number of lovely vegetable stalls wedge in between the corpses. And no I'm not being a pedantic vegan on that one, alot of the stalls have freshly killed rabbit, duck and phesant hanging whole with feathers and fur still intact (I wish they did that at Sainsbury's!). There is also at least one stall that sells foie gras, numerous stalls selling fish, "happy meat", wild game, dairy produce and so on. On the upside there is a lovely organic baker, lots of olives, dips, mushrooms, vegetables, pickles, jams, fresh organic juices, vegie burgers, sweets, wine and fruits. On my way out of the market I spied someone selling fresh mistletoe so I bought a bunch for decoration and luck. Swung by the supermarket to get a few last things and headed home.
C and I had come up with a menu for the evening to go with his desire for tofurkey. Tofurkey (or Foturkey as we ended up calling it) is something that I have have heard many of my American friends talk about over the years and was keen to try. Basically it can best be described as a turkey flavoured mock meat roll with stuffing in it that you roast. It was actually really tasty, lots of herbs and interesting flavours. We got the "feast" version which also comes with gravy and dumplings.
Of course we didn't just feed 11 people on a single Foturkey. Whilst C and I came up with the menu, it was lovely to have so many of our friends helping out in the creation and consumption of such a lovely meal. So what else did we do for Xmas eve?
Roasted vegetables.
Yes, it's simple and traditional, but both C and I love roasted vegies. K and I seemed to spend ages peeling and chopping mountains of beetroot, pumpkin, sweet potato, parsnip, carrot and two types of normal white potato. These were coated in vegetable oil, dried thyme, freshly ground salt and pepper and baked in the oven. Due to space requirements we cooked them most of the way through, then just heated them before we were about to serve. There were also boiled peas on C's insistence. I am not such a big fan of peas- but agreed to give them a chance.
Stuffed mushrooms.
C enlisted Ax to make the stuffing which they then put into large flat mushrooms and topped with a baby tomato before baking in the oven until they were all brown and yummy looking. This stuffing was also used in the Celebration Nut Roast that C made the following day.
To drink, we asked for contributions to the Mulled Wine.
Despite what everyone in Perth seems to think, mulled wine doesn't require honey and pretty much everyone I have spoken to it here (including the non vegans) thinks it's weird. The basic mulled wine recipe is for every 2 bottles of lovely vegan red wine (which you can pick up for a mere £2.56 each from Sainsbury's) add:
* two sticks of cinnamon
* two tablespoons of nutmeg
* four tablespoons of sugar
* an orange stuffed with cloves
* an orange quartered and the rind scraped back, ideally into pretty patterns
* a splash of orange juice to taste
Put on a low heat and keep topping up every time someone brings more wine.
I decided to continue my love affair with baked goods and marzipan and did
Stuffed Pears with Custard.
I got JP to core and halve dessert pears whilst I made the filling involving:
* Chopped marzipan (actually JP and I ate quite a bit of this during the chopping process)
* Flaked almonds
* A few tablespoons of orange juice
* Chopped dates
* Sultanas
* Mixed dried fruits
* The fresh bit of pear that was being removed
I simply mixed it all together and stuffed the pears with it and baked them in a medium oven for around 20minutes (the were brown and the sides were cooked). To serve I heated some custard - we cheated and just used boxed soya custard - which was poured over the top. Someone else brought along some lovely almond orange dark chocolate which went well.
The evening was delightful. The "happybouncy" music mix was deemed to be much like a JJJ Hottest 100 and people stayed up until the wee hours of the morning chatting. Finding room for seven extra bodies to crash was interesting to say the least *grins*
The following day banana cinnamon pancakes were made in the morning before heading over to S's place for Christmas dinner... and that will be discussed in the next post!
Fortunately the office closed early on Christmas eve so I went to the market near work on the way home to pick up the last few things we needed. Borough Market has a number of lovely vegetable stalls wedge in between the corpses. And no I'm not being a pedantic vegan on that one, alot of the stalls have freshly killed rabbit, duck and phesant hanging whole with feathers and fur still intact (I wish they did that at Sainsbury's!). There is also at least one stall that sells foie gras, numerous stalls selling fish, "happy meat", wild game, dairy produce and so on. On the upside there is a lovely organic baker, lots of olives, dips, mushrooms, vegetables, pickles, jams, fresh organic juices, vegie burgers, sweets, wine and fruits. On my way out of the market I spied someone selling fresh mistletoe so I bought a bunch for decoration and luck. Swung by the supermarket to get a few last things and headed home.
C and I had come up with a menu for the evening to go with his desire for tofurkey. Tofurkey (or Foturkey as we ended up calling it) is something that I have have heard many of my American friends talk about over the years and was keen to try. Basically it can best be described as a turkey flavoured mock meat roll with stuffing in it that you roast. It was actually really tasty, lots of herbs and interesting flavours. We got the "feast" version which also comes with gravy and dumplings.
Of course we didn't just feed 11 people on a single Foturkey. Whilst C and I came up with the menu, it was lovely to have so many of our friends helping out in the creation and consumption of such a lovely meal. So what else did we do for Xmas eve?
Roasted vegetables.
Yes, it's simple and traditional, but both C and I love roasted vegies. K and I seemed to spend ages peeling and chopping mountains of beetroot, pumpkin, sweet potato, parsnip, carrot and two types of normal white potato. These were coated in vegetable oil, dried thyme, freshly ground salt and pepper and baked in the oven. Due to space requirements we cooked them most of the way through, then just heated them before we were about to serve. There were also boiled peas on C's insistence. I am not such a big fan of peas- but agreed to give them a chance.
Stuffed mushrooms.
C enlisted Ax to make the stuffing which they then put into large flat mushrooms and topped with a baby tomato before baking in the oven until they were all brown and yummy looking. This stuffing was also used in the Celebration Nut Roast that C made the following day.
To drink, we asked for contributions to the Mulled Wine.
Despite what everyone in Perth seems to think, mulled wine doesn't require honey and pretty much everyone I have spoken to it here (including the non vegans) thinks it's weird. The basic mulled wine recipe is for every 2 bottles of lovely vegan red wine (which you can pick up for a mere £2.56 each from Sainsbury's) add:
* two sticks of cinnamon
* two tablespoons of nutmeg
* four tablespoons of sugar
* an orange stuffed with cloves
* an orange quartered and the rind scraped back, ideally into pretty patterns
* a splash of orange juice to taste
Put on a low heat and keep topping up every time someone brings more wine.
I decided to continue my love affair with baked goods and marzipan and did
Stuffed Pears with Custard.
I got JP to core and halve dessert pears whilst I made the filling involving:
* Chopped marzipan (actually JP and I ate quite a bit of this during the chopping process)
* Flaked almonds
* A few tablespoons of orange juice
* Chopped dates
* Sultanas
* Mixed dried fruits
* The fresh bit of pear that was being removed
I simply mixed it all together and stuffed the pears with it and baked them in a medium oven for around 20minutes (the were brown and the sides were cooked). To serve I heated some custard - we cheated and just used boxed soya custard - which was poured over the top. Someone else brought along some lovely almond orange dark chocolate which went well.
The evening was delightful. The "happybouncy" music mix was deemed to be much like a JJJ Hottest 100 and people stayed up until the wee hours of the morning chatting. Finding room for seven extra bodies to crash was interesting to say the least *grins*
The following day banana cinnamon pancakes were made in the morning before heading over to S's place for Christmas dinner... and that will be discussed in the next post!