Vegan Thanksgiving Recipes for Success!

My last post was full of exciting plans for a belated vegan Thanksgiving meal. I am happy to report that it was a resounding success full of tastiness!

I made the pumpkin pie in advance so as to give it time to set but, although I think it turned out pretty well for a first attempt, I’m not sure I’m sold on the idea of pumpkin pie itself! Not being a fan of pumpkin it was a risk making it the main factor in a pie but I was determined to do things traditionally (well, as traditional as a vegan Thanksgiving could be). I’ll have to try someone else’s pumpkin pie to give it another chance of course!

The Bloody Mary soup (secret family recipe, shh…) was delicious as always and started things off with a nice kick of vodka. Then we had roast potatoes, carrots, and Tofurky, with balsamic dijon maple syrup roasted brussel sprouts, my classic nut roast, and gravy. Yum!

The nutroast recipe is as follows and is pretty foolproof, having served me well on many an occasion:

NutRoast Recipe Ingredients

• 1 onion, diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, diced
• 4-6 mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 1tbsp plain flour (or a little less if wholewheat)
• 300ml veg stock (or a tad more if using wholewheat flour)
• 175g nuts, coarsely ground
• 175g breadcrumbs
• 1tbsp soy sauce
• 1tbsp mixed herbs

and the Method to the Madness

1. Preheat oven to 190C (365F).
2. Fry the onions and mushrooms until softened, then add the garlic and fry a little longer.
3. Meanwhile, grind up the nuts and breadcrumbs and mix with the herbs.
4. Sprinkle the tablespoon of flour onto the onion mix and mix with the juices to form a rough roux, cook on a very low heat for two minutes.
5. Add in the stock and soy sauce and bring to the boil, stirring all the time to loosen the flour mix.
6. Leave to simmer for 4-6mins
7. Add this to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly then spoon the mixture into a greased/lined loaf pan and cook for 30-40mins, or until a knife comes out clean from the nutroast’s centre.

The nutroast can be made to look really fancy by layering some nuts at the bottom of the loafpan so that when it is turned out onto a plate these form a nice little embellishment on the top. It’s best to let the roast cool a little before placing a wide flat plate over the top and turning both roast and plate upside down then gently pulling away the pan (and lining if necessary). This makes it much easier than trying to force the nutroast out with knives and spatulas! If left to cool for five to ten minutes the roast will be much easier to cut into actual slices with a large knife, otherwise it will likely crumble and not look quite so professional… believe me, my impatience has gotten the better of me many a time. The leftovers are delicious cold with a dash of cranberry sauce and, if you have a bowl big enough and more than one loafpan make two and freeze one for emergency purposes!

For a gluten-free and anti-Candida diet friendly version of this recipe look to GladCow – always amazing and innovative.

For the Vegantastic Tasty Gravy to smother everything I used an adapted recipe that I can’t now recall the original source of, sorry! If it’s yours then let me know so I can give credit:

Vegan Gravy Ingredients

• 1 (vegan!) stock cube
• 2 cups water (cold)
• 1/2tsp onion flakes or powder
• 1/4tsp garlic granules
• 3tbsps nooch (nutritional yeast)
• 1tsp liquid aminos or soy sauce
• 1tsp mustard
• 1/2 cup wholewheat flour
• 1tbsp margarine (vegan, of course)
• A dash of chilli powder or cayenne
• Salt and pepper, to season.

and the Method to the Madness:

1. Mix all the dry ingredients (except for the flour) in a saucepan, then stir in the wet ingredients and put on a low heat.
2. Once the margarine has melted sprinkle the flour into the mix, stirring all the while.
3. Spending a few minutes or so squashing lumps of flour will allow the mix to cook sufficiently so once the gravy is (mostly!) lump-free it’s ready to go and smother a tofurky roast, nutroast, veg, tempeh burgers or vegan poutine. Yum!

Bear in mind that the gravy will thicken as it cools so add a little extra water if you like your gravy thinner and, if you have extra, reheat any saved gravy slowly with a little extra water to have with another meal.

And finally, the vegan pumpkin pie was, as mentioned in the earlier post, based on a recipe from VeganVelo and GentleWorld and looked something like this when partly devoured!

Happy Vegan Thanksgiving everyone, what did you eat this year?

Tagged as: dairy-free, recipe, recipes, wholefood

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