Double Creamy Fruit Salad and Christmas, 2012!

Yes, I know, I'm barely squeezing my Christmas post in before the end of the year!  But, I'm just glad to be doing it.  I have been disgustingly sick for three weeks, and am carving out a spot of energy to do this post.  Actually, without GR and G, Christmas wouldn't have been the same.  GR baked all of our cookies and the Happy Birthday, Jesus, cake, set up the tree and its lights, and decorated inside and out.  She is my Christmas-loving girl - remember her bedroom?  And, G somehow made our tired out carpets look new with his obsessive vacuuming.  Thank you, both!  As usual, my parents came over for breakfast, and we also had two extra guests this year, so it was really nice to get that extra help.

Also, as usual, we had a dinner potluck with the larger, extended family, and I decided to make a salad I veganized from a gathering a long time ago.  When I was in college, I belonged to an environmental club, and at one of our potlucks, a guy brought this simple unnamed fruit salad that had this amazing dressing on top.  It was such a great group, and he was such a cool guy.  He was actually the first person to give me an article on how animals raised for food are treated: it was a one-page article with a photo of a veal calf.  That was the first meat I gave up.  I tried once in high school to become veg but didn't stick with it.  Anyhow, I have saved that weathered article all these years because it was so life-changing for me.  So, that was the guy, and that was his salad dressing, but it was dairy-based.  He didn't seem to really measure anything, I was chatting with him as he  basically just plopped stuff in a bowl, but I've gone strict and offered measurements.  I know some of this fruit isn't in its proper season, but it still tasted great.  Maybe he'll see this and rub his chin with the memory.

The rest of our day's food went like this:

Breakfast:

Our first gingerbread house
Cookies by GR:  Tiger Balls, Chocolate Chip, Holiday Cookies
Happy Birthday, Jesus, cake by GR
Chocolate hearts by GR
Loaded Cinnamon Rolls
Breakfast Potato Skillet
Sausage and Cheese Muffins
Chips
Amazing fruit platter by my mom (unpictured)
Juices, Hot Cider and Coffee

Dinner:

I brought:
Double Creamy Fruit Salad
Tofurky

We also could eat:
Green salad
Rolls
Baked Beans - recipe passed down for generations
3 types of cookies and an apple pie
No complaints here!

On with the pics and recipe.  Have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!  My goal is to definitely amp up my postings.  Hopefully, all the craziness and sickness are behind us now.

Our first gingerbread house!  GR and I mainly did this with JK's little hands "helping" as he could.  GR was surprisingly bossy with this thing.  It was a blast to make it with her.

Our breakfast table.  The fruit platter didn't make the shot.  All was delicious, of course.  :-)

These didn't make the earlier shot either.  GR made these chocolate hearts for us.

Our annual trek to the fire station to deliver cookies.  I love our station and all it's crews!  GR's cookies are being held by the firefighter standing next to SR.  JK's in front with some new Christmas wrestlers, GR's wearing her new Big Bang Theory shirt, SR's wearing her new Christmas dress, and she'll be getting that cast off in a couple of weeks.

A serving of Double Creamy Fruit salad.  A white dressing, in a white bowl on my mom's white counter wasn't the greatest combination, but trust me, this is so good.

Double Creamy Fruit Salad

Ingredients:

Can be flexible here.  Use several cups of your favorite fruits.  I used:

1 pineapple, chopped
2 Fuji apples, cored and chopped
2 bananas, sliced
1 cup of blueberries

Dressing:
1 cup vegan sour cream
1 cup vegan vanilla ice cream

Directions:

Put all fruit in a large bowl.  Ten minutes before serving, take out the ice cream from the freezer and set on the counter.  After ten minutes, add the dressing ingredients to the bowl of fruit and gently fold in.  Do not stir with a hard hand.  You don't want the dressing to become liquidy.  Keep it creamy and billowy.  Serve immediately.  So good you won't believe it.  It's a nice twist on the standard fruit salad.  Feeds five hungry vegans and more!

Cornbread Stuffed Seitan with White Bean Gravy and Toasted Cornbread Crumbles

SOMETHING HAS GONE HAYWIRE WITH THIS POST. NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I TRY TO FORMAT IT CORRECTLY, IT GOES BACK TO PARAGRAPHICAL FORM. IF ANYONE KNOWS HOW TO FIX IT, I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IT! I'VE WORKED IN BOTH THE HTML AND COMPOSE AND CAN'T GET IT TO COOPERATE FOR ME. I WILL KEEP TRYING.

I've been feeling more and more comfortable experimenting with my own seitan. It's actually been fun trying to see how versatile it is and how far I can push the flavors. I decided to try my hand at stuffing it; I added a long name, and voila! - I have another tasty dish. My husband especially seems to like hearty meals like this after a long day at work. Now that I'm trying my hand at seitan on a regular basis, the Blessings never know what's going to show up at dinner! This turned out very well, and the gravy was just the right complement to the meal. The crumbles were a fun addition. There seems to be a lot of steps, but things come together really easily. Hope you like it.

Cornbread Stuffed Seitan with White Bean Gravy and Toasted Cornbread Crumbles

Seitan before steaming

Stuffed seitan before baking

Cornbread Stuffed Seitan with White Bean Gravy and Toasted Cornbread Crumbles

Ingredients:

Seitan:

1 cup of slow-cooked Great Northern Beans

2 cups of water

1 and 1/2 tsp. of ground thyme

1 and 1/2 tsp. of rubbed sage

2 tsp. salt

1 Tbs. garlic powder

1 Tbs. onion powder

2 and 1/4 cups of gluten flour

Stuffing:

(I realized as I was writing up this recipe, that the cornbread here is the only part I didn't measure. I cut a wedge from the cornbread I made, and it looks to be just less that 1/4 of a pan, which is probably close to 1 and 1/2 to 2 cups ground.)

Unsweetened cornbread - you can use my Ozark Cornbread recipe - a large wedge

1/4 tsp. ground thyme

1/4 tsp. rubbed sage

Gravy:

1/2 cup of slow-cooked Great Northern Beans

1 and 1/2 cup of water

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1/4 tsp. ground thyme

1/4 tsp. rubbed sage

1 Tbs. soy sauce

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. onion powder

2 Tbs. vegan margarine

2 Tbs. flour

Crumbles:

1 cup of ground cornbread (in food processor)

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. onion powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

Directions:

For the seitan: In a blender, add all the seitan ingredients, except the gluten flour. Blend well. Pour into a large mixing bowl and add the gluten flour. Stir well, and knead for a minute or two until the dough has no wet or dry spots. Divide into five mounds and shape into rough ovals. Wrap in enough foil to cover the seitan at least three times. Place in a large pot with a lid with water and a steamer basket. Steam on medium heat for 45 minutes. Remove and unwrap each seitan oval. (I make the cornbread, while the seitan is steaming, to keep things moving along.)

For the stuffing: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Break up the cornbread and put chunks into a food processor. Add the seasonings and process until crumbly. Along the side of each seitan oval, use a sharp knife to cut a deep slice. Don't go all the way to the edges or all the way to the back. Divide the cornbread mix evenly, and fill each seitan cavity with it. Put the seitan in a large baking pan, and pour 3/4 cup of water on the bottom of it. Bake for 20 minutes. Carefully flip the seitan over, and pour another 3/4 of water on the bottom of the pan. Bake for an additional 20 minutes. Remove from oven.

For the gravy: In a blender, combine all the gravy ingredients except for the flour and margarine. Blend until smooth. In a medium pot on medium heat, melt the margarine. Add the flour and whisk well. Add the blended gravy ingredients and continue stirring constantly on medium heat, until it bubbles, about five minutes. Turn the heat to low and continue stirring for one minute. Remove from heat.

For the crumbles: Turn oven heat up to 400 degrees. In a food processor, put in enough cornbread to get about one cup's worth. Add the seasonings and continue to process until mixed. Place crumbles in small baking pan and bake for five minutes.

To assemble: Plate each stuffed seitan with gravy spooned over the top. Sprinkle the cornbread crumbles over the gravy. Serve with the rest of the cornbread and a simple vegetable. Fancy, yet satisfying! Feeds five hungry vegans.

Savory Bulgur Dressing

Tonight, I thought I'd show our menu and pics of our Thanksgiving dinner and feature the recipe of our Savory Bulgur Dressing. This was actually a recipe of my father's that I've tweaked over the years to make it mine. When my oldest daughter (now 12 years old) was a toddler, we decided to have Thanksgiving at our home and have one holiday where our child could eat whatever was on the table. The last few years, I've let each family member pick a dish that they would like to have on the table; sometimes it's been traditional, sometimes not. So this year's menu is:
Tofurky Feast (picked by my 9 year old daughter)
Potato Salad (picked by my 12 y.o. daughter-we almost always have this!)
Savory Bulgur Dressing (picked by me)
Cranberry Sauce (picked by 12 y.o.-she likes whole berry, but I also got jellied)
Black-eyed Peas (picked by my husband, who also prepared them)
Fried Cabbage (picked by my husband)
Strawberry Tart (picked by me)
Pumpkin Pie (picked by me)
My three year old son went along for the ride. I realized later that he didn't pick something, but next year I'll make sure he does. A note on the cabbage: my Arkansas-bred husband likes fried cabbage to slide down his throat. He thinks chewing it is over-rated and unnecessary, and to get this way, it has to be an unnatural brown. So, I was happy to still have recognizably green cabbage hit the table this year. Anyway, on with the pics and recipe. Hope you like it!

This is a picture of the Savory Bulgur Dressing.

This is a picture of our Thanksgiving table. The green cabbage is in the front right corner of the table. The object in the back right corner is a scarecrow we made last month. You can make out the legs of my nine-year old daughter in the back left corner.
These are our Thanksgiving desserts. The little white pumpkin is my nine-year old's pet pumpkin, Pumple, and she was very happy that Pumple was going to be famous by having its picture in my blog.

Savory Bulgur Dressing:
Ingredients:

1 Tbs. canola oil
1 large onion, diced
1 bunch of celery, sliced small
1 pound of white button mushrooms, coarsely chopped
1 cup of parsley leaves, chopped (we used flat parsley from our garden)
1 can of black olives, drained
2 cups of bulgur
2 and 1/2 cups of vegetable broth
1 tsp. of salt
1/4 tsp. of pepper

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Heat the oil on medium heat in a large non-stick pan that has a lid. Saute' the onion and celery until tender, about ten minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook for five more minutes. Add the parsley and olives and stir. Add the bulgur right to the pan and the broth, with the salt and pepper, and stir thoroughly. Put on the lid and place in the oven. Bake for one hour. Feeds a whole bunch of hungry vegans!