Notes on T-Day Eats

Well, now that we are all quite full (if you have fantastic holiday portion control, I commend you, but the rest of us...), I am going to talk about various goodies made.  Heehee!

As you know, I stuffed stuffing for my vegan main dish on T Day.  Our lovely hosts had a variety of vegetables as well, but stuffing is my favorite part, and quite frankly, I wanted to have a special main dish in addition to (not just comprised of) steamed sides.

Cool things I learned:

1) Fig Balsamic is FANTASTIC!  After my simple salad posting, I kept thinking about different ways to use this item in savory dishes.  I thought about sauteing items in the balsamic, but then I thought that the beautiful flavor and sweet zing that it adds to a dish would be mellowed.  Given the already subtle flavor of many ingredients in this dish, I wanted that zing to be there.

2) Silicone mini-loaf pans are great for making/holding space in a bigger loaf pan full of stuffing.  Although ultimately I know it all goes to the same place, I wanted to be able to see all of the various components of my dish...and not just have them blend together.  I think that I could have been more successful in that, but I was trying to use what I had (and alas...no ring molds at the homestead).

3) Rosemary foccacia makes a fantastic stuffing base.  Given my fling and splash approach to the stuffing creation, I was so happy that it held up so well with the stock addition and then crisped up so nicely in the loaf pan.

Here was my recipe (very approximately):

Need a  9x5.5 (top)/8x5 (bottom) loaf pan and a mini-loaf pan

4c. cubed rosemary foccacia ( foccacia was homemade from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone -- I made the sandwich loaf recipe and used about 1/3 of it for the stuffing)
2 shallots -- peeled and diced
2 celery stalks -- finely diced
3 homemade seitan sausages -- diced
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

Put cubed foccacia in a large bowl.  Preheat oven to 350, and oil the large loaf pan (oil inside) and mini-loaf pan (oil outside)  In a large pan, saute shallots, celery, and sausages for approx.5-7 min. until shallots and celery have softened. (I started with about 1 T. of oil to saute.) Then, toward the end of cooking time, add enough stock to cover veg. and bottom of pan (definitely eye ball this as you want veg. mix to be a thicker soup type consistency).  Post-stock addition, let simmer for a minute or two.  Then, dump veg. mix into bread bowl and mix; add salt and pepper to taste.  All bread should be lightly moistened but not soggy with liquid.  There was no liquid at the bottom of the bowl. Then, cover bottom of the loaf pan with bread mix.  Set mini-loaf pan in the middle on top of breaded bottom layer and surround with remaining bread mix.  Bake for 30 min.

While bread stuffing is baking, prep and make filling. If you do all prep and cleaning when you do this part of the recipe, your timing should be such that filling is done at about the same time that the bread stuffing comes out of the oven.  If you do it a different way, just keep filling warm as it does directly into the stuffing and then (hopefully) to table.

12 brussels sprouts -- peeled, bottom cut off, thinly sliced

1/4 c. thinly sliced fresh cranberries

8 white mushrooms -- cleaned, cored, thinly sliced

scant 1/4 c. pinot noir

2 c. roasted sweet potatoes, cut into smaller dice (which Hub made as side dish to bring to dinner)

1/4 c. finely chopped dried cranberries

Heat 1 T. of oil and saute brussels sprouts and fresh cranberries.  After about 5 min., add mushrooms; saute for 2-3 min. and deglaze with pinot (or sooner if pan is getting dry).  Then, add sweet potatoes.  Stir gently to blend and warm through.

Remove stuffing from oven and mini-loaf pan from center.  Fill rectangular indent with filling and top with chopped dried cranberries -- sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve with drizzle of fig balsamic. (Hub didn't have the drizzle and still loved it!)

We also made the roasted sweet potatoes mentioned above, apple crisp, and homemade vanilla almond ice cream.  Love the ice cream maker!

The next day, I of course wanted to have this stuffing again, but I mostly only had the bread stuffing left and not the filling.  So, I sauteed 2 diced shallots, 8 florets thinly sliced of broccoli, one additional sausage diced, and leftover butternut squash (about 1.5 c.).  I also loved the sweet potato element, so I attempted some sweet potato wraps.  This picture is not great, but I loved the possibilities with this, so I think I just need to play with wrapper thickness in the future.  I used the peeler this time, and it was a bit thin, so some of the other wrappers deflated a bit and the stuffing spilled out.  They were still yummy though! Baked them at 300 degrees for about 15-20 min. with stuffing in them, and then I topped them with sauteed veg. when they came out.  YUM!

I have always had a serious stuffing problem, as in, my T Day plate was always divided evenly between stuffing and broccoli casserole (which I am going to veganize for Christmas -- EEE!) with anything else as an aside  The addition of rosemary foccacia takes my stuffing issue to a whole new level.  Good thing it is all gone now.

The kitchen is finally and thoroughly clean...seems like a good time to cook something else!
K