Dark Days Post #2 (week 3)

Yep, I'll be up-front: I've been slacking. Sick. Sick with sick kid. Bitter. Tired. Semi-depressed. And blogging has not been my number one priority. You know how it is.

So I missed last week's Dark Days Challenge, mostly due to the fact that I was with family all week and my dad is the WORLD'S BIGGEST CRYBABY about food. So much so that it's almost impossible to find a place that we can all eat in comfortably. So there was a LOT of eating out at random places and no cooking in, except for T-day, where despite my best efforts, almost nothing we ate was local. I actually kind of missed 4 years of thankgsivings alone, just because then I had total control over the menu. Don't get me wrong, I really did enjoy being with my family(they went out of their way to veganize a LOT of standards) and everything was delicious, but I made almost none of it (just vegan pumpkin pie and the soy-seitan roast and some mushroom gravy) and none of it was local. Or if it was, it was completely accidental. Arg.

And that's the end of this installment's complaining. I told you I've been in a bad mood! Here's the food.

Dark Days Meal #2:

(Starting at 7 o'clock): Balsamic Roasted Tofu and Veggies, Kale Chips, Yukon Gold and Purple Potato Squashers, and Roasted Acorn Squash with Roasted Garlic

Sorry for the pathetic photo, but I couldn't find our camera and this was taken with the cell phone. Awesome.

So this meal was ok. We have a LOT of local squash left, and I've been looking for innovative ways to eat it, but I'm just not inspired by what I find. And am I the only person on the planet who is 100% bored by squash soup? It's like there's no there there. So, this acorn squash was roasted, mixed with roasted garlic cloves, some Earth Balance and some cinnamon and salt. It needed a LOT more salt, but I for one was too lazy to remedy the situation.

The tofu was good - it was local tofu (from Vashon Island, woo-hoo!) that had been frozen and thawed, rendering it super spongy and meaty. I mixed it with some sliced onion, shallots, garlic and mushrooms and poured over a combo of balsamic vingear, olive oil, sugar, basil and salt. Note to self: when tofu is frozen and thawed it SOAKS UP MARINADE LIKE A SPONGE. So be sure to evenly distribute it, k? I was not so careful last night. That's ok, we gave the blander pieces to the toddler, because we know that toddlers like bland.

The kale chips were salty and oil and crispy and delicious and I had to stop myself from eating them all, as usual.

The squashers were baked for 45 minutes (with the squash/garlic) then squished, drizzled in olive oil and salt, and baked for 15 minutes, flipped and baked an additional 10 minutes. They were good, if a little cold when I got everything else on the table. Silas liked the yukon golds but not the purple potatoes. WTH? What kid doesn't like purple food!?

Anyway, this meal was not a total loss, but nothing I'd necessarily try to replicate. If anyone has any good (vegan) uses for leftover pureed acorn squash, I'm all ears.

Other Random Foods

This was a curry I made several weeks ago using Soy Curls for the first time. I have to say, I'd give them a 2.5/5 stars. I don't know, I may have made too many, but the flavor was just not that great. Any ideas, fellow vegans? Should I have marinated them?

The curry consisted of peas, potatoes, mushrooms and some curry paste from Portland - this was Panang flavored. I like it but I want it to be MORE - I used about 3x the recommended amount and it wasn't even hot. I don't get it. Can being depressed make everything bland? What about boredom? Can that make everything bland?

Ugh, I'm putting this post out of it's misery. I promise to be in a better mood next time. And memes. More memes. Really. Don't forsake me now.

A Pretty Dang Local Thanksgiving

AKA DDELC #6
So Thanksgiving was a blast! Here was our menu:

Bryanna Clark Gorgan's Soy and Seitan "Turkey" (not local but homemade!)
Mashed Yukon Gold Potatoes (local potatoes, half and half)
Cornbread stuffing (local cornmeal, celery, onion, sage)
Good Gravy (local thyme, milk)
Steamed Brussels Sprouts (local sprouts)
Cranberry relish (local cranberries)
Buttermilk-Blueberry Pie (local buttermilk, blueberries, eggs)
Maple Pumpkin Pie (local pumpkin, half and half, eggs)
Potato Rosemary Rolls (non-local, but homemade)


Everything was delicious! We were especially in love with the "turkey" - it is amazing to find that you can make you're own tofurkey like product for so cheap and with so little effort - and the results are way better than tofurkey! Seriously, I think the whole roast cost us about $5 in ingredients and fed us for well over 4 days - some of those days more than one meal. And the toddler LOVED it. We will definitely be making this again - like maybe once a week until the end of time. And supposedly they freeze well, too. Yay!

I would also like to add that I made both of my piecrusts from scratch this year - I've NEVER made piecrust before and I was a little worried. Then I saw Martha Stewart on Wednesday and she made it look soooooo easy to roll it out and whatnot that on Thursday, I was like "This will be a piece of cake! Or pie!" Fast forward several hours, hissyfits and globs of dough flung across the kitchen in fits of rage....The goddamn dough kept sticking to EVERYTHING! Yes, even after I refrigerated it! And froze it! Goddamn dough! Then I remembered reading somewhere that I could roll it out between pieces of plastic wrap, so I gave that a whirl as a last goddamn chance...and it worked. Beautifully. As if I had never squished the everloving shit out of the dough in frustration nor thrown in at my window in despair. It all came out beautifully. So note to self: use the goddamn plastic wrap, you idiot. Save some years on your life.

I would also like to say how awesome and easy it was to make REAL homemade pumpkin pie! With a pumpkin! And no cans of any kind of milk, just real, local half and half! It was a miracle, and so delicious. Definitely making that one again!