Vegan Stuffing a la Yara

I managed to make a recipe all by myself! I know many of you do that every day, but for me, it is a huge accomplishment. Here it is:

1 loaf  (~ 1 pound) bread, mild flavor, crusty or toasted, torn into large pieces
Vegan margarine
1 large shallot
1-2 cups mushrooms
1-4 cloves garlic
1-1.5 Not-Chicken bouillon cubes
Dried sage (1 tbsp maybe? Not sure)

Throw a couple dollops vegan margarine in a skillet and saute the shallots till softish. Add mushrooms and saute till soft, about 6 minutes or so. Add garlic and saute for another 1-2 minutes. Add more margarine at any point if it starts to look too dry in there. (This is not a low-fat recipe. Why should it be??)

Meanwhile, pour 2 cups boiling water over the Not-Chicken cubes and stir till they are dissolved.

Put bread pieces in mixing bowl. Pour broth over bread and mix till saturated; add a bit of water if needed. Add mushroom mixture and stir. Sprinkle dried sage over the top and mix.

Spoon into loaf pan, cover with foil, and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 15 minutes. It will be pretty moist when it's done, and it will stick together loaf-style, not crumbly.

It is not a pretty stuffing, but it does taste yummy. Of course, you can add all the extra stuff, too, like celery, apples, nuts, etc. I prefer my stuffing mooshy. :-)

Cooking, carmelizing, craving

Did you know that when you brown pork chops, they don't turn brown, they turn white? Why call it "browning" in that case? Why not "whiting?" Anyway, when my stepmom asked me to brown the pork chops one night when I was 12 years old, I browned 'em. Not whited 'em, browned 'em. The dogs had a good dinner that night, and Tracey never asked me to cook again.

So I didn't cook for a long time, but when we became vegetarian, I discovered that if I wanted to eat tasty food, I'd have to cook. So I bought some cookbooks and cooked. I never felt I could take credit for the results cause all I did was follow instructions (I'm really good at following instructions); someone else did all the creative work.

Lately, though, I've been branching out. I've tried a few things on my own, and I've gotten brave about using a recipe as a stimulus -- rather than following it, I use it as a framework for my own creation. I've discovered that most cooking is really quite forgiving. You can play around with it and usually come up with something decent. I'm still not regularly throwing my own stuff together, but I'm getting better at trusting myself.

Here's what I've created recently that came out quite well.

Carmelized tofu
I wanted yummy tofu one night, but I didn't want to work too hard, so I went looking for a recipe. I found this one for caramelized tofu, but as I don't like cilantro and didn't have pecans and didn't want to mix it with veggies, I did it this way:

I put some olive oil in a skillet on med-high. Once it was hot, I added tofu that was cut into thin strips -- about 1" wide by 3" long by 1/4 " thick and let it get golden. I then added garlic (probably quite a bit more than the recipe calls for) and let it cook for a minute or so and then added three tablespoons brown sugar and stirred it all up. Once the sugar looked stuck onto the tofu, I took it out and we ate it and it was yummilicious! The next time I make it, though, I will press the tofu first, so it is a bit more durable. A lot of it fell apart when I stirred it after adding the sugar.

Potatoes and carrots without the roast beef
I was craving the taste of potatoes and carrots with roast beef, only without the roast beef, so I decided to try and simulate it, and it worked pretty well -- as far as I can remember, that is. I haven't had beef in about 10 years. Here are directions if you'd like to try it too:

1. Quarter several buttercream potatoes and cut baby carrots (real ones, not the slimy manufactured things you can buy in bags) into about 2-3" lengths and put that all into an 8x8" glass dish.
2. Dissolve one Not-Beef cube in one cup of boiling water (this was double-strength) and pour that over the potatoes and carrots.
   
3. Bake at either 350 or 400 degrees (cannot remember) for about 1 to 1-1/2 hours until the potatoes and carrots are soft.
4. Remove potatoes and carrots with a slotted spoon, leaving the liquid in the dish. Add about 1 tbsp flour and mix until it thickens. Pour this "gravy" over the potatoes and carrots and stir gently.

Next time, I might add some quartered sweet onions and maybe some mushrooms.

Mushroom gravy
For this one, I used this recipe from Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I love her recipes; they always come out yummy, although she sometimes uses ingredients that I simply don't have the time to hunt down. Anyway, this was the best vegan gravy I've had. It only made enough for about 2-3 people, though.

My variations: I don't like the texture of shitake mushrooms, never eat them. So I used an 8 oz package of plain ol' regular button mushrooms, sliced thinly, and no cremini mushrooms, either. (I didn't want to drive to the store.) I also did not add the soy milk at the end as I was afraid it would thin it out too much.