Vegan Stuffing

Stuffing is one of my favorite holiday dishes so I was very happy to find some vegan versions online.  This recipe is a fairly common one with slight variations to my own tastes.

Vegan Stuffing

6 cups of bread, diced (I used French and just kind of tore it into pieces)

2 TBSP vegan margarine (I used Earth Balance)

1 medium onion, diced

2 stalks celery, sliced (more if you love celery; I don't especially)

2 large carrots, sliced thin

1/4 tsp thyme

1/4 tsp sage

1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped

small-medium apple, chopped

1/4 cup walnuts

1 1/2 cups vegetable broth

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees  Place the diced bread in a baking pan and place in the over for 15 minutes until it's toasted.  Meanwhile, melt the margarine in a saucepan and saute the onion, celery and carrots until tender (onion should be translucent). 

Remove bread from the oven and add veggie mixture and all the herbs, apple, nuts (you can also add pecans and raisins if you like) and mix well.  Drizzle with vegetable broth and toss gently. 

Bake uncovered 20-30 minutes.  

Serves 6-8

While this didn't quite meet the standards of my mom's fabulous stuffing (alas, non-vegan) I still enjoyed it.  My husband liked it, too.  I'd definitely make it again but there are so many other vegan stuffing recipes out there I'd like to explore when I have more time.  Meanwhile, I wanted to share this with everyone at the Vegaloca Weekly Vegan Cooking Challenge

Vegan Pumpkin Pie

It was a pleasure celebrating my first almost-vegan Thanksgiving.  Everything I prepared was vegan and I enjoyed exploring new recipes without completely sacrificing traditional favorite dishes; and, while they didn't taste *quite* the same as the old recipes, they were still delicious.

I think my favorite was the Vegan Pumpkin Pie courtesy of VegetarianTimes.com.

My variations on the recipes were:

1) use completely all-purpose flour (as I didn't have pastry flour)

2) use all granulated sugar

3) use all rice milk

4) instead of the spice combination they used, I just used 2 tsp of Trader Joe's Pumpkin Pie Spice Mix, which I love!

I was really happy with the resulting recipe and enthusiastic to share it for the Vegaloca Weekly Vegan Cooking Challenge.  The left-over pumpkin filling "batter" was yummy enough to eat by itself, without being cooked (I know most of you will probably find that gross, but I loved it!) and the finished pie was so tasty. Not as creamy as the traditional pie with milk and all, but still very nice flavor and my sister really enjoyed it, too.  

Stay tuned next week for my vegan "stuffing" results :-)