Holiday Meal Fun 2013
If you happen to be celebrating Christmas today I hope you have a merry one – if it’s just another day, I hope it’s awesome too!
We’re in Orlando this week, but the day before we left I whipped up a little mini dinner for JC and I. Or, it was supposed to be a mini dinner, but those plans didn’t quite work out, as I started making potatoes, acorn squash, green beans, vegan bigos (a traditional Polish fried sauerkraut stew) and a very large bowl (but smaller than usual) of Sałatka Jarzynowa (another traditional Polish dish – this time a cold salad with lots of vegetables) that has become an important part of my holiday celebrations.
I also cooked up the Vegetarian Holiday Roast we picked up from an Ohio Whole Foods on a previous visit to the USA a couple of weeks ago. It’s made by Five Star Foodies, a company based out of Cincinnati, and since it wasn’t something we could buy in Toronto we wanted to give it a try. This roast was pretty amazing, and I’ll have to get into it a bit more on a future lazy vegan Friday post. But it’s a couple of pieces of seitan, stuffed with onion celery stuffing, and wrapped in yuba (tofu sheet). They also provided a thick cooking gravy. But I also made a huge pot of my own.
Another item we picked up while in the USA (though this might actually be available in Canada as well) is 365 Whole Foods Vegan Stuffing Mix. I normally love making stuffing, but we had this, I was trying to make a quick dinner, and I wanted to give it a try before we left for the States again.
This was the spread:
One of my favourite thing about any special event/holiday/occasion/etc is the food, and this time of year is no different. I love the different vegan and veganizeable food traditions that surround it.
Here was the Sałatka Jarzynowa recipe for this year.
Ingredients
- 1.5 cup dry white navy beans (2 cans or about 1.5 Cup dry beans soaked and boiled)
- 3 small carrots, chopped, boiled
- 2 potatoes, diced, boiled
- 1 celerac, diced, boiled.
- 0.5 parsnip
- 3 diced pickles – kosher salty or polski orgorki
- 1 small onion
- 1 chopped apple
- 1 can of drained peas.
- 1 small jar of your favourite vegan mayonaise (about 1.5 cups) – I used Mayola.
- 3-4 tablespoons of yellow or dijon mustard
- Salt & Pepper to taste
- parsley as a garnish (though personally, I hate the stuff)
Directions.
If you’re using dry beans, soak them overnight or for at least 8 hours before you cook them. They need to boil for about 45 minutes after that.
Peel the celerac, and cut in half. Quarter the potatoes, carrots, parsnip. Throw them all in a pot and boil until the celerac is tender. This will take about 20 minutes.
While you’re waiting for your vegetables to boil, you can start dicing some other veggies. Finely chop the pickles and the onion and throw in a bowl. Drain the can of peas and add peas to bowl.
After your boiled veggies are done, you might want to drain them, and let them cool off for a few minutes. Then dice them so that they’re small pieces about the size of a few peas.
Throw these veggies in to the same pot with your peas, onion, and pickle and mix gently. Add about 3/4 of a cup of the mayo, and 3-4 tbsp mustard, and salt and pepper, and a bit of parsley. Stir it all together. Cover the salad with a thin layer of mayo, Put something pretty on the top with parsley or other veggies.
Eat and enjoy. (Secret truth: It’s even better after a day or two)
Do you have any favourite vegan holiday food traditions?