Thanksgiving Update: Chickpea and Butternut Squash Stew

(Main Thanksgiving post here.)

Just a quick pre-Thanksgiving update: Last night I stumbled on, cooked and ate this really special (like, serve-to-guests-for-the-holidays) butternut squash dish from Martha Stewart's site, not usually the first place I look for vegan recipes. Full of protein and fall flavors, and smells wonderful.

It's a little more involved than some of the dishes I post. For example, I had to make my own harissa. But it's worth it. (Harissa is a North African spice mix, and if you've never had it you should definitely try it. There's a link right in the recipe). I did simplify things by using pre-chopped squash (you can get it fresh or frozen) and canned chickpeas.

If you're looking for a last-minute vegan or vegetarian main dish, check it out:

Chickpea and Butternut Squash Stew from Martha Stewart 

Helen Frankenthaler, Thanksgiving Day, 1973

Sweet Pumpkin with Walnuts, and Thanksgiving

If you're looking for vegan Thanksgiving recipes, you only have to google those words to find a million and one great ideas. There are more out there every year.

A couple of good places to start this week are The Gentle's Chef's Holiday Recipes (a $2 download but worth it if you want some really well thought out plant-based versions of meat and dairy dishes) and the chooseveg Thanksgiving page (a collaboration of Mercy for Animals and Isa Chandra Moskowitz who founded the Post Punk Kitchen); or do a search for "Thanksgiving" on the PPK site for lots of wonderful dishes. The Thanksgiving list on oh she glows is very nice. And here's my post from last week about my friend Marina's Tofurkey cooking video.

My contribution for 2014 is this amazing simple, rich, sweet recipe from the Republic of Georgia, slightly adapted from Darra Goldstein's wonderful The Georgian Feast:

Sweet Pumpkin with Walnuts

1 large (29-oz) can pumpkin
1 c walnuts
1/3 c brown sugar

Put the walnuts in a blender or food processor and whir until finely ground. Add the sugar and pumpkin and mix well. Put into an oven-proof pan or casserole and bake at 350 for 20 minutes or so, until heated through.

Elzbieta Gaudasinska, cover for The Sun has Fallen into the Sack, 1975, via 50watts

Tofurkey!

Here's a great Thanksgiving Tofurkey cooking video by my friend Marina, with cute cat cameo, and  recipe.

I have to take some credit for suggesting that apple idea, although of course I'm not the first person to think of adding apples to a roast. In fact, I'm pretty sure I first saw it done as a teenager in a scene in Liquid Sky.

How to Cook a Tofurky with Apples

1 Tofurky Roast
3-4 Sweet Apples, quartered
Baste = 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup orange juice, 1/4 cup olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Place apples, roast (baste roast) - into casserole dish and cover
Cook in oven for:
if Frozen = 2 hours 20 minutes
if Thawed = 1 hour 20 minutes
Take out of oven and turn over and re-baste
Take off lid and place in oven for another 20 minutes
Slice thin and serve or slice and pan fry (to make it extra crispy)

May all beings be happy. Maria Primachenko, Seagulls in the Boat, 1965

Nine Recipes from Mercy for Animals

I'm just going to link to this today:

9 Creamy and Delicious Pasta Recipes

These all look amazing. The whole ChooseVeg site is full of great recipes, and I love Mercy for Animals, the organization it's attached to.

Martiros Saryan, At the Well, 1908

Pumpkin Hummus

Yum.

Pumpkin Hummus

15 oz canned pumpkin
2 T tahini
1 clove chopped garlic
1 T lemon juice
1 t olive oil
1 t cumin
3/4 t salt
(handful chopped parsley—optional)

Put everything in a blender and blend.

Paul Klee, Bluebird Pumpkin, 1939