Merry Chistmas One and All.
Yesterday i made a bit more of an effort with dinner (lunch) as it was Christmas Day.
Usually i make a big veggie hot pot with varying ingredients, and occasionally also cook some rice, buckwheat or veggie based (as opposed to wheat based) pasta of some sort. Very occasionally i buy a #Vegan #Pizza from a store if i can find a decent on that's not a rip-off price.
Vegan Roast Christmas Dinner
It was still quite easy and fairly quick to make (i'm all about efficiency in the kitchen) but it took about an hour and a half (with some reading / smoke breaks in between).
i'm not gonna go into much detail with a recipe, you'll get the idea from the pictures.
Here's the finished product so you don't get too bored with a wall of text :-)
Roasted Veggies
Firstly i prepared sweet potatoes and parsnips, added to a roasting pan with coconut oil & put in the (electric fan) oven at 160掳c.
Nut Roast
Next i blended (because the food processor broke & i've not replaced it yet) a good cup full of previously soaked (overnight) almonds with about half a cup of sprouted chick-peas.
Not easy to do this with a blender as i'm not adding liquid. i actually have to pick up the complete blender while it's running and shake it up and down and tilt from side to side to get it all mixed up well. (Don't try this at home kids)
i also added turmeric & freshly ground black pepper and about 1 tablespoon of coconut oil, a little himalayan salt and some dried basil.
i then added the mixture to a bowl in which i had soaked (in a little, not too much, hot water, filtered of course) about a cup & a half of raw buckwheat. The buckwheat had by this time soaked up most of the water.
Mixed this all together, adding a bit more water to get consistency somewhere between sloppy & dry :-), then spooned into an oiled cupcake baking tin & placed in the oven too. i could have put in just one loaf tin (which i didn't have), or a pyrex casserole dish (which i did) but i thought it would cook better this way (and it did :-).
Brussel Sprouts
One pack (about 500 grams i think) from Tesco's for 12 pence! rinsed, topped and halved, in a pan on the stove just covered with water.
Gravy
Gravy making (from scratch) is a bit of an art requiring undivided attention if you don't want it lumpy (and i don't).
Added to a quite big mug approx. 1 cup of corn flour, turmeric & freshly ground black pepper (i put these in nearly everything i make, including coffee), a little himalayan salt, 1 teaspoon of vegimite (Aldi had run out of thier own brand marmite), add water while stirring in a mug, getting to a completely mixed paste consistency before filling the mug with more water as i continued stirring.
Add to small sauce-pan on gas stove, full heat to begin with, stirring continuously with small wioden spoon. Turn heat down to a bit more than a simmer well before it starts to get hot.
DON'T STOP STIRRING.
After about ?5 minutes the consistency was getting a bit thicker so turned heat down a bit more and added some water from the sprouts (which were cooked by now, a bit firm, no soggy sprouts for me), keep stirring, keep adding more sprout water.
DON'T STOP STIRRING.
Then suddenly the gravy started to get really thick in middle at bottom as i was stirring, so removed pan from heat, adding more sprout water, stirring all the time :-), and so on until it was starting to bubble and was a fairly thick but easily pourable consistency.
Voila! Heat off, add lid to keep hot.
Checked oven, cut sweet potatoes into halves and turned them and parsnips over.
Break.
Checked oven again, cut sweet potatoes smaller still, moved to bottom of oven, swapping position with nut roast.
Break.
When ready, removed from oven & out plates in to warm (no cold plates for me as the food gets cold before finishing eating otherwise) and add a bit more heat to gravy pan so it's piping hot.
All done.
Served (a bit less than half) onto two plates with the rest saved for today (reheating in oven now).
Then added gravy.
Tasted good, too much food, but we managed to eat it all :-)
When cooled down, the rest went into a couple of empty 1kg peanut butter containers (i #recycle a lot - they are perfect for food storage) then into the fridge.
And here's today's Boxing Day reheated (in a proper oven - does anyone still use those microdeathwave ovens?) left-over meal.
There's still enough left in the fridge for one more meal (for one) and one in the freezer too. So, Six Servings in total.
Thanks for your attention.
What did you have for your vegan Christmas dinner? :-)
With Love
Atma
Image Source #gardenhive