Chappy Chanukah! Let's Fry Up Some Birds' Nest Latkes!by Randi / December 18, 2014
Happy Hanukkah continued! What a great holiday! Yesterday, I promised to share more posts about frying random foods, because Hannukah is about oil and what not. Mac & cheese was mentioned, and I’m not one to go back on my word. Well, I fried mac & cheese today. I’m going to tell you how to do it, but I’m not sure whether I recommend you actually follow suit. It was weird. Some of you may have been lucky enough to try the fried mac & cheese burger at Portland’s White Owl Social Club before it left the menu, but I was silly and I ordered something else the one time I was there. Some people said a fried ball of vegan mac & cheese was amazing. Some said it was disgusting. I set out to see for myself.
Well, I tried to make it into balls. I know now why every non-vegan recipe for deep-fried mac & cheese relies on egg mixed into the macaroni. Pasta balls really like falling apart! It turned into more of a patty, even though I mashed the pasta up pretty well. I’m sure it still tastes the same. That taste, by the way, is tempura skin. I guess that is just ‘fried’. Every time I have fried food, I remember that I don’t really like it. And then I forget and try again like 12 hours later, apparently. Someone remind me next time that I don’t like fried food. Anyway, here are some ‘instructions’.
Fried Mac & Cheese
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If you figure out a way to get the pasta to stay together better that isn’t real egg or flax egg (that would not taste good), let me know please. I didn’t have the will to try again. Too much frying.
Ingredients:
Directions:
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 Simpsons-shaped pasta not required  There’s a mac ball in there!  |
Just a ball and a patty in a little canoe with the moon shining all around
Enjoy?
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Happy Thanksgiving! Vegan Recipes and a Full How-To Guide…Sort of
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Even though my last name rhymes with Pilgrim, Thanksgiving was never my favorite holiday. I hate how people focus on the actual turkey, on all the death and suffering masquerading as the central food and important ‘tradition’, rather than making it just about being with people you love. (Or despise.) But I loved being with my family and playing games and laughing a lot. And of course sneaking vegan sides and desserts into the mix! This year, I’m not with my family. I’m not even in America for chrissakes! But we’re still celebrating Thanksgiving. I miss not having lots of people around, but I do get to have my first entirely vegan Thanksgiving dinner! Yay!!
Even though my last name rhymes with Pilgrim, Thanksgiving was never my favorite holiday. I hate how people focus on the actual turkey, on all the death and suffering masquerading as the central food and important ‘tradition’, rather than making it just about being with people you love. (Or despise.) But I loved being with my family and playing games and laughing a lot. And of course sneaking vegan sides and desserts into the mix! This year, I’m not with my family. I’m not even in America for chrissakes! But we’re still celebrating Thanksgiving. I miss not having lots of people around, but I do get to have my first entirely vegan Thanksgiving dinner! Yay!!
Apparently the Brits are willing to make me smile today, because not only are the Thanksgiving episodes of “How I Met Your Mother” playing on TV, but the commercials they just ran during them showed Philly City Hall AND the American show “Paternity Court”! The caption said “You’re the father” and the guy just FAINTED flat out! It was the best thing.
Anyway, I made tons of food over the past few days, mostly things I’ve never made before. Thanksgiving is about tradition and making the same stuff every year? F that! This is your chance to be a vegan chef all-star and show off. Okay you can do that with the same old favorites I guess. I’m sorry, ‘favourites’.
First, the most important thing to decide is what you’ll be having for dessert. Then work up the rest of the meal from there! It’s like how people choose their shoes first and then plan the rest of their outfit. (Does anybody actually do that?) You’ll have to make it to the end of this post to see our treasure treats.
Anyway, I made tons of food over the past few days, mostly things I’ve never made before. Thanksgiving is about tradition and making the same stuff every year? F that! This is your chance to be a vegan chef all-star and show off. Okay you can do that with the same old favorites I guess. I’m sorry, ‘favourites’.
First, the most important thing to decide is what you’ll be having for dessert. Then work up the rest of the meal from there! It’s like how people choose their shoes first and then plan the rest of their outfit. (Does anybody actually do that?) You’ll have to make it to the end of this post to see our treasure treats.
Or I guess I’ll just share the picture now.
Next, you want to check off the important sides. Do you want mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing? All three? I would have made all three if it wasn’t going to just be my husband and me for dinner. I decided on mashed potatoes, garlicked.
Do you want to eat greens this year? I did, so I roasted some Brussels sprouts in olive oil and pink salt. The best is that there were literally 8 sprouts in the package I bought. It’s like the most paltry showing of vegetables at any meal ever.
Good evening, TWO Brussels sprouts
Which gravy will you make? Is it a mushroom-based gravy? Is it from a recipe or something you wing? For me, it’s the Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy from “Vegan with a Vengeance”, with extra soy and nooch, and with butterbeans because the chickpeas in England DO NOT MASH. I tried mashing chickpeas here and the little f-ers evaded the pressure Every. Single. Time. Then I tried just squeezing them to death with my hands and they POPPED OUT ACROSS THE ROOM. And I am pretty strong. I just…the chickpeas here are possessed.
More sides more sides! If I had my druthers I would probably say druthers more and then have made some kind of kale thing. But luckily, Husband requested the green bean casserole of his younger days. Now, I realize that so many of you have had green bean casserole at every single Thanksgiving dinner with your families. It’s like a huge thing right? I never even heard of it until Isa posted a recipe on the PPK a few years ago. I know! But Husband’s family always had it so I had to make it even though green beans roasted in mushroom soup sounds revolting. I planned on using Isa’s recipe but couldn’t find vegan mushroom soup for the life of me, so my friend Elli (who is too cool for blogging) helped me out. Recipe below!! And guess what….it’s freaking AMAZING. Convert over here.
Then, what’s your main?! Will you make the famous chickpea cutlets? (Yes.) Or did you buy a Tofurky roast in America where it costs like $8 and not like here where the high street Whole Foods sells them for THIRTY FREAKING POUNDS?? (That is about $100 dollars.) Even if you gave me the money for that, I could not stomach buying it for that price. Even if Donald Trump himself was like, I’m kind of an ass, but here’s a million dollars; you must spend it on overpriced Tofurky. Okay maybe then I would. Unless the money smelled like cheese.
And then make cranberry sauce. No one eats it, right, but if it’s not there it pisses off Santa or something. Also, making it from scratch makes all your pots and stirrer majiggies a beautiful deep pink through the next few uses.
OH OH and biscuits!! You can make pumpkin biscuits if you want. I guess that would make sense. But this year I veganized Alton Brown’s perfect regular southern biscuit recipe and they are delicious. Recipe below!
So if you followed my instructions? guidelines? stream-of-consciousness blogging style that we all have learned to love/deal with? you now have a killer menu that would impress even the pickiest omnivore on this oh so special American day! This was my menu. I made all of it from scratch!! So proud!
- Perfect Southern biscuits (recipe below!)
- Roasted Brussels sprouts
- Cranberry sauce (recipe below!)
- Punk Rock chickpea gravy from Vegan with a Vengeance
- Isa’s chickpea seitan cutlets
- Traditional green bean casserole (recipe below!)
- Mashed potatoes (recipe below!)
- Pumpkin cheesecake from Vegan Pie In The Sky
- Brownie bottom peanut butter fudge pie (I’ll share a recipe another day if people ask for it)
GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE
I had no idea about this so-called traditional Thanks day dish until after I went vegan! Crazy! I was going to make the PPK version, but I couldn’t find vegan cream of mushroom soup. So my vegan food guru Elli (@catsxdogs on instagram) told me how to make a delicious version without store-bought soup! Yay!
Ingredients:
Ingredients:
- 400g green beans (That’s just what it said on the package! I don’t even know what 400g translates to in America talk! I’ve been here too long already! Okay I googled it and it’s like 14 oz. That doesn’t help me at all. Use like a pound.)
- olive oil
- 1 small onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 pound basic white mushrooms, sliced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- fresh ground black pepper to taste
- ¼ cup white flour
- 2 tablespoons vegan butter
- 2 very strong bouillon cubes (I used one liquidy pot kind and one organic powdery kind. Diversity!)
- 2 cups plain unsweetened almond milk
- 2 cups crispy fried onions (storebought, don’t make these yourself you crazy animal)
Directions:
- Clean, trim, and chop your green beans.
- Boil them in salted water for 7 minutes. Drain and leave in colander for some minutes.
- In a large saucepan, sauté the onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil for about 6 minutes over medium heat.
- Add the mushrooms, salt, and pepper, and cook down. Stir to avoid burning.
- Add the flour and butter and cook for another minute.
- Add the bouillon cubes and plain almond milk and stir stir stir!
- Cook, stirring, until thickened.
- Remove from heat and mix in green beans.
- Mix one cup of your fried onions into the whole shebang.
- *NB: If you are making this ahead of time, stop here, cover with tin foil, and refrigerate until ready to bake.
- Preheat oven to 425F.
- Spread the whole mix into a casserole pan at least 1 inch deep.
- Spread the rest of your fried onions over the top of the casserole.
- Bake for 20 minutes. Cover lightly with tin foil if you fear your onions will burn.
- Say ta dah!
MASHED POTATOES
Not so much a recipe as a reminder. You prob know what to do but here’s what I did!
Ingredients:
Ingredients:
- 2 pounds small potatoes (not like ‘hey that’s just small potatoes’, but actual small potatoes.)
- 1/3 cup vegan butter (you may say that’s a lot but I’m a dreamer/it’s Thanksgiving!)
- 1/2 cup unsweetened plain soy milk
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic granules
Directions:
- Boil the potatoes in a big pot of salted water. I let them go for about 20 minutes just to be sure.
- Drain but keep the potatoes in the pot.
- Add the rest of the ingredients.
- Mash it with a masher until desired consistency. I used a masher for the first time today and it was SO fun. Much better than using an immersion blender.
- Say ta dah!
CRANBERRY SAUCE
so fancy
I could only find frozen cranberries, so if you are using fresh, you probably have to add a bit more water to adjust for the ice melt. Or, if you are in America, your cranberry bag probably has a/this recipe!
Ingredients:
Ingredients:
- 1 pound cranberries
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 cup water
Directions:
- Mix the water and sugar in a big pot.
- Add the cranberries.
- Boil!
- Boil and stir!
- Are the cranberries popping open?
- Keep stirring as it boils!
- Is it getting thick?
- Do this for like 10 minutes then let it sit for 15 or till cool.
PERFECT SOUTHERN BISCUITS
Biscuits, man! Ughhh so good!
Ingredients:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup vegan butter (boy I wish they sold Earth Balance here)
- 1 cup unsweetened plain soy milk
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 425F.
- Add the milk and vinegar in a measuring cup. Put it in the fridge!
- Mix the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
- Add the butter with your fingers or a pastry cutter. I have a pastry cutter and I thought it was the bee’s knees but lately I’ve been using my fingers. Weird.
- Get the curdly milk out from the fridge and pour it in the bowl.
- Mix ever so gently, super gently, to get all the flour mixed in.
- Don’t overwork the dough. The Alton directions say to knead and roll out and cut into circles, but this was the stickiest dough I’ve ever come across, so I made drop biscuits.
- Drop ½ cup size spoonfuls on a parchment lined baking sheet.
- Bake for 16 minutes.
- Say ta dah!
Finish it off with at least one pie per person and you are a golden vegan!
Definitely make the Pumpkin Cheesecake. It’s so good, especially with a Speculoos cookie crust! Here is the recipe. I never do the pecan topping because who needs it? Also, I like seeing the swirl!
Definitely make the Pumpkin Cheesecake. It’s so good, especially with a Speculoos cookie crust! Here is the recipe. I never do the pecan topping because who needs it? Also, I like seeing the swirl!
I also made a Brownie Bottom Peanut Butter Fudge pie!
I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful! It’s so nice to have a completely vegan holiday. I can’t wait until the next one! I guess that’s Christmas. I guess I have to make two pies per person for that one. Because of Jesus.
We barely made a dent, haha. Come over for leftovers! Also husband got me flowers! So nice!
Final Meal of 2014: Excellent Food & Great Value at Manna, London
Thank goodness for Manna! It is, to be extremely lame and dorky, from heaven. For the most part.
Although England is where veganism was formed, where the Vegan Society was founded, and where like everyone cool wants to live, its biggest city is kind of weak when it comes to vegan food. It’s easy to be vegetarian here — restaurants still think it’s necessary to mark options that are ‘vegetarian’ instead of marking the much more necessary ‘vegan’ (seriously, you can tell from descriptions and names what is vegetarian, without fail). But, while there are many wonderful vegan options at omni restaurants, wonderful all-vegan restaurants are few and far between.
Despite the dearth, the all-vegan Manna, in Primrose Hill, London, would still be the best we have to offer even if tons of vegan restaurants existed here. The food is fantastic, mainly comfort food in large portions. So freaking good. And aside from a few service issues aaaaand a few kitchen hygiene issues (we’ll get there), there’s little else to complain about.
Although England is where veganism was formed, where the Vegan Society was founded, and where like everyone cool wants to live, its biggest city is kind of weak when it comes to vegan food. It’s easy to be vegetarian here — restaurants still think it’s necessary to mark options that are ‘vegetarian’ instead of marking the much more necessary ‘vegan’ (seriously, you can tell from descriptions and names what is vegetarian, without fail). But, while there are many wonderful vegan options at omni restaurants, wonderful all-vegan restaurants are few and far between.
Despite the dearth, the all-vegan Manna, in Primrose Hill, London, would still be the best we have to offer even if tons of vegan restaurants existed here. The food is fantastic, mainly comfort food in large portions. So freaking good. And aside from a few service issues aaaaand a few kitchen hygiene issues (we’ll get there), there’s little else to complain about.
Husband and I ate at Manna on New Years Eve, when they offered a special set menu: 7 courses (5 legit, 2 more like extras), aperitifs, wine, coffee and tea, all for £54. That is a freaking steal under normal circumstances (especially on New Years Eve, when restaurants love to gouge you), and here even more so. The portions were enormous. After the canape and the soup, I was pretty happy. And then all the other courses came and mocked me with their size and deliciousness. It was crazy. Let’s look at it!
First, we were asked to choose a complimentary aperitif from the drinks menu. I asked for tap water, and please keep it coming. And then I figured well it’s included, might as well get our moneys worth and have husband finish mine. On the menu was a Calvados, an apple brandy from Normandy, served with apple juice. On our trip to Normandy a few years back, I actually liked Calvados – at least the more apple and/or pear-flavored kinds – and so I ordered that. It tasted like alcohol. But it was better than other alcohols.
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The first food served, the canape, was a buckwheat blini topped with horseradish sour cream, beluga lentils, and beetroot caviar. I imagine that the taste of this bite is what Russians would be referring to whenever they say “this tastes like home.” It was bright and dilly and reminiscent of borscht with cold sour cream on top. So, yeah, Russian. It was pretty good, considering I always think I hate sour cream and dill kinds of things and I liked this.
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“Like it! I could eat 100 of ’em!” |
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Next up was the delicious soup. As you may know, soup is pretty much my favorite thing, and not just because I am good at it. Manna’s offering was celeriac and fennel bisque (hehe bisque) topped with cream and roasted chestnuts. We didn’t get the whole ‘topped with cream’ thing, and we only found a few chestnut pieces when we reached the bottom of the bowl, but the soup was really delicious. It was perfectly salted and wonderfully simple. And it came with two small bread rolls! Yay bread!
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Soup I love soup. |
Big bowls of thick soup are pretty darn filling, but luckily we waited so. damn. long. until our next course came that we were hungry again. The waitstaff was getting confused between where we were in the meal and where the table next to us were. While we both started at about the same point, we were still at this post-soup point when our neighbors were finishing their main! That’s 3 courses away! So messed up! But like I said we did get hungrier so that’s good. And it wasn’t the food’s fault.
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Finally, our ‘starter’ came, the tempeh cabbage rolls with miso sauce. I expected a cold kind of sushi-roll thing, but surprisingly these were warm, hearty rolls, with grilled cabbage holding tempeh and matchstick veggies that tasted like a standard Chinese stir-fry. They were hard to eat with your hands and harder to cut apart nicely with knife and fork, but I really enjoyed them.
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Tempeh and miso are like my favorites |
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The salad, up next, was really lovely, despite the fact that I tend to stray from vinegar-y salads (or ‘bowls of lettuce’, as husband tends to call my unadorned…well…bowls of lettuce). Manna’s salad on offer was a complex mixture of an arugula base (which they call rocket in Europe becauseeee NASA?), roasted squash, sundried tomatoes, kalamata olives, and roasted pepitas in a sherry vinaigrette. Despite the vinegariness, I really enjoyed having an interesting and refreshing salad instead of my usual lettuce bowls. It was really good, especially with the warm squash addition. I used to hate olives but now I absolutely love them. It took a trip to Portugal when olives and bread were all I could eat for a few days. Now I’m all yay olives.
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Warm squash should go in every salad. 
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Next we were given glasses of house organic wine. It tasted like alcohol.
hair today, gone tomorrow
The piece de resistance was next. Our main course was a mushroom stout pie with whole grain mustard champ (mashed potatoes with green onion, weird ass name) and braised kale. A lot of braised kale. And a lot of mash. It was quite the plate. The pie was pretty great, with a fantastic sturdy crust and lots of little mushrooms inside. It was all going swimmingly…and then I saw it. The beginnings of a hair coming out from the middle of the pie. I pulled and it was long and dark — my biggest restaurant fear. See, normally I’m the type of person who would report to waitstaff when there’s a hair or a bug or generally anything wrong. But if it’s a long dark hair, I tend to keep quiet out of the ridiculous fear that someone will say ‘WELL MAYBE IT’S YOURS!’ and I can’t deal with that possibility of someone thinking I’m not telling the truth. It happened first at Blossom in NYC. I was about to say GIMME NEW FOOD but then I had a flashing vision of the waiter saying “Maybe it’s yours?” and me peeing myself in frustration and embarrassment. It’s so messed up, I know. But I can’t help it. No feeling is worse than not being believed and I didn’t want to risk it so I just ate around it and omg I didn’t say anything until now. AHHHHHH. (And no, imaginary people in my head, it’s NOT mine, because unlike the people MAKING my food I always tie my hair back when EATING the food.) Anyway.
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Luckily, dessert was up next. The hair incident made me a little nauseous but it was nothing a change of palette wouldn’t fix. They offered two options: a chocolate orange hazelnut delice or a coconut rice pudding brulee. Obviously, with two people, we got one of each, the only way to do things properly. Both were beyond words. Seriously. Probably the best desserts I’ve had in London so far that I didn’t make myself. The chocolate orange one was like a really thick fudge on top of graham-like crumbles that tasted exactly like a certain cereal from my childhood that I cannot recall, but I know I loved it. The vanilla ice cream on top may have been Swedish Glace but it worked so well with the dish. It was wonderful, as was the rice pudding. I normally require chocolate in my desserts but I actually preferred this one. The bruleed caramelly top was ridiculous and it didn’t even need the mulled cherries it came with. So creamy, so comforting, so delightful. I would love to eat this every day.
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Apparently this was supposed to be like a Jaffa cake, but if you can believe it, I still haven’t had one. 
Delicious rice pudding with a hidden foe. |
When we picked up the gooseberry to split with one bite each, we noticed another unwanted villain in our midst. Another hair! This time small and lighter, hanging off the gooseberry. I mean. This means TWO people are to blame for poor kitchen hygiene. I actually think Manna should be investigated by the board of health now. I mean but the food is so good I can’t really say another worse about them. Like I still want to eat there because it’s the best vegan food in London!
Lastly, we were served coffee (for husband) and tea (fresh mint tea, gorgeous, for me) and – the best part – a plateful of cookies and truffles EACH. One plate would have been more than enough but one each was like the coolest thing ever. Even better, they offered to wrap up the extras (the entire second plate) for us to take home. Win! The cookies were a delightful end to a pretty spectacular meal, foodwise, though it left much to be desired in terms of what goes on behind the scenes.
MANNA, LONDON
Water speed: Poor but eventually gets there, which makes it the greatest water speed in London.
Service: See above. Service in England is notoriously bad. Luckily all the staff is super nice.
Bathrooms: Down the most awful set of stairs ever – seriously, it would be closer to normal if they took out every other step. You have to be very careful. But they are surprisingly nice for basement toilets.
Food: Wonderful comforting vegan food. Just watch out for hairs.
Bonus: Such a great value!
