Chicago Marathon Val

After squeezing in an hour of yoga and 30 minutes on the treadmill on Sunday morning, I rushed home for my second time playing hostess at a vegan brunch! This time, we had both my parents and sister, as well as Mike’s parents and grandmother over, so we had a good sized crowd!

To snack on during cocktail hour – Mike made a spiked eggnog drink – I set up some Russian Teacakes, Holiday Biscotti, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites, and some Chocolate Peppermint Bark – all delicious and all vegan, naturally (Please accept my apologies for my lame pictures as I am in desperate need of a better camera!! Santa, are you listening??)

I made my Tomato and Lemon-Caper Pesto Scramble, plus the addition of Kalamata olives – this was fabulous!! I’m SO in love with this recipe and you  must try it.  I was pleased that almost everyone went back for seconds, even the skeptics!

I also made a Pumpkin Streusel Cake which was modified from the recipe in Veganomicon.

My “new” recipe was for vegan biscuits and gravy.  Quite honestly, I was very nervous about how this would turn out.  I consider myself to be good at cooking and baking, but I’m not as confident in my bread-baking abilities.  The last time I made bread was an enormous fail – the whole wheat flour left something to be desired! Since then, I’ve started using whole wheat pastry flour instead of regular whole wheat flour, which I think lends a much better flavor and texture in baked goods.

Biscuits and gravy is one of those recipes that reminds me of my childhood – it’s one of my dad’s favorite recipes, and I remember ordering an enormous plate of biscuits and gravy at our local diner and amazing all of the adults with me when I cleaned my entire plate!

I am pleased to report that my veganized version turned out great!! I found an old recipe to make biscuits with cream cheese, and made a few alterations to make it vegan and also much healthier since the original also called for cream.  Everyone loved this too, even my dad, who has high standards for his biscuits and gravy!

* Note: I made both the gravy and biscuits ahead of time and reheated the biscuits in the oven at 175 degrees, and reheated the gravy on the stovetop over medium high heat, which worked well.

Vegan “Sausage” Gravy:

* In a large saucepan, stir  3/4 whole wheat flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour since that’s all I buy, but I’m sure regular WW would be fine) into 6 c. almond milk

* Stir in 1 package of meatless crumbles – this is about 2 2/3 c.

* Add spices: 3 tsp. salt, 2 tsp. pepper, 2 tsp. garlic powder, 2 tsp. poultry seasoning – I actually used more than this since I love spices, but feel free to alter this to your tastes

* Bring sauce to a boil, while continuing to stir so that you don’t have any clumps from the flour

* Once it comes to a boil, reduce to medium heat and continue to stir until it is as thick as you would like

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Herbs de Provence Biscuits:

* Combine 6 c. whole wheat pastry flour with 14 tsp. baking soda, 3 tsp. salt, and 1 tsp. pepper in food processor on low

* To food processor add 14 oz. Tofutti vegan cream cheese

* Return mixture to a large bowl and add in 4 c. almond milk + 3 tsp. Herbs de Provence

* At 400 degrees, use a measuring cup to form the biscuits and place on a cookie sheet sprayed with canola oil (or Pam, etc.)

* For smaller biscuits (if you use a 1/4 c. measuring cup), bake for 13 minutes.  For larger biscuits (1/2 c.), bake 15-17 minutes.

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What was your favorite diner food growing up?

This entry was posted on Monday, December 21st, 2009 at 8:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.