Cranberries popping, Field Roast, Thanksgiving.

I am Thanksgiving. I made cheer. I seized power. I created cranberry sauce, and it tastes and looks and feels exactly like cranberry sauce.

It was very easy to make. I had, let's see, probably about a half-pound of cranberries (fresh cranberries from the co-op). A little bit of orange juice. An apple (Golden Delicious, from the co-op). Sugar. Nutmeg. Cloves.

You heat the cranberries in a pan (cast-iron skillet in my case).


When they start to pop (literally, you will hear them pop and see them splitting - watch....),

add sugar (you will need a lot, so just add some and then as it's cooking, keep tasting and adding more if needed), nutmeg (a little), a few cloves, the apple - diced very small (I used 3/4 of the apple), and splash on some orange juice (I used a very small amount of orange juice; just remember what consistency you want to end up with, kind of gelatinous; you will also probably add more orange juice little by little as it cooks).




Once the cranberries have started to pop, you don't want to cook them any longer than 15 minutes, or the pectin will break down in a bad way and it won't set properly. So add these ingredients, stir it up, start tasting the juices and adding sugar as needed, add a little more orange juice now and then if it's dry and it hasn't cooked for about 15 minutes yet.



When it's sweet and the apples and cranberries are soft and it's getting a little gelatinous, turn off the heat, put foil over the pan and let it sit in the steam and the fruit will continue to soften and the gel will firm up a little. Then you can put it in a bowl and put it in the fridge if you want to serve it cold. Make sure you taste it as it is cooking, so you get it the right sweetness. After you set the cranberry sauce aside, heat up some leftover vegan Field Roast, potatoes, sweet potatoes and asparagus, and throw it on a plate with your homemade cranberry sauce and some apple sauce. Mashed potatoes and gravy would also be a great option. Sweet corn. Green bean casserole. Pumpkin pie. I had a brownie for dessert. :)


Does it look perfect?! And it tastes perfect, refreshing, sweet but not too sweet, gelatinous, the whole nine yards. Wish I had more sweet potatoes, is all. Mmm, can't get over this cranberry sauce.

A great use for rhubarb

Rhubarb Roasted Vegetables

1 small sweet potato
1 small white potato (or red, or yellow)
4 stalks of asparagus
2 carrots
a whole shallot
about an inch and a half of a rhubarb stalk, chopped
olive oil, salt, and pepper

Preheat oven to 400. Cut and combine potatoes, carrots, shallot, and asparagus in a cast iron pan. Coat with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Scatter finely chopped rhubarb over top of the vegetables. Roast for about 30 - 35 minutes or until everything is soft and the carrots and asparagus tops are a teensy bit blackened. The rhubarb is mild but gives the vegetables a sweet, fresh, tangy flavor. It goes well with the pepper.

Saturday Market

2 lbs. asparagus
12 fat orange carrots
1 baby green leaf (curly) lettuce
1 baby purple leaf lettuce
1 large green leaf lettuce
8 red potatoes
1 big white potato
5 small yellow sweet onions
1 pint white mushrooms
1 portobello mushroom cap
2 bulbs garlic
23 oz. jar of homemade apple sauce
1 oz. black pepper
1 loaf multi-grain bread
one plain bagel

Total: $36.72

Sauteed 5 of the white mushrooms with fennel seeds, onions, and pepper, piled onto a bagel with the green curly and purple lettuces and vegenaise.

Then steamed some asparagus and carrots with olive oil, Old Bay seasoning, salt and pepper. They are perfect, steamed for 6 minutes. (pictured above)

I've been baking sweet and white potatoes in the oven in the cast iron skillet, at 400 degrees, for about 35 minutes. Cut the potatoes and coat with olive oil, then toss with salt, pepper, and Old Bay seasoning, and include some crushed cloves of garlic. Makes a great side for a sandwich.


Asparagus is plentiful at the market all of a sudden, and so far we're not tired of just steaming it. But there is also this great, quick, lazy meal. Steam the asparagus for six minutes, and during the last three minutes, cook some Thai Kitchen Garlic & Vegetable rice noodles. Sprinkle some garlic powder either on the asparagus, the noodles, or both, throw the two components together in a bowl and be amazed. It's really unusually good.

Cookware, 23" of snow, and Potato Parsnip Soup

Well. Where should I begin?

We couldn't go to the farmers' market this weekend, on account of we had a blizzard. This is only an assumption, but I'm betting there was no Clark Park farmers' market this weekend. It was the second biggest snowstorm in Philadelphia's history. 23.2" of snow fell on the city starting around 1 a.m. Saturday and continuing through about 6 o'clock this morning.

Like all good citizens, we scurried out on Friday to gather in things we imagined we might need during the storm. Things like bread, potatoes, chocolate cookies, tofu, and wasabi peas.

We had a hunch there would be no farmers' market, but that was OK. We got potatoes, onions, and bread at a little store called Milk and Honey (ironic place for vegans to shop, but they do have good bread and limited fresh produce). At Fu-Wah, we got mushrooms and instant noodle soup. We still have good kale from last week. We still had some cauliflower and parsnips, and plenty of garlic.

One thing we forgot: Beer. So, we had to go out for that yesterday.

See what I mean? Probably no farmers' market.

Now, this is interesting. You know how, when I make blended soups (i.e. Indian Red Lentil or Potato-Leek), I always have to blend it in batches in my small blender (i.e. my smoothie maker)? And you know how I was saying I wanted to get an immersion blender?

So, on Friday, I went out onto the porch and there was a box addressed to me. It was a shipping box, like from Amazon, so no return address. I took it upstairs and opened it. It was a Cuisinart Immersion Blender. There was no name anywhere on it, on the packing slip or anything. I suspected my parents. Called my mom, she had no idea what I was talking about. Hmm. Must have been one of the sisters. So I was going to check, but I mentioned the gift on my other blog, and the sender claimed responsibility. Turns out to have been from a lovely friend named Jen, who knows the virtues of the immersion blender, because she also likes to make Indian Red Lentil Soup, and in fact, gave me a recipe for it a while back. (Remember?)

This blender is sweet. It comes with a chopper/mincer, and a whisk. This is it:



This is not the only recent addition to our kitchen.

*drumroll*

The old frying pan and saucepan are retired. After a long journey to Target on the 64 Bus on Wednesday, we are the very pleased owners of a cast iron skillet and a stainless steel saucepan with a glass lid (pictured above). I am thrilled with all of these new tools. Thrilled. Food tastes so much better cooked in cookware that doesn't interfere with it. This cast iron skillet is already the love of my life, and I expect us to get closer over the years.

OK, on to the soup. Using all of my new toys, I made the most delicious and filling soup this morning. It's a potato soup. I started with 12 small Yukon gold potatoes (very small, like golf balls). Cut them up and -- oh, also at Target we got two new, sharp knives, woohoo! -- put them in water in the stainless steel pan, to boil.

In the cast iron skillet, I poured a little olive oil and started heating the other ingredients for the soup: a yellow onion, two cloves of garlic, curly kale, cauliflower (about half of a smallish head), baby Portabella mushrooms (4-5), and the unexpected superstar of the soup... three parsnips. Parsnips taste like carrots, only stronger, with more bite. I had forgotten we had them, but I came across them and decided to add them, and I'm glad I did.

(kale, chopped, ready to add)

(everything together in the skillet - except the potatoes)

The potatoes had long since come to a boil and been turned down to simmer. When they were soft, I added the other ingredients, put the lid on it and let everything simmer together for a bit. For seasoning, I added salt, pepper, rosemary and parsley.

When I decided it was done... (I really don't know how long these things take... it's done when things seem soft enough and it tastes good... or however long it took me to feed the cats and make tea... if you need help timing it, you could call me and ask me to feed my cats and make tea, and I'll call you back when I'm done and you'll know it's time to take the soup off)... It was time to use my new toy. I didn't think to record this from the beginning, but here's how it works.

You want to be careful not to lift the blending part of the blender (the tip) above the surface (or even to the surface) of the soup. Submerge the tip of the blender and then turn it on, obviously. It's tricky because the blender pulls you more than you think it will. It seemed to keep suctioning to the bottom and I wasn't even supposed to really have it touching the bottom. Once, in trying to pull it up, I accidentally broke the surface, and the soup kind of exploded a little bit (no real damage done), and all the cats got interested and thought I was cooking something demonic on the stove. That's right, cats. That'll teach you.

I got the hang of immersion-blending after just a few moments, and it was super easy. After using the blender, you can remove the blending attachment (the other part is just the motor and you can attach the whisk or the chopper to it), and rinse it.



This soup was surprising and delicious. What made it surprising is that the strongest flavor was the parsnip. That's why I'm calling it potato parsnip soup. It gave the soup a crisp, fresh taste that perfectly offset the heavier, foodier, more wintry taste of potatoes.

We had it with slices of bread with Vegenaise, which we also stocked up on at Fu-Wah, in preparation for the blizzard.


The texture was airy and creamy and perfect. Much more inviting than a soup blended in a smoothie-maker. Because the soup contains kale and mushrooms, it's going to be a good source of protein and will fill you up. The kale and cauliflower and parsnips give you vitamin C, other vitamins, calcium, and other minerals.

Happy holidays, everyone!

If you have snow, enjoy it, and I hope something fun and useful turns up on your doorstep, too.