Say you're not the sort of person that has spent months pouring over food magazines, cookbooks, and blogs deciding on the perfect Thanksgiving recipes. Say you haven't been using your free time this past month polishing silver and labeling serving dishes. You probably aren't hosting a big group. Maybe it's just you, or you two, or at most you and three pals. Do you have a couple hours? You can still have a Thanksgiving feast. You can even have pie. Here's the plan:
- Start with the pie. It will take you 5 - 10 minutes to get Susan V's crustless pumpkin pie in the oven. I do not recommend fat free recipes lightly. If this weren't objectively delicious, we would not be having this discussion. (But don't use sweet rice flour. All-purpose will be just fine if you don't have regular rice flour.)
- With your pie in the oven, it's time to defrost your Tofurky. I know the package says that you're screwed. That you should have planned ahead. But that's just not true. Fill a bowl with hot water. Put your plastic-wrapped roast in a second plastic bag (So it will be water-proof). Let it sit in the hot water while your pie bakes.
- Prepare your vegetables. You're going to roast them with your tofurky. They'll be in the oven for almost an hour and a half, so cut them into biggish chunks. For Desmond, Paul, and I, I used a couple russet potatoes, a sweet potato, an onion, and a dozen brussels sprouts. The brussels sprouts wouldn't fit in the pan, so I cooked them seperately. Then, I figured that as long as I was cooking them seperately, I'd go ahead and do them a tiny bit different. I tossed them with olive oil, salt, and three whole cloves of garlic. So you do that too if you want, or if they'll all fit in your tofurky pan, just set them all aside now to nestle around your roast when the time comes.
- Change the tofurky defrosting water periodically - keep it hot.
- Whisk together whatever you're going to use to baste your tofurky - I like the olive oil, soy sauce, and sage combo.
- When the pie's almost done, take your tofurky out of the plastic covering, put it into the roasting dish, surround it with your vegetables, and pour over half of your basting liquid.
- Take the pie out of the oven and put the tofurky and vegetables in.
- Set your timer. You have an hour and fifteen minutes to relax, set the table, open up the cranberry sauce (We're doing this quick-style, canned cranberry will be just fine), sit on the couch and have an aperitif, heat up the gravy, play a round of scrabble, write a blog entry. Actually this super-relaxed, easy-to-prepare feast is seriously sounding like the way to go.
Bon appetit!
Your quick-style shopping list:
- tofurky roast with gravy (They're $9.99 at Trader Joe's. Oh and they're already defrosted there, I think.)
- 1 can cranberry sauce (I prefer jellied.)
- Some good roasting vegetables, but this is also a good chance to clean out the fridge and pantry. Use what you have. Or buy whatever root vegetables strike your fancy. And a little green is nice too. Green beans and brussels sprouts both roast very nicely.
- 1 15-oz. can of pumpkin
- a bottle of wine would be nice
- check on some pantry staples: soy sauce, olive oil, sage, corn starch, egg replacer, soy milk, pumpkin pie type spices
