This year it was all about My Thanksgiving Battle Plan. My Plan was a strategic and tactical thorough scheme. The overall concept- a Vegetarian Version of Thanksgiving.

My Plan, which I had carefully been considering for 2 weeks so that the ingredients I purchased would all be wholly used, so

1. I picked recipes that together would result in using overall packaged amounts of ingredients that came in pints and 16 oz and such,
2. planned for post-holiday meals that would finish them off too,
3. made sure to include the calculations to reduce recipe portion sizes while also accounting for how many leftovers I wanted for the long weekend
4. while everything would of course play well with each other for the initial Thanksgiving meal and leftover meals for the rest of the week.
5. My Plan would be settled in advance, which meant I bought everything the weekend before at Trader Joe’s, Fred Meyer, and Safeway.

Well, actually the main course for Lobo and Mew was purchased at Petco. Because My Plan included the pets’ thanksgiving experience.

Lobo was soooo excited his face was in the bowl vacuuming the food before I had put half the can into the two feeding bowls (I had to use two since Lobo’s head was in one and Mew couldn’t even see what was going on). Overall, Mew was more on the confused side of what was this stuff, and not so interested it turned out (he licked it for flavor but didn’t really eat much of it at all). So Lobo needn’t have eaten like a pig stuffing his face so fast we were afraid he was going to choke inhaling it all as if he didn’t eat it all ASAP Mew would get it.

First course. Ever since I took that Hip Cooks cheese class, I can’t help but want to make my own chevre as an appetizer if I happen to be in Trader Joe’s, one of the few places you can buy the necessary goat milk. I started the cheese on the Sunday before Thanksgiving because I wanted to give it time to age, like the last batch. However, this batch did not use a culture or rennet like the last one (the recipe I learned at Hip Cooks), just citric acid and the other instructions by Urban Cheesecraft.

The result was still a fresh light tasting cheese, but it wasn’t as creamy- it was more crumbly and firmish closer to a soft feta- and would have been better topping a summer salad then as an appetizer- I let it marinate in a pinot noir jelly and served it on oven toasted 10 grain bread. Their recipe was easier though, so maybe I would try their cheese recipes on something harder like the mozzarella.

We started snacking on the cheese while tasting a 12 oz Hair of the Dog Matt Commemorative Ale as we were waiting on the potatoes and “meats” and souffle. Matt was just released during Hair of the Dog’s anniversary last Saturday, and is made with two Munich malts, two Smoked malts and two types of Belgian candy sugar then aged in Kentucky Bourbon and Apple Eau de Vie barrels from Clear Creek distilling.

The description from the brewer was that the taste profile would be “deep and lush with notes of apple, chocolate and smoke”. We both thought it was a great beer, though thicker and more chocolatey than we anticipated. But, worth $15 for each bottle? Not so sure about that, though we also have some bottles to age

Main and Side courses. I had made some cornbread on Wed in anticipation of making the stuffing. So on Thursday around 11, and for the next four hours, I made the rest of the meal, minus the mashed potatoes and chestnuts. First up based on oven temperature needs after toasting the bread was the Green Bean and Portabella Mushroom Casserole (topped with crispy onions and parmesan) and Cornbread stuffing with onion, carrots, celery, Thai chili peppers and diced “ham”. Both of these would also emerge super hot from the oven, and could stand a little cooling off while I finished the rest of the dishes. I started the stuffing first since I needed time to sweat the vegetables, and as soon as that was done I started on caramelizing the onions for the casserole.

This was only my second foray into green bean casserole. Last time I had made Campbell Soup’s green bean casserole and was not a fan: however the Trader’s Joe’s recipe features mushroom more because not only is a mushroom broth used but it called for sauteed onions and mushrooms as equal part to the green bean inside the casserole. I am a big fan of mushrooms and caramelized onions, and then add all these crispy fried onions and parmesan on top and this turned out great for my tastebuds. I also thought the texture was much more balanced- not just mushy green beans and crispy onions, because the portabella mushrooms still had a bit of soft shape to give just a slight bit more structure to the dish.

Meanwhile, the cornbread stuffing. I modified a recipe I had seen on Michael Symon on Food network. For some reason I had watched him make this in an episode- unusual because I don’t watch him at all- but what I saw was so intriguing for a stuffing I looked it up to print his recipe.

As mentioned, the cornbread I had made from a mix the day before, but when it came to the smoked ham I used a smoked veggie version, and for the vegetables I replaced his call for red peppers with Thai red chilis (though obviously in less quantity), and removed the corn (I thought there was enough corn in the cornbread which had kernels already in it, and also the fact I had a corn souffle) so also reduced the amount of cornbread because of that. I also did a lot of winging on the seasoning. I’m not a fan of parsley and cilantro, so I went with dill, sage, and rosemary. Rosemary is such a holiday time appropriate seasoning.

The stuffing turned out visually quite pretty, and was even better the next day as a leftover. The “ham” even in the veggie version gave it a hint of smokiness, and the Thai red chilis a bit of extra zing.

Most of what I made used the stove, and by the time he was entering the kitchen to prep these, the range was completely free. Actually, until he entered the kitchen, I had even done a pretty good job of cleaning up dishes and pans and utensils as I had gone. During the rest of the prep for the recipes following this sentence though is when the sink started to stack up. I’m not sure why the photo shows it a bit greenish- these were the last to the table so it was already getting a bit darker by then. The mashed potatoes, not prepared by me, were made with garlic, skim milk, and skin still on red potatoes. No mentions by me about how there was leftover cream in the fridge still would yield any changes.

What’s Thanksgiving cooking without some misadventures in the kitchen? This time around, it first appeared while baking the corn souffle, following a recipe I had cut out of some newspaper several years ago and don’t even remember which newspaper was. It was taking longer to cook than anticipated because the middle was still wet. There were a lot of little toothpick holes suffice it to say as I kept maniacally checking it because I also didn’t want it to be overdone.

Meanwhile, the higher oven temperature required for finishing the souffle was also throwing off my meat cooking temperatures and times. Also, I had used a Food.com recipe for Almond crusted chick’n breasts drizzled with rosemary dill lemon butter (well, hers was basil butter but I was sick of basil after this summer. And I like dill.)- and the chick’n wasn’t picking up the flour and egg dredge well so the almonds didn’t stick as well as hoped. I got all 10 fingers messy in trying to somehow cover up those cutlets with almond on both sides- every place I can fit an almond I tried to.

I don’t usually eat chick’n so I’m not sure what it tastes like normally, but to me the whole thing turned out dry, though that might have been a characteristic of the chick’n and if I had used real meat chicken (or perhaps not Quorn brand chicken cutlets) this might have turned out better. Another option might be pan frying the chicken so I can season more flavor then drizzling the rosemary dill infused butter offered.

The rebellious food:

I also used a Kittencal recipe for the Parmesan Melt turk’y which I hesitated on adding the salt the recipe called for (not big salt fans) but did it anyway- and what do you know, it was too salty for our tastes. But I did love how much the turk’y round looked like a lot like turkey! The saltiness of the parmesan melt around it almost was like turkey skin in a way. And this Quorn fake meat version that was turk’y wasn’t dry like the chick’n, so some of that salt probably helped retain the moisture.

In the end, my Thanksgiving 2010 plate doesn’t even look like its missing out on options just because it is a vegetarian version.