Holiday Lunch

This year, I really wanted to make a holiday meal. I've been invited to a vegan holiday dinner party tonight, so I made lunch!

On the right is Salisbury Seitan from the Real Food Daily Cookbook. I made a half recipe, using seitan that I'd frozen after my Iranian feast in October. My only changes were to omit the oil and substitute vegetable broth in both the seitan marinade and the Golden Gravy. Oh, and I omitted the onion and increased the garlic in the gravy, as well.

The Salisbury Seitan is a very delicious and festive dish. I've had it at the Real Food Daily restaurants, where it's served with mashed potatoes and salad in a TV dinner sort of way, but I think it transitioned well for a holiday meal. The thyme and sage compliment the other flavors, such as dijon mustard and tahini, beautifully.

Surprisingly, it was a fairly easy main dish to make, too. I already had the seitan (but that was easy to make way back when and can obviously be prepared in advance) and the marinade barely required anything more than whisking. The gravy took a very long time to thicken, so be prepared to exercise your patience and you'll be nicely rewarded for the wait.

To the left is a repeat of the cranberry sauce that I made for Thanksgiving this year, but I added in the optional balsamic vinegar this time. At the top is my favorite stuffing, made with vegetable broth instead of orange juice and pecans instead of walnuts because I'd run out (I much prefer this with the orange juice and walnuts).

I'm bringing dessert to the party this evening and it's a test recipe for Hannah Kaminsky's current cookbook project. I haven't tasted it yet, but I know it'll be worth it's own post!

P.S. Although Indian dinner would have been nice last night, yesterday's Copper Chimney post was actually from a lunch I had the first week of December! Sorry for the confusion. :)