National Pie Day, and the next; Tongue Tied Triple Berry Pie

Thanksgiving is over. Black Friday deals are done. Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday too. Amazon still doesn't know which PS3 Games I want for Christmas, and I'm still out of ideas for gifts. So how about an intermediate consolation holiday?

National Pie Day!

So I got home late last night, did some grocery shopping and got started baking a pie for national pie day around 9:30.

Geez. So I wanted to make a Blueberry Ginger pie, but I didn't have any lemons or lemon juice. Went with the Pucker Up Raspberry Pie from Vegan Pie in the Sky, with an olive oil double crust. But I didn't have 5 cups of raspberries. So I did 2 cups raspberries, 2 cups blueberries, and 1 cup cranberries. I subbed out 1/4 cup sugar for maple syrup and added about 2 tablespoons turbinado sugar. I guess I'd call this variation Tongue-Tied Triple Berry Pie.

The crust was difficult to work with. It is a delicate dough thanks to the lack of saturated fats (the kind that stay solid at room temperature). As such, the binding of solid fats only obtains for a limited amount of time and below a threshhold of heat and movement.

This led to much frustration. And homicidal thoughts....

I wish I had the hands of a sushi chef; mine may not be little embers of blood vessels, but they were warm enough that I had to keept transferring the dough and utensils back and forth from the freezer to keep it solid. Anyway, eventually I hacked together a crust (actually, the one I laid in the pie dish was very nice, albeit a smidge too small).

The top crust was supposed to be a latticed deal, but i just filled the bottom shell and had to throw the second crust right on top and do some patchwork.

The results, though, were worth every moment of frustration.

I'm sure the recipe's homogenous 5 cups of raspberries would have let the balsamic sing a bit more smoothly. However, the mixed berry approach was really effective. It had all the zing and pucker-up, and I was able to finally do something with the bag of cranberries I bought around Thanksgiving.

Plating may not be my best here, actually it's terrible the slices look runnier than they were since they got microwaved (should have eaten cold or baked it); but the pie wasn't out of the oven until 12:45am last night, and we didn't get to cut into it until 6:50 am.

Still, coffee and pie for breakfast is a good way to start the day

• Crust: 2.5 c flour, sifted with 1/4t salt; 1/2 cup solid olive oil cut in, mixed with a solution of 4:1T Ice Water:Apple Cidar Vinegar.
• Filling: 2c raspberries (frozen), 2 c blueberries (frozen), 1c cranberries (fresh), 1/2 c cane sugar, 1/4 c maple stirrups, 2T turbinado sugar, 3T tapioca flour, 3/4 t salt, 2 T balsamic.
• Bake @ 425'f for 20, @350'f for 45 minutes

Update on 7:56AM by mfg

Here is the sequence of posts from Vegan Pie in the Sky by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terri Hope Romero:

• National Pie Day, and the next; Tongue Tied Triple Berry Pie
• Upside Down Banana Toffee Pudding (Banoffee) Pie
• Thanksgiving Pie in the Sky Odds and Ends
• Blueberry Lemon Corn Biscuit Cobbler

My Original Review: Vegan Pie in the Sky: We are Gods

What is the Ideal Vegan Turkey Replacement?

So I know I have been putting up a ton of posts on seitan as of late, and trust me, my intestines are not too happy about it. Nonetheless, here is another one; it's more in line with the holidays though so there.

I recently posted and then put a bounty on the question, "What is the ideal vegan turkey replacement?" Seitan (or other vital wheat gluten things) seems to be the most commercially viable alternative. 

But, how does it stack up on a qualitative level with other fake meats? If any of you would like to engage in providing your own canonical answer, or perhaps contributing to the discussion, have at it. Here is the question I asked;

With respect to the following characteristics, what vegan meat substitute media (as in, can approximate turkey not necessarily in nutrition but rather taste) fits best? What preparation of the media is most suited to creating this profile? Why?

• Has the defined texture of turkey meat
• Has the defined texture of turkey skin, whether deep-fried or baked
• Has the moisture level of either light or dark meat
• Has the flavor compatibility to suit either a mushroom or vegan sausage stuffing
• Has the flavor compatibility to suit either a rosemary or vegan sausage gravy
• When made from scratch, does not exceed the cost of a relatively sized bird

Please note, I am not asking about pre-packaged or brands of media, but rather media and preparations themselves (i.e. not Field Roast or Tofurkey, but rather Seitan/Vital Wheat Gluten)

Thanksgiving Pie in the Sky Odds and Ends

So I made a pumpkin pie (the Vegan Pie in the Sky adaptation of the Myra Kornfeld pie) with a single crust and a bunch of cookies. Had some leftover dough and made a pyrex-potpie of thanksgiving leftovers (stuffing+green-bean-casserole+gravy+tomato-paste=FTW).

This four-day holiday weekend was the bestest good times. Also, I'm hard at work pulling together an entry or three for the VegNews Holiday Cooking contest (mfg needs a KitchenAid!).

Okay, so actually, I'm hard at work at going to work. I might make some more refinements to the recipe I tried over the weekend; these include subbing one ingredient (fresh for canned), swapping one ingredient for another (root the squash), and doing both with some earthbalance alchemy. I also need to do a write-up on the other recipes from the vegan x-butter cookie-thon. Recipes to follow.

Update on 7:59AM by mfg

Here is the sequence of posts from Vegan Pie in the Sky by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terri Hope Romero:

• National Pie Day, and the next; Tongue Tied Triple Berry Pie
• Upside Down Banana Toffee Pudding (Banoffee) Pie
• Thanksgiving Pie in the Sky Odds and Ends
• Blueberry Lemon Corn Biscuit Cobbler

My Original Review: Vegan Pie in the Sky: We are Gods

Preliminary Seitan Turkey Loaves

So you have this Seitan Loaf and don't know what options you have for making it into something analogous to a Turkey.

Are you just not interested in even faking it, but still have a loaf of perfectly fine, although sage/thyme/poultry-stocked, seitan? Try these;

• Isa Chandra and the PPKs Sage and Pumpkin Seed Seitan (with Pumpkin Garlic sauce)* preparation or their mushroom hot pot.
• My Seitanic Panic in the oven. (Granted, this could require smoking, or you could go straight up and bake it in gravy covered with lentils and kale and smashed potatoes)

(*sorry, no PPK-Direct source attributed by the ref I found)

Well, so far I can't yet claim to have perfected a fake turkey loaf. That said, if you can be happy with a tasty roast, then this loaf's for you. It has a decently not too spongy, not too tough texture. The key to finishing it off is in how you reheat it.

Here are the simpler options:

• Bake at 275'f until warmed through. It is already cooked, so just measure with a probe thermometer, you'll want it about 120'f or hotter (cooked chicken is 165'f minimum). You will want to have some of the basting broth (see recipe) to plumpen up the loaf. Flip every fifteen minutes; I'm guessing this will take about 1 hour.
• Is someone else getting ready to deep-fry an entire turkey? Get in there and deep-fry the loaf before they use the oil. This will brown the outside and warm it up. The loaf can rest until later, then warm up in oven.
• bake at 350'f for 25 minutes per Vegan Dad (he's also got a stuffing mix in there)

Here are the complicated options:

• Add a yuba crust (bean curd skin) and bake and baste for less-than-satisfactory results.
• Thin out some miso paste with sesame oil, then brush onto loaf. Apply a light crust of onion powder, garlic powder, and paprika; brown on all sides in a skillet with sesame oil. Bake in oven for about 30 minutes at 275'f. (This is how I am going to try to do mine this time; I may also deep-fry prior to browning.)

In the second of the two sets of options I laid out what are probably the better ways to get a pre-made loaf ready for the Thanksgiving table.

I haven't done a ton of experimenting with these so if you have success one way or another, or in a totally diffferent vein feel free to let me know in the comments below. Enjoy!

As for experiments undertaken thus far, check out the gallery.

Pizza Day #3, and Seitanic Turkey Practice

So last night, I didn't really have a plan or much to cook that wasn't going to require a multi-hour investment. As a result I decided to make it three nights in a row with pizza.

I still had some of the Rancher sauce from Tuesday night and a shell of the beer dough. Once Beth got back to my place I basically said that I don't have anything to eat and she said that was cool and I went in the kitchen to pull something together to munch on or whatever. So I oiled the top surface, sprinkled generous doses of oregano, marjoram and basil; garlic and onion powder. Then put down the rancher sauce and some peppers in oil and sprinkled sesame seeds on top.

As a result, we ended up with an amazing pizza and I now know how to throw dough; 'throwing dough' I previously used to refer to making pizzas (at all), now I can actually toss that shell in the air. (I am not very good at it, but still...) 

This time, instead of doing it in the cast iron, I dropped in on a greased cookie sheet at 425'f for about ten minutes, then "bricked" it on the wire rack at 350'f for another 5 minutes. Having made sure the bottom was nice and floured, it came across as a very crispy dough just slightly singed. Great crunch and layering of dough.

The dough came out like a pretzel in a way. I will be conducting further experiments tonight.

Anyway, here are two modest pics.

So anyway. Seitanic Turkeys.

This weekend I am hoping to try my first specifically vegan technique that is new to me. I am hoping to make a turkey loaf from scratch out of vital wheat gluten and whatnot. Beth is calling it the Spawn of Seitan.

yuba rollsI even got the bean curd skin (yuba) to make the crispy outer shell. I'm not the type to like the fake meat things much for the sake of novelty alone. However, if it's to learn a technique I'm down.

That said, the first stuffing recipe I was going to make called for that fake sausage, so I opted to go for a mushroom and roasted walnut (and maybe a bit of chopped spinach?) stuffing with rosemary gravy.

I'm planning on doing a two way split of the loaves; one standard with stuffing on the side to see how the laf cooks up normally, and one roulade style (per recipe) to see how that one tastes and how the loaf holds up.

Anyway, have a great afternoon!