More Christmas... (and Stuffed Mushrooms!)

Christmas Dinner with my family:
(I always love my Mom's dinner table all set with the Holiday china...)

Famous Stuffed Mushrooms:

The stuffed mushrooms are not really famous, but very impressive - and so embarrassingly easy I hate to tell people...

• Buy a package of stuffing mix - whatever brand you can find that is vegetarian/vegan (some have chicken broth, but amazingly, many don't).
• Or make whatever type stuffing/dressing you like, using vegetable broth, of course... (A boxed-mix is just super easy and just the right size)
• Make stuffing/dressing according to directions on package and set aside to cool..
• Buy 20 largish (golf-ball size?) mushrooms.
• Pop the stems out of the mushrooms.
• Chop the stems fine.
• Chop 1/2 an onion and 1 stick celery just as fine.
• Saute in olive oil until soft.
• Add 2 cloves crushed garlic (I put it thru a garlic press - this totally makes the dish, using fresh garlic, but it's up to you) no need to cook it, it'll cook when they bake.
• Mix vegetables with the already made stuffing and 1/4 cup nutritional yeast.
• Stuff into mushroom caps. (If too dry, add a little vegetable broth)
• Pack down firm and mound up in each mushroom. It will shrink.
• Put in baking dish, drizzle a little olive oil around.
• Bake for 25 - 30 min at 375 until mushrooms look softer and cooked.
• They will shrink and dry a little.

Thats it. Yum! Basically it's your fave stuffing or equivalent, and chopped mushroom stems and stuff. Though they don't look impressive here - sorta all jumbled together on this plate. Use your imagination.

My sister finished some last-minute gifts...

My Holiday "must-have": Fruit and Nut Holiday Rice <<-- Click for the recipe, it's an oldie that I posted several years ago...

My brother-in-law shovelling snow off my parent's deck. Took him all morning, there was a LOT of snow up there!!

And last, but, not least, the "Smoking German Figurines" that fascinate us every Christmas... (They have incense cones inside to provide the smoke and I just think they are DARLING!!)

Hope your Christmas was filled with family and friends!!

Snow!!

Yes indeed, the Northwest has SNOW!! And a LOT of it. (For us anyway, this is a pretty big deal. I realize many areas get far more than we have!)

Since I've gotten comments and e-mails and so many of you thoughtful people asking how we're doing, rather than repeat myself, I thought I'd post a copy of the e-mail I just sent to my cousin who's originally from North Dakota, but enjoying the Holidays in North Carolina:

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Donnie, enjoy your warm weather and have a great time down there!!
Thanks for thinking of us!! Yes, I'm surviving just fine.

The girls are in Oregon with their Dad. His mother passed away and the memorial service is today. Keep them in your prayers, they have a long, scary, icy drive home tonight. I'm hoping and praying he gets them home to me safely - maybe they'll wait 'till tomorrow, the roads are crazy.

As you know, we're practically in the foothills of Mt. Rainier here, so we sometimes get more severe weather than, say, Tacoma or Seattle.

You'll love this, (I was getting ready to e-mail you anyway) - Little Sprout made a snowman in the yard and named him Donnie (true story) "because he has a hat and looked like he was smiling" (who knows how the mind of a nine-year-old works)... I'll try to get a picture, but unfortunately Donnie-the-snowman is buried under yet MORE snow and the batteries are gone on my camera. We didn't have any carrots, so he has an orange-Popsicle nose and a
Starbucks cup for his hat..

School was cancelled Wed - Fri. which was nice, but now it's just getting a little boring stuck at home. I read a couple books, wasted time on my computer, alphabetized my spice drawer and my cookbooks; made bread, pie, cookies, muffins, apple butter and späetzle 'till I ran out of ingredients; played Scrabble online, WAXED my kitchen floor (which I think I've done once in my life) and cleaned out 4 closets. I even watched TV!

We did drive around some before the last snow hit. But then I got a %#$%@# parking ticket for parking in a handicapped spot that I couldn't even see. Seriously! Everyone was parking every which way, NO lines were visible. Who gives out parking tickets in THOSE conditions anyway!! Grrr. THAT put a damper on my driving-in-the-snow experience!!
Then it snowed heavily last night. Today at our house, snow is about to the top of the tires on my van, and there's a heavy crust of ice over top of the snow. I heard tree limbs snapping and crashing down in our back yard early this morning from the weight of the snow/ice. Scary loud like shotguns!

The poor dog won't go outside to do his doggy business because he breaks thru the ice and is buried in the snow somewhere and then I have to go crunching out to rescue him. Neither of us like that whole lot. So I tried carrying him out and we BOTH fell on our backsides and slid down the hill into the shed. Didn't like THAT particularly either.

I'd have been a failure as a Dakota farmer!!

But yes, we're OK, thanks for asking.
Needless to say, I'm not going to attempt
driving anywhere, I haven't heard a single car go by on the main road so far today and it's usually a busy road!

I am just so thankful we have power, water and heat!
I'm sure there are many who don't.

Love you all,
have a Happy (warm!!) Holiday.

Snow Day and My Story About "Clam" Chowder

Winter weather's finally hit us, here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. And it IS beautiful if you don't have to be out driving. Schools, roads and lots of businesses have been closed.
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Not to be alarmed, we're not snowbound with ten-foot drifts (yet). I work for the School District; any sprinkling of flakes, mixed with a little ice, makes for treacherous driving of those big ol' yellow buses so they tend to err on the side of safety - and make small children happy, canceling school with a "Snow Day".
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What it's turned into is Christmas break starting three days early all over the state. Which won't be as much fun when June rolls around... I'm reminding my kids.











We are scheduled for a "really big" storm to hit tonight though, stay tuned.
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Actually snow driving hasn't phased me much, so far, (though I'm not hauling 40 screaming students!) my daughter and I found it a great excuse to finish Christmas shopping. It was quiet and relaxing, for a change - there was no one in the stores!

Back home, I realized I should have done a little grocery shopping as well 'cause my pantry is pretty depleted. I'm trying to put off getting many groceries until after Christmas though, so I can manage to get some gifts instead. That budget only goes so far!

Well, we have plenty of potatoes and it was DEFINITELY a soup sort of day so I pulled out one of my kids' favorite recipes to warm them up after the snowman building and snowball fights.

CLAM CHOWDER. Totally vegan and clam free.

Now, as a side note, it's time for true confessions:

See, there was once a short-lived stretch in college when I naively thought that vegetarians did indeed eat fish. It seemed logical, all the "vegetarian" friends I knew ate fish, so I assumed it must have been me who had the definition of vegetarianism wrong (this being the dark-ages of no Internet to set me straight on such things). And during that time, poor college student that I was, I was introduced to the cheap and filling wonders of the "All-You-Can-Eat Soup-And-Salad-Bar" at a local restaurant. Thus I discovered clam chowder. (*Gasp!!*)

And odd as it seems for someone born and raised vegetarian, I loved the stuff. I tend to think their particular recipe was mainly potatoes, as I never remember it tasting strongly seafood-like, but every so often, after reforming from my slightly pescetarian ways, I still fondly remember the Red Apple Restaurant and their never-ending chowder bowl...

Obviously after some thought and a little research - and my own Mother setting me straight (listen to your Mom, she's usually right!!) I reformed from my fishy ways. It was not me misinterpreting the definition and "slandering the name of good vegetarians" (my Mom's words). Poor little clammies and fishies, what was I thinking?

OK then, confessions aside, this is my vegan version of chowder. It's been 25 years since I've had the stuff, so it may not be accurate at all, but anyone I've served it to has enjoyed it and asked for more. Or the recipe. And it's just fun to see the looks on people's faces when I say we're having clam chowder tonight.














Tofu-Mom's Chowdah

(I call it that to irritate my offspring, they tell me my accent is terrible - and it is. The soup's good though!!)

• 1 Tbsp. margarine
• 1 chopped oyster mushrooms (or regular white mushrooms are fine, the oyster mushrooms just have a lighter color and better texture for this, and they're CHEAP at Asian markets
• 1/2 cup chopped leeks (or onions)
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 1 tsp powdered dulse or kelp (a kind of seaweed - or use crumbled Nori)
• 1 tsp. smoked salt

Saute the above in a stock-pot until vegetables are tender, stirring frequently. Cover to steam a bit as they cook if you want, they'll cook faster. It'll smell pretty smoky and fishy for a bit - not to fear, the finished soup is much milder!

• 3 finely chopped sage leaves (or 3 teaspoons dried)
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 3+ cups vegetable broth (I usually do 1/2 broth and 1/2 water)
• 6 med red or white or Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into smallish chunks
  

Add the above ingredients and cook at a low boil just until potatoes are soft - about 15 min.

• 1 cup soymilk
• 1 cup coconut milk (A tip I stole from Vegan Dad: Use the 'Thai Kitchen' brand here-it is less "coconuty" when you're just wanting just the creaminess anyway)
• 1/2 cup Tofutti Cream Cheese

Remove Bay Leaf. Stir in the above ingredients and heat on low, stirring frequently, until heated thru. About 7 - 10 minutes.
Season to taste - I add a splash of Tabasco and a grind of black pepper or some fresh chopped parsley or dill.
(My kids get picky about too many green flecks floating around which is why you'll see the bowl pictured is pretty free of green...).

Serve with lots of saltine crackers. We tend to LOVE those little round "oyster crackers".

Enjoy, and have a GREAT weekend!!

Hot Cocoa and a Snow Day

We had an unexpected snow day today which, in Western Washington usually means, oh, about two inches of snow. It also means no work for me and kids home from school.

So, I cleaned out kitchen cuboards suffering from post-holiday chaos (found all sorts of things I need to try cooking with...)and the kids spent most of the day back and forth between the snow and making forty-bazillion cups of peppermint hot cocoa - great way to mess up the kitchen AND use up all those Christmas candy canes I wasn't sure what to do with.

Candy Cane Cocoa

For each cup (multiply this recipe as much as you need)

1 cup soymilk, or other non-dairy milk (we actually used 1/2 almond milk and 1/2 Silk Soy Creamer because that's all we had, it came out DEEE-LISH!)

1/2 T. unsweetened Dutch Process cocoa powder

1 T. sugar

1 T. isolated soy protein powder (optional - if you have it, it makes it extra creamy!!)

1/4 tsp. vanilla or 1/8 tsp. peppermint extract (or the adults can use a shot of Peppermint Schnapps - woo!)

garnish with:

Soy Whip or Hip Whip or whatever

crushed candy-canes left over from Christmas

Blend all ingredients in the blender or with a stick-blender. Heat on stove or in microwave being careful to watch for boil-overs. Garnish with whip "cream" and crushed candy canes or stir with whole candy canes for an even more glorious mess.