Thanksgiving Turkey, Or Not...

Well it's Thanksgiving again and I want to talk a about the tradition of turkey as the main protein component of the meal. Let's look at the background. The first recognized occurrence of the holiday was actually the Pilgrim harvest feast and took place sometime in August of 1621. The feast was a good faith gesture to the Native Americans whose land they had been squatting on for the past year. The Pilgrims were hoping the Wampanoag would be happy, get drunk and bequeath them the land peacefully and permanently. The Indians did not yet feel threatened by white people in general and their religion compelled them to lend a helping hand to anyone in need. If anyone ever seemed to need help, it was this disheveled band of religious heretics offering to share their meager harvest. Consequently, it was the Wampanoag who ended up bringing most of the food.

Although most of the familiar holiday side dishes were not on this first menu and the Pilgrim's sugar stores were spent, corn mash with molasses, beans, squash, berries and Jerusalem artichokes were likely present in one form or another. Stews and succotash could have been prepared from a combiation of thses foods flavored with game and native herbs. Most of the food consumed was meat, however, as both groups were large meat eaters. Venison, duck, turkey, fish and seafood were shared gererously as this food was the most plentiful at the time. At that time, wild turkeys could grow up to 60 pounds and could be so easily hunted that it wasn't long before the white man had eaten it into extinction.

Decades of domesticating turkeys from wild birds meant modifying the natural shape and meat distribution from bottom to top development as people craved more white breast meat. Pretty feathers were important when it was popular to sell the whole live bird to a family to be raised and slaughtered for the November feast. As that fad faded, the industry phased out the feathers for bigger breasts and legs so the bird we came to know as a colorful holiday icon is now a big, fat white blob, much like some of the people who ritually consume it.

So, as our Thanksgiving protein portions change shape and character over the years, some newcomers are making their way to the table every year. For individuals who don't want to indulge in the flesh binge, Tofurky is a popular alternative. For others, simple baked tofu with vegan gravy is all they desire. Cosidering the plethora of holiday sides to accompany your meat, getting filled up was never a problem.

The following recipe is a true winner and easy to prepare. Make this ahead of time in a single portion and take this to the relatives for your protein while the others eat turkey and ham. Great meat to have any of the week and you can make a lot or a little at a time.

Baked Tofu Turkey

Ingredients

½ block                                     super firm tofu

1 Tbsp               minced              shallot

1 Tbsp               minced              garlic

1 Tbsp                                       olive oil

¼ cup                                        white wine

¼ cup                                        red wine

1 cup                                         vegetable stock

1 tsp                                         poultry seasoning

½ tsp                                        black pepper

½ tsp                                        sea salt

2 tsp                                         Margarine

1 Tbsp                                       flour 

Instructions:

Buy a block of super firm or pressed tofu. It is very dense and maintains is shape well for this recipe. Slice the block in half making for two flat steaks about an inch and a half thick.

Heat a skillet or sauce pot and add the olive oil. Sauté the shallots and garlic on medium high heat with the bay leaf, stirring often until translucent. Add the white wine and deglaze. Turn up the heat and add the vegetable stock, red wine, pepper, salt and poultry seasoning. Bring this to a boil then reduce heat to simmer for 3-5 minutes.

Place the tofu in a small baking dish or container. I used an aluminum baking tray whose size was just a little larger than the tofu itself. Next pour the sauté over the tofu. It should cover the tofu almost all the way, leaving the top portion to brown. Bake the tofu for 30 minutes, then turn the tofu and bake another 30 minutes

By this time the liquid has reduced by about 50%. Now remove the tofu and place it on a cake rack and put this back in the oven for another 10 to 15 minutes to fully brown.

While the tofu is finishing, strain the remaining liquid into another container. Heat a sauce pot and add the margarine. Stir in the flour for about a minute and then add the strained juices. Thin with a little more vegetable stock and stir until it reaches the desired thickness.

Remove the tofu and slice into pieces about an eighth of an inch thick. Ladle over the gravy and you have a great turkey substitute for any Thursday!

How Sweet It Is!

It is interesting to note how we tend to apply the adjective “sweet”, or nouns like “sugar” and “honey” to anything we deem as good. In our vernacular we equate ‘sugar and spice’ with everything nice when the opposite is actually closer to the truth. But, that shouldn’t surprise anyone who lives in our inverted world of double speak where ‘down’ means ‘up’ and ‘bad’ means ‘good’. Did you ever wonder why that’s the way things are, or do you just accept such things as ‘trendy’ or ‘cool’ (meaning ‘hot’)?

When words occupy double meanings to such great extent it has a tendency to cause a disconnect between individuals, groups and generations. This common usage lends nothing to benefit average people but can be a boon to politics and private enterprise. While we wander about confused as to what is what, our strings are easy to pull by those well versed in this new language.

That being said, let’s get back to the topic of sugar and sweets. Did you know that the average American consumes about 180 grams of sugar a day? That’s about 45 teaspoons of the stuff daily! Just like the language game, it is interesting to look at this from a different perspective. Forty five teaspoons is a lot of sugar. Your morning cup of coffee or tea may contain only one teaspoon, yet you look at that white stuff and wonder why you are putting this into your body. Mid morning you might have can of soda. This time you are consuming 6 to 7 teaspoons of sugar but you don’t see it. If you have a Twinkie or Tasty Cake you are consuming another 10 teaspoons of refined sugar. That glass of milk that you want instead of that soda has 3 teaspoons of sugar in it. That’s right sugar. That’s how the body sees it.

Sugar consumption raises the blood acidity 20% creating the perfect medium for disease and destruction of body tissue and bones. Sugar taken every day produces a continuously over acid condition, and more and more minerals are required from deep in the body in the attempt to rectify the imbalance. Finally, in order to protect the blood, so much calcium is taken from the bones and teeth that decay and general weakening begin.

Excess sugar eventually affects every organ in the body. The simple carbohydrates are converted into fatty acids which are distributed among active organs, such as the heart and kidneys. These begin to slow down; finally their tissues degenerate and turn to fat. The whole body is affected by their reduced ability, and abnormal blood pressure is created. The parasympathetic nervous system is affected; and organs governed by it, such as the hormone producing glands, become inactive or paralyzed. The circulatory and lymphatic systems are invaded, and the quality of the red corpuscles starts to change. An overabundance of white cells occurs, and the creation of tissue becomes slower. Our body's tolerance and immunizing power becomes more limited, so we cannot respond properly to extreme attacks, whether they be cold, heat, mosquitoes.

Dr. Linus Pauling was on the right track when he suggested that massive doses of vitamin C could cure the common cold. He recognized that when a lymphocyte had 50% more vitamin C inside it than was outside of it, its protective immunity powers were almost invincible. What Dr. Pauling missed was that sugar can fill up the lymphocyte and make it unable to take on the necessary amount of vitamin C it needs to do its job, thereby rendering it useless against the invader. Consequently, if you want to guard against the common cold, take your Vitamin C in the morning before eating any sweets.

I haven’t even mentioned obesity. Sugar accounts for most of the carbohydrates consumed daily in America. The average American now eats 158 pounds of sugar every year. That is an extra 800 calories per day from pure sugar, which equates to approximately a weight gain of one pound every 5 days. If we just cut this in half, maybe we could burn off the extra 400 calories during an active day, but 800 is a lot of extra calories to deal with.

So, if Sugar is so bad for us why do we consume it? Studies have also shown that the effect of sugar in the blood is similar to addicting drugs like morphine which produce opioids in the brain. Opioids produce the feelings of pleasure and satisfaction and thus can become addictive. Psychologically we tend to equate the food we eat with the good times we are having. If we consume sugar all day long, it only stands to reason that we will have moments of happiness that we will later relate to the sugary food we were ingesting at the time. This serves to reinforce the assumption that consuming so much sugar blindly, is in some way good for us. The common perception is that if you don’t like sugar you’re a sour puss. There lies the problem… perception.

We need to start seeing the world more clearly for ourselves instead of spending all of our time playing Simon Says with the “authorities”. Remember they are the ones that want to turn everything upside down. Start reading nutrient fact labels and know what you are eating. Know that your body is the best doctor and there are simple rules to follow to insure our good health and well being. Start trying to understand the power that sugar has over your life and then take back control. Just cutting your sugar intake in half each day will begin to pay huge dividends to your health and sense of personal strength. Not to mention the clarity of mind.

Here is a an elegant dessert recipe with the taste and appearance of decadence without excessive sugar. I use bold and distinctive flavorings to achieve a much sweeter taste without the actual sugar content. Note the sugar content listed on the Nutrient Fact label that I generated for this recipe. The sugars in this recipe consist of the low glycemic agave syrup, fruit sugars in the unsweetened pomegranate and raspberry reduction, and a minute amount of powdered sugar for appearance.

The entire dessert has only 2 grams of sugar, or about half a teaspoon. With such a rich custard and deceivingly sweet tart flavor of the raspberry pomegranate glaze, one would expect a higher sugar content. This proves that flavor and satisfaction can be achieved by using much smaller amounts of sugar than are normally found in dessert recipes. With fresh ingredients high in anti-oxidants, and a decent amount of protein, this little pastry treat is actually good for you!

Vegan Custard Puff w/Raspberry Pomegranate Reduction

Ingredients:

Custard

145g                                             Silken Tofu, firm

150g                                             Soymilk

1 tsp                                             Ener-G, egg replacer

2 tsp                                             Agave syrup

        ½ tsp                                            Canola oil

½ tsp                                            vanilla

Pinch                                             lemon zest

Sauce

        112g                                             pomegranate juice

        112g                                             fresh raspberries

        2 Tbsp                                           white wine

        1 Tbsp                                           wine vinegar

        Pinch                                             lemon zest

Puff Pastry (Pepperidge Farms is vegan with no trans fats)

        4                                                  2.5 inch squares

Garnish

        4-6                                                fresh raspberries

Instructions

Custard

Put all Custard ingredients, except the lemon zest, into a blender or food processor and blend well. Take this mixture and beat it over a double boiler for about 15 minutes until well cooked and hot. Stir in the lemon zest and set this aside to cool to room temperature. Put into the refrigerator and chill down to 40 degrees.

Sauce

Put all sauce ingredients into a small sauce pan and bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer until reduced in half. Remove from heat, stir in the lemon zest and set aside to cool down

Pastry

Bake the squares in a 400 degree oven until puffed and slightly browned. Allow to cool thoroughly, then sift some powdered sugar over the top. Shake off the excess.

Assembly

Put the custard into a pastry bag. Thin and adjust the cooled sauce then put into a squeeze bottle. Take a knife and carefully slice the pastry square into two thin slices. The sugar dusted piece is for the top and the other piece will be the bottom. Place bottom piece on the plate and pipe the custard over it. Place the top of puff pastry over the custard. Take the squeeze bottle and bead the sauce over the top and crest with a fresh raspberry. Garnish the plate and serve. Bon Appetite!

Recipe makes 4-6 servings

Guess who’s vegan now?!

So, Bill Clinton is a vegan?!! Well, almost. He eats a little fish once in a while. His editor approached him about trying the diet proposed by Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr. in his book "Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease"  Dr. Esselstyn, a preeminent researcher and clinician, in this book illustrates that a plant-based, oil-free diet can not only prevent and stop the progression of heart disease but can also reverse its effects. Having recently gone through open heart surgery his health has become a serious issue on his plate. So, forever the problem solver, Bill has decided to try out this diet free of animal products.

And that is a big step in the right direction for someone who was well known for jogging to McDonalds everyday with his staff for hamburgers, while president. Here is a guy, who as attorney General for the state of Arkansas in 1977 would pick out fat steaks that I would broil for him while I was a chef at an Italian restaurant he would frequent on Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs. This was a strange exchange between me, an out-of-place vegan just back from living in coffee shack in Hawaii for two years, and Mr. Clinton a young, political aspirant destined to become a two term president of the United States. I was doing something I shouldn’t have been doing, preparing and cooking animal flesh, in an effort to learn the restaurant business. He was doing something he shouldn’t have been doing, consuming animal flesh and dairy, in an effort to be like everyone else. It has been three decades since that odd little slice of life was tucked into the time space continuum, but somehow I feel vindicated now.

While William Jefferson Clinton served his presidential terms in the 1990s, I founded and operated one of the most popular vegetarian restaurants to ever appear on the scene with Veggie Works. It was during this time that I was able to develop the recipes featured in my cookbook The Veggie Works Vegan Cookbook (pub 2001) the first truly comprehensive vegan cookbook written to date with 500 recipes, meal planners, herb and spice charts and more. Well it’s a small world, as they say, and in three decades we have seen our country sway back and forth from political blue to red, again and again… progressive, regressive, progressive, regressive - sort of like jogging in place. But this is a good sign, Bill has been on this rollercoaster, too.

Clinton would be a great proponent for a plant based diet considering his human rights work with the William J. Clinton Foundation and as a special envoy for the United Nations. He has advocated for world peace, accepts global warming as a serious problem and could become a great mouthpiece for advancing veganism worldwide. As healthy as he will become, coupled with the crazy twists that life often brings, I can just imagine him jogging up to one of my fast food vegan franchises one day for a veggie burger – or steak sandwich!

In honor of this great man, and his intelligent decision go vegan – at least most of the time – I have included as my first addition to this blog a delicious vegan steak recipe that I hope Bill notices. Then we would truly end up full circle.

Vegan Flank Steak

 

This vegan steak is pound for pound higher in protein than beef and made according to the following recipe, is almost fat free. A perfect addition to Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr.‘s dietary plan that Clinton is testing out.

Ingredients:

Vital Wheat Gluten                                       2 cups

Water                                                         2 1/3  cups

Vegetable Stock                                           1 gallon

Soy Sauce                                                   ½ cup

Kombu seaweed                                          5 inch strip

Barbecue Sauce*                                         2 cups

Mix the vital wheat gluten with the water quickly and thoroughly. Set mixture aside and allow it to firm up, about 30 minutes.  Remove the gluten mass and transfer it to a table top. Cut the Mass in half and put one half back in the mixing bowl.

Turn the other half out on the table top and commence to roll it out thin with a rolling pin. Allow this rolled out ‘dough’ to rest for a few minutes. You may want to dab a little water on top to insure that it won’t dry out while you are waiting.

Now slice 5 or 6 pieces from this dough. Have the vegetable stock with soy sauce and seaweed boiling on the stove top. Roll out each piece of the dough again and toss immediately into the boiling stock one by one. Use a wooden spoon to stir the stock and keep the steaks from sticking together. Lower the heat to medium high and allow steaks to boil in this rolling simmer for about 20 minutes or longer.

Remove the steaks and pat dry. Repeat the above process for the other half of the gluten, using the same pote. Next, coat the bottom of a casserole dish with a little barbecue sauce and place steaks on top without overlapping. Cover steaks with a light coating of the barbecue sauce and place in a pre-heated oven at 400 degrees. Bake ten minutes then turn steaks and coat again with the sauce. Bake another ten minutes or until the steaks have absorbed most of the barbecue sauce.

Another great way to prepare these steaks is with the use of a cast iron grill skillet. Heat the skillet for several minutes on medium high then rub with oil. Place steak on the hot surface and press down with metal spatula. Baste occasionally with your favorite marinade or more of the cooking stock mixed with a little oil and vinegar, turning the steak several times to produce a nice color and grill markings while adding more flavor.

Serve with your favorite sides such as potato salad, baked potato, rice, risotto, sautéed greens and baked beans. This steak is versatile enough to go well with just about anything. Flavor with your favorite glaze or choose from a number of excellent commercial concoctions off the shelf. Feel free to experiment and don’t forget to read the ingredients. Bon Appetite