crack the plates

I grew up in the country, in a town of just over two hundred. As I child, I sometimes rued the isolation of our rural plot–but now I see how lucky I was. My sense of compassion for the earth and non-human animals was nurtured as I gardened with my parents & made best friends with chickens. I witnessed firsthand the passionate desires of the land and its animals for harmony & stability. These desires resonated; we were easy allies.

I was also lucky because foodwise, my momma went easy on me. If I absolutely refused to eat something, she didn’t press the issue. But she never quite understood why I wouldn’t eat her meatloaf. “Just smother it in ketchup,” she’d urge. An excellent cook, she probably thought meatloaf was one of her tastiest dishes. Everyone raved about it–so why wouldn’t her darn kid eat it?

To start, I hated watching her make it! I remember looking up at her working the ground animal in her rough, wizened hands and thinking, I’m never going to do that. Was I simply grossed out by the texture, the color, the sounds? Did I despair over its origin, a life-loving creature like myself? Honestly, I can’t say. But to this day I’ve never cooked with animals. Going vegetarian at 14 meant I never had to suffer that feeling in my hands: I depended on my mom for meals pre-veg & figured out how to cook for myself afterwards. The closest I came to touching blood & guts was while passing poorly-packaged meat products over my scanner as a grocery cashier.

One of the reasons I LOVE being vegan is because I can make all of the dishes I enjoyed as a non-vegan, except they’re tastier and free of cholesterol, saturated fat, and cruelty! Traditional southern recipes, soul food, I rise to the challenge: I once made a pot of fordhook lima beans that were so flavorful & “authentic”-tasting that my mom couldn’t believe they were vegan. But for obvious reasons, meatloaf was never anything I wanted to veganize. Sure, I saw the recipes in my cookbooks… but the childhood trauma lived on!

‘Til recently, that is. Having made peace with the fact that it’s still going to look disgusting, I tried the recipe from the Grit cookbook. And oh lawdy, it’s a winner. Made with tofu, veggie ground crumbles, walnuts & nutritional yeast, and seasoned well enough to please a roomful of Southern grandparents, I’m glad to add it to my repertoire. Best of all, Nate rechristened the dreaded dish “meetloaf”. Only one letter difference, but I love it because it makes me think of meeting up, hanging out, loafing around–things all mammals, not just we humans, enjoy!

A regular blue-plate special, this one:

I baked it in my big cast-iron skillet (the same that sauteed the veggie ground “beef” and peppers, if you check out the recipe) and served it to Lindsey & Chris for our first Thursday evening co-op dinner. They gobbled it up. Here’s the recipe, with some minor modifications. Thanks, the Grit!

• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 small onion, minced
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1 or 2 small bell peppers, minced
• 2 cups vegetarian ground “beef” — I re-hydrate the dry stuff from Dixie Diner because it’s more economical than getting Boca Brand (or something similar) frozen at the grocery store.
• 2 tablespoons vegan Worcestershire sauce (Kroger’s is naturally vegan, or you could make your own)
• 1 15-oz block firm tofu, crumbled (the more-common water-packed kind)
• 1 cup quick-cooking rolled oats
• 1 cup walnut pieces
• 4 tablespoons ketchup
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/2 cup soy sauce (you can use low-sodium, I suppose)
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon or so freshly ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons rubbed sage
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon celery seed, if you just happen to have it hanging around.

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a large casserole dish OR just plan to use the same large skillet that you prep the “beef” and peppers in, as I did.

Heat the oil in large cast-iron skillet and add onions, garlic, and peppers. Saute five minutes or so, stirring often. Add the vegetarian ground beef (re-hydrated in “beef” or veg broth if you’re using dry) and Worchestershire sauce. Cook on medium heat, stirring often, 5-10 minutes (20 minutes if you used frozen crumbles).

In a food processor (I know, Sorry!), combine remaining ingredients and process til fully blended. Combine ALL ingredients and mid well. Pour and press into your casserole or skillet. Bake 15 minutes, remove from oven, turn in batches, return to oven, bake 15 more minutes. Bake an additional 10 if you think it needs it. Let cool for five minutes or so and then serve to smiles!!!

After a week or so of mild temperatures, Richmond is once again covered in a thin blanket of snow. Looking through some old pictures today I happened upon a few from this time 2009–and a day, in particular, when I introduced my northeastern-Pennsylvania-housemate and my upstate-New-York-bred-boyfriend to a recipe direct from some of my fondest childhood memories: snowcreme. A cotton-candy-sweet mixture of fresh snow, (soy)milk, a little sugar, and a pinch of vanilla extract, all whipped up in a stainless steel bowl, snowcreme is the finest confection old man winter can offer. Behold!:

I emphasize my friends’ places-of-origin because I was so baffled by their lack of awareness of something I, a Southerner with extremely limited snow experience, so delightfully cherished. For truly, my familiarity with the stuff only extended so far as the infamous Blizzard of 1993 (which has its own wikipedia page) and fewer than a handful of other pathetic dustings. My ever-clever momma taught me about snowcreme when the blizzard hit, seeking, as she might have been, a way to distract the six restless nine-year-old girls who’d just been snowed in at my birthday party. (Yeah, the biggest meteorological event of the decade happened a day after my ninth birthday.) How could two people who grew up with seasons of snow year after year never think to whip it up in a big bowl with some cold milk, sugar, and vanilla? Heavens to betsy! I exclaimed, in my mom’s accent, I’ve got to teach these boys something!

Ever the inappropriately under-dressed, over-confident belle, I trotted out to the back porch in one of my more laughable get-ups: thin pink nightgown over pumpkin-print pajama pants, protected by a red WECI hoodie. I harvested the primo first layer of fluffy snowdust from the back-porch railing, even as new snow continued to come down. (Protip: There’s a narrow window between when the snow falls and when it gets soggy, hardened, and yucchy–so time your collection well.) Befuddled onlookers snapped shots of my work from behind the screen door:

harvesting snow

at work

As you can see in the picture, I did some of the work with the snowcreme on the back porch, feverishly whisking the snow into a sweet soymilk and vanilla base. By the time I got back in the house it was ready to be served.

I can’t quite remember how my housemate & boyfriend described their first experience, but I’m pretty sure the words “transcedent” “miraculous” “glorious” and others from their heavenly ilk flowed like honey in the kitchen conversation that day. And it didn’t hurt that I’d just made some of Isa’s pumpkin oatmeal cookies from Vegan With a Vengeance, either…

Zoomie (my housemate) delighting in cookies

…or that I decided to make a chocolate-mint version of snowcreme with Vitasoy’s Chocolate Peppermint holiday soymilk:

Lucky housemates. The feast:

Snowcreme recipe, veganized:

• Whisk some soymilk (vanilla, chocolate, or peppermint!) in the bottom of a large stainless steel bowl with a little organic vegan sugar and a dash of vanilla extract
• Go get some snow. Preferably light, fluffy, and fresh. Scrape it off into the bowl. Whisk til the mixture thickens. Grab a stainless steel spoon and start to do more stirring, less whisking. Add a bit more milk as necessary. Eat!!