I am a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to Christmas dinner. It just wouldn’t seem right without turkey, stuffing and gravy, along with generous portions of veg like potatoes, parsnips, leeks and Brussels sprouts.

But Christmas should be about spreading goodwill to ALL creatures, not just those of the homo sapiens variety, so of course in the Thrifty household, the turkey is faux, the gravy contains not a drop of animal fat, and no butter adorns the veg.

This year I decided to make a vegan turkey roulade with wild rice stuffing. It turned out absolutely delicious, and I wouldn’t hesitate to make it again, or to serve it to company.

Side dishes were potato and parsnip rosti (I have absolutely no luck making rosti into cakes, but it was yummy nonetheless), roasted sprouts and braised leeks. And, of course, gravy.

Recipes will follow soon, but I hope you enjoy the photos in the meantime.

Peace and joy to all creatures.

Even though I’m not religious, I love Christmas music.

Since it’s only just over a week ’til Christmas (yes, believe it), I thought I’d share some of my fave Christmas tunes.

You’ll find an eclectic mix here. You won’t find choirs or crooning, though.

I’d love to share the music for free, but that’d be, ya know, illegal and all. I found some of the songs on last.fm, and I’ve included those links so you can listen to them there. One song can be downloaded for free, the haunting Huron Carol, sung in native Canadian Huron language by the Eskasoni Trio.

If the song is available on eMusic, I’ve linked it, because it’s cheaper to buy the songs (if you’re so inclined) from eMusic than iTunes. You can listen to 30-second clips on both sites. eMusic has an introductory offer where you can get 25 (if you’re in the UK) or 50 (in the US) tunes for free.

This list is by no means comprehensive, and there are a lot of Christmas faves missing (including some of my own faves).

But hopefully you will find some music here to put you in the holiday mood!

(And yes, apparently I really like God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen!)

Ancien Noël Provençal (Franz Liszt) – Frédéric Gevers (eMusic) (listen)

Away In The Manger – The Klezmonauts (eMusic)

Birjina gaztetto bat zegoen – Aquabella (eMusic)

A Canon For Christmas – Liona Boyd (eMusic) (listen)

Carol Of The Bells – Mulberry Lane (eMusic)

Carol of the Bells – Deana Carter (iTunes)

Carol of the Birds – Joan Baez (iTunes)

Christmas Time’s A Comin’ – various artists from Christmas Grass (eMusic)

Coventry Carol / Silent Night / O Holy Night- Mulberry Lane  (eMusic)

Dancing Angels – Armik (iTunes) (listen)

Deck The Halls – various artists from Christmas Grass (eMusic)

Entre Le Boeuf Et L’Âne Gris – Nicolas McComber (iTunes)

The First Noel /Mary Mary – Sarah McLachlan (iTunes) (listen)

For Unto Us a Child Is Born – The Roches (listen)

Gabriel’s Message – Sting (listen)

Gaudete – Mediaeval Baebes (eMusic) (listen)

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan (eMusic)

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – Scott Williams (iTunes)

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen / Deck The Halls – Tim Thompson (eMusic)

Go Where I Send Thee – A Cappella Angels (eMusic)

Holly Herald – Jethro Tull (eMusic)

Huron Carol – Crash Test Dummies (eMusic)

Huron Carol – Eskasoni Trio (free!)

I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day – Sarah McLachlan (eMusic) (listen)

In Dulce Jubilo – Mediaeval Baebes (eMusic) (listen)

I Saw Three Ships – Sting (listen)

I Wonder as I Wander – Jewel (iTunes)

Jingle Bells – Gumbo Jass Band (eMusic)

Jolly Old Saint Nicholas – Joel Brown (eMusic)

Joy to the World – Klezmonauts (eMusic)

Let It Snow – Eddie Higgins (eMusic)

Linus and Lucy – Vince Guaraldi (eMusic)

Los Reyes Magos – Aquabella (eMusic)

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer – Rockapella (iTunes)

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer – various artists from Christmas Grass (eMusic)

Sleigh Ride – various artists from Christmas Grass (eMusic)

Snow – Loreena McKennitt (eMusic)

‘Snowdrops’ from Floris - Woodbridge Flute Choir (eMusic)

The Snow Lay On The Ground – Kim Robertson (eMusic) (listen)

Spanish Carol – Liona Boyd (eMusic)

Star of Wonder – The Roches (eMusic) (listen)

Walking in the Air – Aled Jones (iTunes) (listen)

We Three Kings -  Ottmar Liebert (iTunes) (listen)

We Three Kings / What Child Is This – Tim Thompson (eMusic)

A few weeks ago, we started some wine which turned out to be the best wine EVER, even better than the blackberry and elderberry wines we’ve made previously. We were both surprised at how smooth and delicious the wine was.

We collected the raspberries from our own bushes as they ripened, then froze them in single layers on parchment-lined baking sheets, before transferring them to freezer containers. As I’ve mentioned before, freezing the fruit eliminates the need to either use chemicals or boiling water to sterilise the fruit.

Let me just do a little aside here and highly recommend the variety of raspberries that we bought in spring 2007. Joan J is a primocane variety (meaning it bears fruit on first-year canes) which produces heavy crops of sweet, delicious berries. BTW, you can get TWO crops per year from primocane raspberries by not cutting down the canes after they have finished fruiting (which is the usual advice). Instead prune just the tips of the old canes and the following summer you will get an early crop from these second-year canes. The new canes will also bear a crop starting in mid-summer. This year, we picked around 6.3kg (14 pounds) from the second-year canes, and about the same again from the new canes. (The row is about 4.5 metres / 15 feet long.) Two crops for the price of one, gotta love that!

But back to the wine. I used slightly more fruit than I have in past batches of wine, including some freshly frozen grapes. I also used a litre (quart) of white grape juice. The yeast used was Gervin varietal A. I’d read somewhere that putting the sugar in at the same time as the yeast can kill the yeast. Although I hadn’t had this problem with the other batches, I decided to add the sugar syrup a few days after adding the yeast (just before transferring from fermentation bin to demijohn), instead of at the same time.

Next year we will be using a lot more of our raspberry crop to brew this fine wine!



Raspberry wine

1. It’s best to start with frozen fruit. Freezing sterilises the fruit without having to use chemicals or boiling water. Freeze raspberries in a single layer on parchment paper-lined baking trays, then transfer to containers once frozen. Halve grapes, removing pips if they aren’t seedless, then transfer to containers and freeze. Freeze fruit at least two days ahead of time.

2. Put frozen fruit into a muslin hop bag, then into the fermentation bin, and add two pints (38 ounces) of filtered water. Cover and let stand 24 hours, or until the fruit is thawed and the whole mixture has come up to room temperature. Add juice to bin.

3. Start yeast. Sprinkle yeast over 50ml (2 ounces) of warm water to which 1/2 teaspoon sugar had been added, then leave to stand for 20 minutes. After this time it should be foamed up. Stir and add to the bin, then stir again. Cover.

4. Put bin in a warm spot (around 20C/70F), or if you’ll putting it in a cooler location, use a heating strap around the bin.

5. Every day or every couple of days, stir the mixture in the bin, mashing the hop bag to help break the fruit up.

6. After a week or so, the wine will be ready for transfer to a demijohn. After giving your hands a really good scrub, squeeze the hop bag to remove as much juice as possible. Feed pulp to the compost bin if you have one.

7. Dissolve sugar in one pint (19 ounces) water over low heat. Let cool to room temperature, then add to the bin.

8. Pour into a sterilised one-gallon glass demijohn. Don’t forget to also sterilise any equipment that will be used in the process, such as the funnel and bung/airlock. For sterilising, we use a chlorine-based agent for the demijohn, and boiling water for anything else. Fit a bung and airlock. Put the wine back into a nice warm spot (or cooler spot, with heating strap).

7. The wine will continue to ferment, and the sediment will start to settle to the bottom. A week or two later, syphon the wine into a second sterilised demijohn and then let it stand again. When the wine has cleared and fermentation has finished, it is ready to transfer to bottles (which also need to be sterilised). We use old screw-top wine bottles, that way we don’t have to bother with corks.

This wine was ready to drink as soon as it was bottled. There was almost no sediment in the second demi-john, so we got over six bottles of wine.

Cost was a bit more than last time because of the fresh grapes we added: one gallon (six bottles) of this wine cost about £4.25 ($6.50), which works out to around 70p ($1.07) per bottle. That’s still much cheaper than the cheapest supermarket wine. And much finer tasting!

I’ve made ham-style deli slices before, but the taste wasn’t quite right. Liquid smoke is really hard to find here, and I couldn’t get the right flavor with smoked paprika.

A few days ago, in a health shop in Hereford, I discovered smoked tofu by viana. This stuff is awesome. It’s denser than regular tofu, and can be sliced really thin without crumbling. It has a really great smoky flavour. In fact, it’s very nice sliced and pan-fried… similar to bacon but without all that bad karma.

Anyhoo, I thought it would be the perfect ingredient to use in my experiments into vegan hammy perfection. I used less tofu and more water than usual because it’s more dense than regular tofu.

I was very happy with how the ham roll turned out. The smoked tofu imparted a delicious smoky flavour. I think there’s a nice balance of other flavours as well, though I might tweak it a bit next time (maybe a bit extra ketchup or tomato puree).

Instead of wrapping the roll in baking paper and foil before steaming, the way I usually do, I wrapped it in baking paper and cheesecloth. The latter is another thing that’s difficult to find here, but I finally tracked some down at Amazon. It worked well, but the roll ended up having flattened sides (using foil results in a perfectly round roll). Wrapping the cheesecloth tighter might work better.

Ham-style vegan deli slices

1. If you’re starting with whole almonds, grind them in the blender first while it’s still clean and dry, then remove and set aside.

2. Crumble the tofu into the blender. Put the bouillon cubes in a glass measuring cup and add a couple tablespoons of boiling water to dissolve the cubes. Add the soy sauce, tomato puree (tomato paste) and ketchup, then add enough cold water so the mixture equals 150ml (9-1/2 tablespoons). Add this to the blender.

3. Add remaining ingredients to blender EXCEPT gluten. Blenderise until completely smooth. Empty into a large mixing bowl.

4. Add gluten and mix until evenly combined. You’ll have a soft dough.

5. Turn out onto the countertop and form into a log. Wrap in baking paper and then in either aluminium foil or cheesecloth. (With foil, use a triple layer; with cheesecloth, a double thickness wrapped twice around.) Tie the ends with a couple pieces of string.

6. Bring water to boil in a pot that has a steamer insert. Steam for two hours over gently simmering water, turning roll a quarter turn every half hour. Check water level regularly to ensure the pot does not boil dry and add boiling water as necessary. Turn heat off and let cool for two hours.

Makes 600g (1-1/3 pounds).

Kristin at Beans & Greens blogged recently about Buddha bowls, and they looked so deelish that I simply HAD to try them myself.

Buddha bowls are like a deconstructed stir-fry… instead of mixing the veggies, tofu and sauce together like you would in a stir-fry, you prepare them separately, then arrange everything artfully together in a big bowl (my bowl is not that artful, I admit).

I was so into this idea that I bought bowls especially to use for this dish (but I can find lots of other uses for the bowls, honest… otherwise it wouldn’t be very thrifty of me, now would it?)

I was too lazy to make Kristin’s yummy-looking red coconut curry sauce and instead whipped up a simple ginger-garlic-soy sauce.

In case you’re wondering what those strange-looking things are to the left of the tofu in the photos, they’re something called vegetarian fuchou balls, which were in the freezer begging to be used. They are really nice and have a very interesting texture. (Hard to describe… firm but not in the same way seitan is… a bit springy but not rubbery. Yes I realise that description sucks.) I decided to use them at the last minute, and have not included them in the recipe below.

Buddha bowls are open to variations galore. Seitan or other faux meat could be used instead of tofu. Lots of different veggies would work well. And of course, the sauce could be coconut curry, black pepper, sweet and sour, peanut, black bean, etc. etc. You get the idea.

I served this with brown basmati rice, but eggless chow-mein noodles, rice noodles or udon noodles would be good as well, as would the completely un-Chinese option of steamed quinoa.

Buddha bowls with ginger-garlic-soy sauce

1. Cut tofu into 2.5cm (1″) cubes. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a heavy skillet (I use cast-iron) over medium heat. Saute tofu cubes until golden on all sides. Remove from skillet and keep warm.

2. Cut veggies into more-or-less uniform pieces. In a large wok (I use cast-iron), heat two teaspoons of oil over medium-high heat. Lightly salt the oil, then stir-fry veggies until crisp-tender. Periodically, add a tablespoon of water to create steam and help soften the veggies.

3. Meanwhile, make sauce. In a small saucepan, heat one teaspoon oil over low heat. Gently fry ginger and garlic until fragrant but not browned (about one minute). Add bouillon cube and mash to break it up. Reserve two tablespoons of water and pour the rest into the saucepan. Add soy sauce and sesame oil, and bring sauce to a simmer. Mix reserved water with cornflour (cornstarch), then add to simmering sauce and cook until thickened. Keep warm.

4. When everything is cooked, put rice (or noodles or quinoa) into bottom of two large bowls. Top with veggies and tofu, then with sauce.

Makes two servings.

A few days ago, I perused the ingredients I had on hand and decided to make this Italian-style veggie sausage and pepper dish. I’ve made a similar dish before, but this was the first time I’d a) used homemade instead of bought veggie sausages and b) written down the ingredients.

I used spicy homemade sausages that I had in the freezer. I haven’t yet posted my veggie sausage recipe, but it’s similar to my hot dog recipe, with different spices and a bit more gluten to make them firmer. Seems most everyone in vegan blogland has their own version of sausages anyway, so I’ll leave that part to you!

I usually peel peppers if they are the thick-walled type, but it’s optional.

This is a really delicious dish, and very easy if the sausages are already made (or you use bought ones).

Italian veggie sausage and peppers

1. In a heavy skillet, heat 1 teaspoon olive oil over medium heat. Saute sausages for 5 minutes, or until lightly browned. Remove from skillet, allow to cool and slice into 12mm (1/2″) thick slices.

2. Put remaining 2 teaspoons olive oil in the skillet and saute onion for 5 minutes, until softened. Add pepper and continue to saute until vegetables are soft, about another 5 minutes (covering the pan will speed up the softening). Then add garlic and saute for two more minutes.

3. Add halved cherry tomatoes and continue to cook until tomatoes are softened and starting to collapse. At this point, you can remove the tomato skins if you like (they’ll slip right off). Add passata (tomato sauce) and bring to a gentle simmer.

4. Add reserved sausage back into skillet along with basil, salt and pepper to taste. Simmer over low heat for 10 minutes to blend flavours.

Makes two servings.

Nice served with crusty bread to mop up the juices (and the ubiquitous salad, of course).

We first had batata harra at a hole-in-the-wall Lebanese takeaway in town. So what’s a batata harra, you may ask. And I can answer: spicy fried potatoes, served, like falafels, in pita bread with salad and tahini sauce. Mr Thrifty was the first to try one (being the potato-lover that he is) and declared it Really Tasty. In fact, he liked it more than the falafels we bought there. I thought it very good as well, though points off for nuking the cold pre-cooked potatoes before making the sandwiches, thus rendering all the scrunchy bits rather… unscrunchy.

So batata harra, along with falafels, became a popular choice for the odd time we decided to grab a quick, cheap lunch. Then I discovered how to make homemade falafels, which far surpassed the bought ones, and we didn’t go to the Lebanese takeaway after that.

But Mr Thrifty was still hankering after a batata harra. So I thought, how difficult could it be to recreate these delightful sandwiches? Easier than falafels, for sure, as the filling was a lot simpler and didn’t require firing up the deep fryer.

So a couple of days ago, I finally made batata harra. I fried up some potatoes with onion and peppers, made a garlicky yogurt-tahini sauce, and cut up some lettuce & tomatoes to go with it. Heated the pitas (store-bought, alas) and tucked into a lip-smacking-good meal. YUM!

I didn’t have any hot chilies to add, so the only heat came from a bit of cayenne that I added. Nor did I have any fresh coriander (cilantro). Even without those ingredients, the batata harra were much better than those from the takeaway. And much more thrifty!

Batata harra sandwiches

1. Peel the potatoes and cut them into 1.2cm (1/2″) cubes. Place in a bowl and cover with cold water. Set aside. (This will remove some of the starch from the potatoes, making them less likely to stick to the pan when cooking.)

2.  Heat a large heavy skillet (I use cast iron) over low heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and cook onion until softened, about five minutes. Add peppers and chili (if using) and continue to cook until vegetables are soft (about an additional five to seven minutes.)  Then add the garlic and cook for another two minutes. Remove vegetables from skillet.

3. Drain the potatoes and dry them with a clean kitchen towel. Heat another tablespoon of olive oil in the skillet (still over low heat) and fry the potato cubes, turning now and then, until they are lightly browned, about 20 minutes.

4. Drizzle two tablespoons of water around the edge of the skillet and immediately cover the potatoes with a lid. The lid does not have to fit the skillet, you can use a smaller lid and just rest it on the bottom of the skillet (which is what I do). Cook for five minutes, then remove lid and test potatoes to see if they’re cooked through. If not, cover them again with the lid and give it another couple of minutes (add a bit more water if the pan is dry).

5. When the potatoes are cooked through, add the vegetable mixture back into the skillet and mix thoroughly. Season with dried coriander, cayenne, salt and pepper.  Add the fresh coriander, if using, and heat through.

6. Meanwhile, cut up the lettuce and tomato for the salad. Mix together the sauce ingredients until smooth, adding water as needed to thin it to the consistency of a thickish salad dressing.

7. Warm pita breads and slit one side open. Put in a handful of lettuce and some tomatoes. Spoon a bit of the sauce on top. Then fill with the fried potatoes and top with more sauce.

Makes four large or six smaller sandwiches, enough for two people who love potatoes!

Mr Thrifty made up a couple of jpg files with info on e-numbers that you can download to your mobile phone/cell phone. That way, if you’re shopping and wondering if an e-number is vegan and/or if it is considered “safe” from a health point-of-view, you’ll be able to find out right then and there. Your phone will have to have to ability to view jpgs to use these files.

The information is from two sources:

E-number safety: EarthWays

Vegan e-numbers: Vegetarian Society

Here are the JPG files with the above information:

JPG of e-number safety

R = red – most dangerous

A = amber – medium risk

G = green – least harmful

JPG of vegan e-numbers