CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER 2011

Christmas is a small affair for us as we are in a foreign country and all our family is back in Australia. We don't fly home and visit them over Christmas like many people do, as it is too expensive. Our family is very small too. If you got our immediate family from both sides in a room together there would be eight people, plus four dogs and a cat. Not a big affair! My family hasn't ever really gotten too much into Christmas. We did when my sister and I were little but now that we have both grown up, Christmas has become a mild celebration. Mike and I don't even decorate. I have one little Christmas Tree candle holder decoration, which comes out at the first of advent. I also really enjoy getting the advent calendar tea selection from Sonnentor, which gives you a new tea everyday leading up to Christmas. But that is about as Chrismassy as I get. The streets here are usually covered with lights and Christmas Trees pop up everywhere, so we figure that's enough to make it feel like Christmas for us. On Christmas Day we Skyped my family and then went for a walk and visited the big decorated tree in the Old Town Square and did some window shopping. It was a good day! I was amazed at how many people were out and about but it reminded me that not everyone is with their family at Christmas and some people have small families too.
But on to the food! One thing we do like to do now we are away from Australia is cook a big meal for Christmas Eve. This meal is only for two and usually lasts a couple of days afterwards but is worth the effort.

The Main
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Seitan Roast Stuffed with Wild Mushrooms and Leeks
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This year Mike wanted to make a home-made roast after he saw this one posted on the Post Punk Kitchen. We can't get items like Tofurky here in Germany and there are only a couple of places online you can order vegan roasts for Christmas, so we decided to make our own. This roast was super, super yummy. I didn't make many changes to the recipe except to remove the Shiitake Mushrooms - I can't eat them, I had some at a stressful time in my life where I had an ulcer. After this I associate them with pain and even now I think they give me stomach aches. They probably don't, but the mere thought of them sends my stomach into knots. I used a mixture of Button Mushrooms and canned Porcini Mushrooms. I was going to use dried Procinis but found some canned ones for less money. I think the saltiness of these went really well in the roast and because of this I didn't over salt the roast with stock as Isa suggests. I also probably had more filling than the recipe recommended as I had two really large leeks but I think this worked out well. I think I prefer it with a little more filling.
I stored the roast in the fridge once it was cooked and it reheated really well. To reheat it I cut off the individual portion sizes and wrapped them in tin foil with a few teaspoons of water to keep it moist.
This was a great roast and I think we will definitely be having it again for Christmas next year!
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Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy

To go with the roast we had to have a gravy. My go to gravy is the Mushroom Gravy from Veganomicon but I like to use that with Chickpea Cutlets (as you could see from my last post). I like to keep meals whole and together. So I won't use a sauce for two recipes - I have so many cookbooks I can find another! So I decided on Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy (recipe can be found at Google books) from Vegan with a Vengeance. This gravy was so good, Mike loved it. It went really well with the roast and was quite filling being made out of chickpeas. I think it was perfect for the roast as it added a lot of extra flavour. I again stored it in the fridge and added a little bit of water to loosen it up when I reheated it.

(The gravy is under the roast - can you see it????)

The Sides
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Sautéed Green Beans with Mushrooms 

This was my least favourite part of the meal. This recipe also came from Vegan with a Vengeance and can be found on food.com. I found this dish a little too salty (there are 4 teaspoons of salt in it!) and 'winey'. It wasn't bad just not great and I would have preferred something else as a side. I still think green beans will be a perfect side for the roast and potatoes but next year I will be hunting for another recipe!
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Rote Bratkartoffeln

This recipe came from Vegan for Fun and was super easy and really tasty. It made a wonderful side! Brat Potatoes in German generally means to boil them first, then let them cool and peel them and then fry them in a pan with your choice of additives (butter, onions, sauce etc). It gives the potatoes a lovely soft inside but crunchy outside. I couldn't be bothered peeling them so I left that step out. Lots of people cook the potatoes the day before and let them cool over night. I forgot to this so just stuck them outside and let them cool. The flavourings for these Bratkartoffeln were Onions, Pine Nuts, Sun Dried Tomatoes and Tomato Paste. This was a really nice version of Bratkartoffeln and I really liked the addition of Sun-Dried Tomatoes. The recipe recommends using dried Sun-Dried Tomatoes without oil but then adds Olive Oil. My favourite Sun-Dried Tomatoes come in oil so I used a combination of the oil from the tomatoes and Olive Oil.

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The Dessert
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Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream
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During Vegan Mofo 2011 I won a copy of Quick and Easy Vegan Bake Sale. I knew that I had to make something out of it for dessert. When I opened the book I immediately went to this recipe. I used to love Sticky Date Pudding as a non-vegan (the tacky Sara Lee kind you put in the microwave - classy!) and couldn't wait to try it. It would be a perfect replacement for the usual Christmas Fruit Pudding (which I never liked anyway). I made the Ice Cream the weekend before Christmas using this recipe featured on my blog from The Vegan Scoop. The pudding itself was dense and tasted lovely warm or cold. It tasted best with the caramel sauce. I made triple the quantity of this sauce (cause it's Christmas and everyone must put on at least 2kgs right?) as I didn't think the recipe made enough. I wanted to let it soak into the cake and then later heat it up and pour it on the cake and ice cream. My sauce didn't really soak through the cake so I was glad to have some sauce to pour over each individual slice. This cake is rich, fatty and sugary, so it's definitely a Christmas treat. I'm not sure how you would serve this pudding at a bake sale but I am so glad it was included in this book!