Yule Log Cake

I made a pumpkin cake roll a year or two ago but I've never made a yule log cake.  I was going to make one last Christmas but then we were all sick.  So Sim and I are making it this year.  Here is the collection of recipes I will be using.  It's going to be intense.

Chocolate Sponge Cake with Ganache

(accompanying how-to video from Chef John, especially important for knowing how to tell when you're done beating the eggs)

Cinnamon Coffee Frosting (filling) 

Meringue Mushrooms (decoration)

Marzipan leaves and berries (decoration) 

Regarding how to make bark and affix a little side branch

 

Planning to serve peppermint ice cream alongside it because it's delicious and I've never made peppermint ice cream before.

Edited 12/24/2020:  Everything was going great until I started to unwrap the partially cooled cake from the towel to add the filling.  It just stuck to the towel until the cake fell apart completely.  I think when I did a pumpkin cake roll successfully the towel might've been lined with plastic wrap so that the towel itself never touched the cake, no matter how dusted with powdered sugar it was.  I should've done it that way again, but this recipe had such good reviews that I just followed it exactly.  

 I finished unwrapping the broken cake, added the cinnamon coffee buttercream, and wrapped the crumbs and cake pieces back up again to the best of my ability and wrapped the "log" in plastic wrap.  It's a mess.  It's chilling in the fridge now so I can cover it in ganache later, but it'll still be flat and weird shaped even when it's covered.  It looks like it fell in a volcano.  The taste is okay (very light, fluffy cake) and probably won't be affected too terribly by how it turned out, but if I did it again I wouldn't use the cinnamon coffee filling.  I think all chocolate components would be too much chocolate, but the cinnamon coffee frosting wasn't optimal with this cake.  I used it on a very dark mocha cake before and it was better with that.  The only reason I didn't use that cake recipe here was out of fear it wouldn't hold up when wrapped into log form.

Edited 12/30/2020:  I ended up cutting the crushed-looking, broken cake in half and stacking it on top of itself after it chilled in the fridge so it looked more like a messy little layer cake.  After pouring the ganache over it and decorating it with the meringue mushrooms, the overall flavor combination was very good, though it still looked very messy.  Sameer and I ate it, and Simran deemed it "too chocolaty," but she doesn't normally like chocolate cake in the first place.  She liked the peppermint ice cream though.

Meal Planning

 This week I'm planning to make:

Tofu Pot Pie and Pumpkin Curry Soup

Gonna use Earth Balance in place of butter for the pie crust to make it fully vegan.  Making this tomorrow.  Using leeks from the latest farm box in the soup, and it's looking like the orange veg in the soup will be pumpkin and maybe a sweet potato this time around.  I just dumped a bunch of stuff I needed to use up in this soup the last time around and it was its tastiest iteration yet.

Creole Red Beans & Rice

Using brown basmati rice in place of the white rice.  This will probably be Wednesday night.

Sameer plans to fast on Thursday, so Sim and I will eat leftovers or sandwiches or the last of the black bean burgers I made last week and stashed in the freezer.

Homemade Pizza

Because I haven't made pizza in a little while and I've got mozzarella in the fridge and pizza dough in the freezer.  Probably Friday night dinner. 

I also have a bundle of parsnips from the latest farm box.  I don't love parsnips' sharp flavor, but truffled parsnip soup sounded interesting, so I'm going to use this recipe as a jumping off point and just make something based on what I've got at home.  I'm thinking it will contain parsnips, maybe potato for creamy starchiness, shallot and maybe some onion, celery (not the root, I don't have celery root), and some white truffle oil and coconut milk.  Maybe chives sprinkled on top if any of the ones in the planter outside are still green.  Maybe a bunch of garlic too.  I don't know what I'm doing. 

 

 

 

Preparing for Thanksgiving 2020

We aren't going anywhere or having people over or anything, but I'm cooking several things and need the space in the fridge.  Here's how I'm preparing.

 

Weekend before Thanksgiving:  Drew up Thanksgiving meal plan.  Ordered groceries for the week from Instacart.  Turns out Mariano's didn't have the Gardein turkey cutlets, but they did have the Gardein 7-grain crispy tenders, so we're having that as our protein (because they're easy and we all like them).

Monday:  Made candied pears and put them in the fridge for Thursday.  Made cinnamon ice cream base and put it in the fridge to cool down.  I also made healthy chocolate truffles and cherry chocolate chia pudding, unrelated to Thanksgiving but because I wanted to eat them.

Tuesday:  Farm box didn't arrive yet.  We had this for dinner, which I think looks very pretty all things considered.  Clockwise from top:  Brussels sprouts, sunchokes with smoked paprika aioli, pistachio-crusted tofu, and leftover whipped sweet potatoes.  Everything was from previous farm boxes except the tofu, which had a best by date of Wednesday and needed to go.  I also made apple pocket pies (added a vanilla sugar glaze to make them more closely resemble those hand pies Hostess makes and because the pastry crust was a bit bland) to use up the last of the apple pie filling made from apples in a previous farm box.  I also remembered to put the ice cream maker core in the freezer (it has to freeze for 24 hours before use).

Wednesday:  Farm box arrived.  Sameer gutted the pie pumpkin, and I roasted it.  After it cooled down, I made pie dough and compiled the pumpkin pie.  I don't feel secure about my pumpkin pie making abilities, so we'll see how it turns out.  This was my first attempt making it with fresh pumpkin puree or a standard buttery pie crust (tried two other crusts the last two years and didn't love them).

 

I also need to mix up Chinese mustard sauce for the bok choy, make the rest of the yogurt into ranch dip, and grate cheese and chop an onion for the green bean casserole (grating and chopping are the steps I hate most so I try to do them in advance).  If I still have time, I might prep the rest of the green bean casserole and put it in the fridge, bake and whip some sweet potatoes, and run the cinnamon ice cream base through the ice cream maker.  But I could also do those steps Thursday without much trouble. 

My Favorite Healthy Things to Eat

I'm going to keep updating this list I think.  But I've been meaning to make a list of reliably good recipes I make since this blog is a list of pretty much everything I've ever made, some of which should not be made again.  This list will focus on plant-based, mostly whole food recipes that taste good to me and also make me feel good (i.e., vegan healthy stuff).

 

Breakfast...

Kale-Berry Smoothie (My go-to breakfast.)

 

Soups...

I like to make a big pot of soup about once a week in the cold months.  I eat it for lunch with some fruit and give a cup of the non-spicy ones to Simran as a side dish to her usual quesadilla or whatever she's eating for lunch.

Curry Pumpkin Soup (The tastiest of the bunch. Even Simran likes it.)

Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup (Great way to pack beans and cruciferous greens into a meal.)

Sambar  (Full of protein and veg, so add brown rice or idli and it's a filling meal all by itself.  It's spicy, so I like it when I have a cold.)

Vegetable Manchow Soup (My favorite food when I have any sort of cold or flu because it's spicy and light but also nutrient dense.) 

Veggie Sides...

Blanched dark leafy greens with Walnut Sauce (Even Simran likes this.  It's best on lacinato or dinosaur kale, but it's good on chard or pretty much whatever you've got.)

Shaved Brussels Sprouts with Whole Grain Mustard Sauce (Simran doesn't eat the sauce on this, but she eats the seared sprouts without complaint.) 

French Beans with Caper Bagna Cauda (Simran's favorite veggie side.) 

Collard Greens with Almonds (It's easy and very healthy.) 

Steamed Asparagus with Lemon-Caper Mayo (I keep a container of lemon-caper mayo in my fridge all summer alongside a container of steamed, chilled asparagus ready to eat. This is another one where Sim doesn't like the sauce but she'll eat the veg plain.)

Smoky Potato Salad over Greens (This is good in summer whenever you have arugula or salad greens that you need to use up.)

Red Cabbage Slaw (This is another one no one in the house likes as much as I do.  It goes well with Mexican food though and Sameer will eat a large plate of it if he has red chile pesto to mix in.)

Main Courses...

Creole Red Beans & Rice (I replace the white rice with brown and adjust the cooking time and liquid amount accordingly.  I really need to type up the times and amounts.  Otherwise this is a quick and easy one.)

Vegan Shepherd's Pie

Tofu Pot Pie

Tofu Provencal

Dal Makhani  

Nut-Crusted Tofu

Hearty Veggie Hoagies (Sim loves these and you can make them hours in advance. Great for hot summer days.)

Veggie Summer Rolls (Light and delicious. A fair amount of prep work, but Sim helps, and they're perfect for hot summer days.)

My Comfort Foods...

Breakfast Burrito with sausage (Seems like a lot of work if you're tired and/or depressed, but you can buy vegan breakfast sausages ready made in the freezer section and, once you've got everything cooked, you've got several meals worth of breakfast burrito materials ready to re-heat, roll up, and eat.)

Black Bean Burgers (Make a batch whenever, individually wrap them in wax paper, and put them in a ziploc bag in the freezer.  Then you've got several meals worth of burgers ready to heat in the oven or toaster oven whenever you need something healthy, tasty, and protein-packed.) 

Vegetarian Club Sandwich (This isn't really health food, but it's quick and easy, not terrible for you, and it does make me feel better when I eat it.  Tofurky deli slices are vegan, but Morningstar bacon contains egg whites, so you can make it vegan by using bacon-flavored tempeh slices instead and Vegannaise in place of the mayo.  I exclusively use vegan mayo now. I've never missed the eggy version.)

Buffalo Tofu Salad (The theme I'm seeing in this post is "things I can make once and eat for several days." This is another one of those recipes I eat for lunch for like an entire week. I need to update my buffalo tofu recipe because I make it differently from the original recipe and bread it with 1/3 cup cornmeal and 2/3 cup oats.)

Sweets...

Healthy Chocolate Truffles (Even Simran likes this one, and she prefers straight up junk food.)

Cherry Chocolate Chia Pudding (Ideal healthy way to curb a craving for chocolate or candy.  I'm the only one in the house who thinks so though.)

Mango Sorbet (We all like this one.  I need to type it up.  It's just unsweetened mango -- canned or frozen, though fresh would work if you have it -- blended with the juice of a fresh lime or two and about a tsp of agave nectar.  Then run it through the ice cream maker.)

Fall CSA Box #3

This week's box includes:  arugula, radishes, German butterball potatoes, apples, lacinato kale, mixed baby lettuce, baby spinach, carrots, and sunchokes.

I airfried about half the potatoes and made them into vegan cheesy fiesta potatoes a la Taco Bell.  I had some Tofutti vegan sour cream to use up and made the last of my cashew yogurt into vegan nacho cheese with a recipe from Artisan Vegan Cheese.  It wasn't great.  Don't try this.  I ate the whole thing and the potatoes were fine (cooked through without burning, to my surprised delight), and the vegan cheese sauce and sour cream were good for being vegan, but all together it doesn't resemble the real deal at all.  Don't bother.

The baby spinach went into the freezer for use in breakfast smoothies.  I peeled and cut the carrots and radishes for snacking and washed the lettuce for easy salads.  There were only a few apples, not really enough to warrant making applesauce, so I'm holding off until the next box comes early next week to see what more I have to work with.  Here's what else I'm making:

Kale with Walnut Sauce

 

Roasted Sunchokes with Smoked Paprika Aioli (Vedge, pg. 50)

 

This upcoming week is Thanksgiving, so that will account for one of our meals and another day worth of leftovers.  Sameer also wants to make falafel for another dinner.    

 

I have all the ingredients to make black bean burgers, so those will either be a meal or go straight to the freezer for easy meals later (I just cook them in the toaster oven straight from the freezer for like 10 minutes on each side at 375).  I love those things.  Lately I've been eating them topped with lettuce, tomato, red onion, avocado, yellow mustard, and a slice of Daiya vegan havarti with jalapeno.  

I made a pot of vegetable manchow soup yesterday to use up the green cabbage.  I dumped some cubed tofu, shelled edamame, and diced bell pepper from the freezer into it just to get rid of them.  About a third of the soup went into the freezer for later and the rest I need to finish off now that I've eaten all the sambar.

I also have some tofu I need to use up or freeze in the next few days.  Between that and the potatoes, I might end up making pav bhaji (I'll have burger buns for the black bean burgers anyway) and tofu pot pie at other points in the week.

Thanksgiving 2020

Crudites and Pumpernickel Bread with Homemade Ranch Dressing
For lunch and noshing on till dinner time.

Gardein Turkey Cutlets (if Mariano's has them -- nowhere I've been this year has carried them and I can't find Gardein chik'n tenders anymore either; if things get really dire, I will make nut-crusted tofu)

  

[Clockwise from top: Gardein chik'n tenders, baby bok choy, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes.]

Boxed Mashed Potatoes

 

Green Bean Casserole

 

Candied Pears

 

Pumpkin Pie

 

 

Cinnamon Ice Cream 

 

Apple Pocket Pies

I'll finish off the homemade apple pie filling in these.

 

Any other dishes will be informed by what arrives in the farm box on Tuesday or Wednesday.  Possibly whipped sweet potatoes, pumpkin (or winter squash) curry soup, brussels sprouts, or dark leafy greens with walnut sauce. 

 

[Edited 11/23/2020:  Got the email listing what we're getting in this week's farm box.  I'm getting a pie pumpkin, so I'm going to make the pumpkin pie from scratch instead of canned (using Alton Brown's recipe for the pumpkin puree).  We're also getting kalettes, sweet potatoes, and baby bok choy, so I'm adding Baby Bok Choy with Tamari and Chinese Mustard Sauce (Vedge, pg. 83), whipped sweet potatoes, and kalettes cooked in the style of Shaved Brussel Sprouts with Whole Grain Mustard Sauce to the Thanksgiving menu.  If I run out of time, the kalettes will just go into the freezer for breakfast smoothie fodder and I can use a can of pumpkin for the pie.  I'll make the pumpkin curry soup next week with any leftover pumpkin or sweet potatoes as well as the leeks that are coming in the farm box.]

[Mocktail of the night:  cranberry lemonade made from the remainder of a container of lemonade concentrate in my freezer, a couple small cans of cranberry juice cocktail, and a bunch of lime La Croix.]

Fall CSA Box #2

The second fall CSA box arrived and it contains:  apples, spinach, carrots, watermelon radishes, bibb lettuce, butternut squash x2, yellow onions, golden beets, brussels sprouts, and sweet potatoes x2.  

I already washed and bagged the spinach and beet greens for use in breakfast smoothies (I considered cooking the spinach with garlic but it would've wilted down to a minuscule amount).  I peeled and sliced up the carrots and watermelon radishes for snacking (I have no idea if raw watermelon radishes are good for snacking, but I hated that carpaccio recipe and I don't know what else to do with them).  I'm using a couple of the yellow onions in the spaghetti squash with Beyond Beef sauce that I'm making for dinner tonight.  The bibb lettuce is nice and fresh but probably won't stay that way for long, so I'm making a basic green salad out of at least half of it to go with dinner.  The rest can go into salads or on lunch sandwiches or in breakfast burritos.  I'm going to roast the sweet potatoes and butternut squash and puree them (separately) for easy vegetable sides to go with other meals.  I'm going to keep roasting all my squash seeds too.  I bought a different vegan butter at the store (Vedge recommends Earth Balance) in the hope that it will be one that can be melted and browned without adversely affecting the flavor.  I love Miyoko's Creamery vegan butter, but it tastes bad if you brown it and I'm not sure what ways you can cook with it without that happening, so butter has remained the primary animal-based food I've been cooking with.  Making the roasted squash seeds with Earth Balance this next time and seeing how that goes.  Here is what else I'm making this week to use up what I've got:

 

Shaved Brussels Sprouts with Whole Grain Mustard Sauce

Because of the brussels spouts from the farm box.

 

Salt-Roasted Golden Beets with dill, avocado, capers, and red onion (Vedge, pg. 45) 

To use up the golden beets from the farm.

 

Applesauce

To use up this week and the last of last week's farm box apples.

 

Chilli-Garlic Noodles

To use up part of the green cabbage from a past farm box, probably Saturday night.  I had planned to make the other half of the cabbage into potstickers but couldn't find wonton wrappers at the store today.  Thinking about cooking the leftover cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, green onions, green bell pepper, etc. in a pan and throwing it on top of some soba noodles or ramen for an easy dinner on a night Sameer is fasting.  Or I suppose I could make it into vegetable manchow soup.  Wonton innards and manchow contents are basically the same ingredients.  I'm the only one in the house who eats it, but it's good and healthy and makes a nice cold weather lunch or side dish.

 

Roasted Squash Seeds  

 

Idli-Sambar 

Because the cashew yogurt I bought at the store today is only good for the next week and I use it up quickly eating sambar.  This will also make use of a sizable container of chopped farm box vegetables that have been taking up space in my freezer since the summer.  I might throw the last of the Japanese turnips in the sambar pot too.  I put some of them in a curry tofu pot pie earlier this week and you couldn't even taste them.  It was great.

I also have some leftover pie crust dough from making that tofu pot pie this week, so I'm thawing the apple pie filling I made a few weeks ago and going to make some kind of small apple pie or tartlet out of it this weekend.  There's too much pie filling though, so I will probably end up making another apple pie on or around Thanksgiving.  Maybe some cinnamon ice cream to go with it.

Fall CSA Box #1

Apparently fall CSA boxes get delivered on Thursday because mine just arrived.  It isn't as big or expensive as the summertime ones, so it isn't quite as intimidating.  Box #1 contains:  apples, 1 head green cabbage, 1 spaghetti squash, Japanese turnips (sigh), red beets, green kale, red thumb fingerling potatoes, rainbow carrots, and leeks.

 

I was already in the process of making a pot of soup to use up some of the stuff in my fridge (especially the homemade broth).  I used curry pumpkin soup as the base recipe, but instead of pumpkin I used some diced butternut squash leftover from when I made the winter cassoulet.  When the new CSA box arrived with leeks inside, I added them too (because I don't really know what else to do with leeks), and then added a hefty spoonful of mashed sweet potatoes that were leftover in my fridge and extra vegetable broth to try to keep the ratios (alliums : orange root veg : liquid) scaled properly.  I'll fix the flavors as needed after blending it all smooth.

[Dumping everything in the soup pot]

[Finished soup.  I ended up adding a pinch of salt, some fresh ground black pepper and less fresh ground white pepper, a teaspoonful of tamarind concentrate, and a heaping scoop (maybe 1/4 cup?) of solid full fat coconut milk and blended it all with an immersion blender.]

The turnip greens, beet greens, and kale have already been washed and added to bags in the freezer for use in breakfast smoothies.  I peeled and sliced the carrots for snacking.  The beets will be boiled and sliced for snacking as well.

 

The Japanese turnips will become Miso-Butter Braised Turnips.  It's a flavor I've tried before but a different recipe.  Still hoping to make a turnip dish that doesn't taste bitter to me, so I'm going to go ahead and make these tonight so they are at optimal freshness.  Since the greens are already spoken for, I will substitute the remaining arugula in my fridge.

 

The spaghetti squash will probably utilize the puck of Beyond Beef in my freezer, some onion and garlic, and any tomato-based sauces leftover in the fridge and, barring that, a jar of marinara.  I might chop and add the remaining spinach in the fridge to the sauce just to use it up and also add some greens.  The spaghetti squash seeds will yet again become snacks. 

 

I'm not sure what to do with the cabbage yet.  It's too big to use up in one meal.  If I go to the grocery store this weekend, I can pick up some wonton wrappers, green onions, a green bell pepper, and some shiitakes and make both chilli-garlic noodles and vegetarian potstickers.  That might be enough to use up the cabbage.  

Not sure what to do with the apples either.  There is still a big container of homemade apple pie filling in the freezer (never made an apple pie before, but Thanksgiving seems a good time to try), but I could always make another big batch of applesauce.  Also considering making a date caramel dipping sauce for eating with raw apples. 

Tonight, even though Sameer is fasting, I'm cooking to use up some things that need to go (and also because it'll yield leftovers we can eat for lunch tomorrow).  I'm doing the miso-butter turnips, the curry squash soup I made this morning, and celery root fritters from the Vedge cookbook.  I also have a bunch more cashew yogurt that needs to be used up, so I might make a double batch of pancakes to freeze for later and possibly some cornbread for eating immediately.