What's on your Christmas menu?

For the last four years, our holiday dinner is pasta with three sauce choices, and we have that Christmas Eve night. Christmas morning I'll make cinnamon rolls, but I'm so out of practice they won't be ready until it's almost afternoon. My husband bought some boxes of sugar cereal (usually forbidden in this house), and we'll end up snacking on tangerines and Christmas candy, and probably even serving the egg dish while the rolls are still baking.

I know. It would be more exciting if I were making a meal around homemade vegetarian tamales. Or serving parboiled broccoli, cubed cottage potatoes, and torn bread to dip in spicy peanut butter fondue. Or bringing out a platter of roasted Sliced Acorn Squash rings (because they look like stars) stuffed with apples or mushrooms and rice and nuts. Or, if I hadn't been making it every thursday for last six weeks, Spatzle with mushroom gravy, with lingonberry jam for a side of Christmas color.

Instead, all I need to make it a holiday is one green salad with pomegranate seeds sprinkled in it, and my really large and perfect Christmas tree.

Merry Christmas.

And your holiday secrets, menu or otherwise, do tell.

Heather cooking vegetarian from scratch

I was just visiting commenter's blogs and wanted to point you to two vegetarian recipes that Heather of What's for Dinner recently posted on her site.

Kid-pleasing Chili Mac

Lynette's Vegetarian Chili that can be made in a crock-pot. I keep saying I'm going to wean myself off canned Hormel's Chili vegetarian.

Spätzle with mushroom cream sauce

Fifteen years ago, my neighbor, who was a great cook, invited me over for dinner. She had made homemade spätzle with a spätzle maker she'd found in a yard sale during a visit to her home state. The maker looked like a cheese grater with a shuttle across the top of it. I was delighted when she demonstrated it: the dough drops through the holes as the shuttle scrapes over them, dropping drippings of spatzle dough right into the boiling water. How clever; how sensible!

Spätzle fascinates me. I classify it as a homemade pasta or egg noodle, and I love that there's no running the dough through a pasta maker several times to make it smooth, and no figuring out where to hang the pasta to dry. But there's still enough effort involved that it feels like a homemade food project, a bit of an adventure, a bit celebratory.

I've been wanting to make spätzle for years since, so on my recent trip to Austria I purchased a spätzle maker of my own. It has a curved surface with holes, and a rubber scraper for pushing the dough over them. It's wide enough to rest over any of my boiling water pots. I understand you can substitute a large-holed colander for a spatzle maker, but I've never tried.

The recipe I used: 500 g flour, 6 eggs, 150ml water, teaspoon of salt. I let my stand mixer do the work.

I brought a potful of water to boil, adding salt and oil.

I put a big scoop of dough on the spätzle maker. I could tell the consistency was right because it drooped through the holes but didn't fall or run out. I scraped back and forth which forced the dough out. The spätzle that floated was done; I pulled it out with my mesh kitchen sieve.


Now, what to serve with it? Spätzle is a German food I associate with chunks of meat and gravy. Yet like egg noodles, it's good with butter and a little salt. I made a simple mushroom cream sauce by sautéing chopped onion and finely diced mushroom (used food processor to chop) and then adding some cream and cooking it a bit more. Add a side salad, and we had a delicious dinner tonight.

How was your Veggie Thanksgiving?

We had Thanksgiving at our friends' place this year. They were really cool about making alternates of a couple side dishes to expand the vegetarian menu. And I learned how they make gluten-free pie for their family!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and I must really love my friends or I would never have enjoyed giving up my role as host and menu czar. I was thinking next year I might serve salmon along with the turkey, since my vegetarian daughter added fish to her diet.

Tell us about your menu this year! And like me, are you already plotting for the next?

Salmon and Potato Cakes

For those of you who include fish into your vegetarian diet. These were easy to make and the kids liked it. We topped them with sour cream and just a drizzle of ketchup mixed with Worcestershire sauce. Double the recipe: leftovers are great.

Serves 4

2 Cups red skinned potatoes, boiled and smashed (smash with skins on. I think this took about 4-5 large red potatoes. )
1 small onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
1-7 oz can salmon, skin and bones removed
2 eggs, beaten
1 Tablespoon dried dill or thyme (double if using fresh)
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 Cup croutons, crushed to make 1/4 Cup crumbs (any flavor, I used Caesar)
kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
oil (canola or olive)

saute onion and garlic in 1 teaspoon of oil. Remove from heat.

Combine onion and garlic, potatoes, salmon, eggs, spices, mustard and croutons in a bowl and mix. Shape into patties. Salt and pepper each side. Fry in just a little bit of oil until golden brown on each side and heated through. Serve with sour cream.

Stay tuned for later this week. I'm trying out a recipe for Quinoa Stuffed Peppers and a Carrot Cilantro salad.

Go Meatless On Monday

Whenever I am asked how to go flexitarian without your family declaring mutiny, I answer the same thing:

Go Meatless on Monday

Your family could use a meatless meal after that traditional Sunday roast. Besides, if they are not thrilled with dinner that day, you can still look forward to Family Night treat. If things go well then make 2 nights meat-free at your house.

Eating Well Magazine apparently agrees with the Meatless Monday. They ran a list of vegetarian recipes under the title Go Meatless on Monday. You can find them here.

Another great spot to check for recipes is Meatless Mondays.com. Find them here.

Tonight I made a batch of Italian Vegetable Soup from a recipe I found on the Better Homes & Garden's website. I doubled the recipe and added a can each of chickpeas and corn. You can find the original recipe here.

Last of all, another great source for recipes that I love is on the blog 101 Cookbooks. 231 vegetarian recipe and counting. Just click on the title to go there and scan the recipe link for the vegetarian section.

Ward Chili Cook-off

Do I dare take a vegetarian chili? I live where people are definitely meat eaters.
I was thinking of calling it "Word of Wisdom Chili", including in it lentils and bulghur.
Or is it an exercise in futility, with people only thinking ever more weird things about me?