Homemade Vegan Dressing & Vegan Gravy

I made a loaf of my artisan bread for my friends who watched my animals while I was away and I just got a text from them saying they loved it and want the recipe.  How exciting!  I love that bread and it’s so easy to make and yummy.  And vegan and no soy!

So, today was a leftover day.  This what's in our fridge this morning.

Dave and I have been really good at staying on the plant base woe.  I made the hummus yesterday but we didn’t really eat it yesterday.   OMG – I had it for lunch today and it is awesome.  I like it so much better than the store bought expensive brand! 

Dave made dinner last night which included quinoa, black beans, stir fried veggies, and pasta and spaghetti sauce for the kids.  The funny thing is the kids put black beans on the side of their pasta!  LOL  My kids love beans.  We actually had two kinds of leftover pasta in the fridge; the rigatoni and the capellini from the night before last!  The real funny thing is the kids (16 & 18) would have definitely eaten the quinoa, black beans and stir fry veggies but Dave didn’t think there would be enough.  Obviously there was enough but I think we could have used two cans of black beans.  There’s barely any black beans left in that container!

The stir fry veggies were absolutely delicious and Dave only used olive oil, salt and pepper with the broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, onion, mushrooms, celery and carrots.  Most of the veggies were already cut up from earlier in the week for our lunch salads. 

I love having so many vegan options to choose to eat quickly!  I think the hardest part of going plant based is that I need to reprogram my go to foods.  I tend to grab bread or an apple if I don’t know what to eat and I’m really hungry.  I ate a lot of bread at first and when I visit my parents.  That’s another post. 

 

So today we’ve been eating our yummy leftovers, tonight we finished them and I also made homemade dressing/stuffing to go with the leftover gravy and sour cabbage.  Yum.  (Dressing is when it’s outside the bird and stuffing is when you stuff the bird with it.  But, I know it confuses people.)  I had some leftover artisan bread in the freezer that I used for it.  The gravy was super thick.  I actually made a second batch this week and I used the leftover potato water when I made it.  It adds flavor, nutrients and the starch helps thicken it.  I've also used the green bean water when I've made gravy too for flavor and nutrients.  Anyhow, my leftover dinner was delicious; it tastes a lot better than it looks here!  Yes, I put gravy on everything.

Homemade Dressing/Stuffing  Recipe

Cubed bread (about ½ a loaf of artisan bread)

3 T margarine

2 stalks celery finely chopped

2 small onions finely chopped

1 tsp. poultry seasoning

½ tsp. ground thyme

½ tsp. sea salt

¼ tsp. pepper

½ cup water

1 tsp. no chicken vegetable broth

Vegetarian "Beef/Chicken" Gravy

2 T. margarine
2 T flour
1 tsp no beef bouillon paste (Better than Bouillon Vegetarian)
1/2 tsp no chicken bouillon paste (Better than Bouillon Vegetarian)
1/2 tsp Porterhouse & Roast Seasoning (it's just spices - see below)
1 1/2 cups water

Melt margarine and whisk in the flour.  Whisk in the bouillon pastes and the seasoning.  Slowly whisk in the water.  Cook over low heat until desired thickness. 

Ingredients of Porterhouse & Roast Seasoning - salt, granulated garlic, granulated onion, black pepper, oregano, corn meal, paprika, celery seed, parsley and rosemary. vegan :)