Yours for Good Fermentables ™: #VeggieDag Thursday: Tuesday-before-Christmas 2015 edition.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

#VeggieDag Thursday: Tuesday-before-Christmas 2015 edition.

VeggieDag Thursday is an occasional Thursday post
on an animal-free diet and ecological issues.

July 2015 was the Earth's hottest month ever recorded, at least since humans first began recording such things. The average temperature of the entire Earth that month was 61.86 °F, 1.46 degrees above average. Nine out of eleven months (excluding unfinished December) were their hottest respective months ever. And once December's results are in, 2015 will be, almost certainly, the Earth's hottest ever recorded, breaking the record set in ... 2014.

The Global Climate Conference —officially and clumsily known as the 21st Conference of Parties— only recently concluded in Paris, France, where it reached international agreement to limit global warming to less than two degrees Celsius over the next one-hundred years. Of this, U.S. President Obama said: It's “the best chance we’ve had to save the one planet we’ve got."

Yet this "best chance" is merely aspirational, enforced, as such, only with national pledges —no penalties or inducements. And as meager as those are, none are required to be enacted until 2020.

The scientific consensus is that a two degree rise in global temperature will give rise to catastrophic and era-enduring changes in global weather, sea-rise, health, and economy —American political grandstanding notwithstanding. Not a good legacy to be dumping on our successive generations.

There was some recent good news, however.

The Harvard School of Public Health followed a group of twenty-thousand nurses and doctors over the course of thirty years, and found that coffee drinkers live longer than coffee abstainers, less likely to die from strokes, diabetes, heart disease, suicide, and neurological diseases. And those that drank up to five cups per day received the greatest benefit.

'Tis the season, so let's drink (and not exclusively coffee) and eat and be merry; tomorrow is another day. For this, the Tuesday-before-Christmas 2015 edition of VeggieDag Thursday, it would seem timely to post some (non-animal-killing) recipes.

Nathan Kozuskanich is the Vegan Dad. I've never met him, but I've been a faithful reader of his eponymous blog. Back in 2010, he published this menu list for Christmas Day. Here's some of it:

Russian Tea Balls

Veggie Mini Pies (but add some cranberries into the mix)

Stuffed Tofu

Festive Phyllo Triangles

Stuffed Seitan Roast

Scalloped Potatoes & Butternut Squash

His 2008 self-published Vegan Dad Cookbook might be a wonderful gift for a friend (or you). It's available in either paperback or ebook (pdf) format. Recipes that kids will enjoy (I've tested!) and that harried parents can make when time is rare.

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More Christmasy recipes from around the interwebs

Vegan 'Caesar' Salad with Chickpea 'Croutons.'
—Via Angela Liddon at Oh She Glows.

Black Pepper Beer Bread.
—Via YFGF.

Vegan Butternut Squash Soup
—Via BBC.

Cheddar Beer Soup (not vegan: the cheese isn't, that is!) —Via The Kitchn.

Grilled Winter Squash With Mint-Pomegranate Pesto
—Via Gjelina: Cooking from Venice, California,” by Travis Lett (Chronicle Books, 2015.com), as adapted in the Washington Post.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts
—Via YFGF.

Not strictly for the Christmas meal, but a handy vegan-conversion guide for the five classic French 'mother' sauces: béchamel, espagnole, veloute, hollandaise, and tomate.
—Via One Green Planet.

Rice Pilaf with Carrot Juice
—Via "Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking," by Michael Solomonov, as adapted by Weekend Vegetarian in the Washington Post.

Easter European 'soul' food: Potato Kugel, a hearty potato pudding.

—The traditional method, with lots of eggs, via Deb Perelman at Smitten Kitchen.
—Vegan recipe via Charles Swedish, self-described "metaphysician, social satirist, and amateur mycologist," at YFGF.

(Un)Traditional Christmas Pudding, with barleywine.

Skip the suet (raw beef or mutton fat)! Use vegetable shortening (but NOT Crisco).
Sultanas are green raisins.
Recipe calls for 75ml each of stout and barleywine. Instead, simply use 6 ounces of a rich barleywine.

—Via Delia Smith.

Vegan Eggnog (base of homemade almond milk, not soy)
—Via Elana Amsterdam at Elana's Pantry.

Recipes for Christmas 'Craft' Beer Cookies (but skip that 1st bacon thing!).
—Via CraftBeer.com.