Dining With Friends: Soup and Pie, Oh My!

By Dustin Garrett Rhodes

Each Friday through the holidays, Friends of Animals will share an all-vegan recipe or two to help make your holiday season taste better. Or, maybe we’ll help inspire some new ideas. In any case, all the recipes appear in Priscilla Feral’s and Lee Hall’s cookbook, Dining With Friends: The Art of North American Vegan Cuisine.

The cookbook is available for purchase at the Friends of Animals website (www.friendsofanimals.org) and from www.amazon.com. Best of all, proceeds go towards helping Friends of Animals end animal exploitation. Priscilla Feral’s new cookbook, The Best of Vegan Cooking, will be available soon for pre-order, and available for purchase in January 2009.

* * * * * *

You don’t know how badly I wish I would have had this recipe seven Thankgiving’s ago when I produced the worst chestnut soup ever made. Completely inedible, I had to actually throw it out right before Thanksgiving dinner. The experience scarred me, but did not dissolve my affection for chestnuts. Rest assured, this soup is fantastic: creamy, rich and nutty. The sour cream and cayenne pepper, which impart surprising flavor and consistency, finish this delightful soup. It’s worth the effort, I promise.

I am always looking for new recipes that use pumpkin—a nutritious, versatile and delicious squash. Here’s a recipe for pumpkin cheesecake that’s decadent and delightful—and what a welcome departure from the standard issue pumpkin pie. Pumpkin and vegan cream cheese were made for one another.

(Happy Thanksgiving!)

Perfect Chestnut Soup

Serves 6

Chestnuts are low in fat. They are also highly perishable, so store them in a plastic bag in your refrigerator until you are ready to cook. This recipe was adapted from a recipe from Delmarvelous Chestnuts, a chestnut grower in Towsend, Delaware. We’re please to offer our friends a vegan version of the experts’ festive winter soup.

8 tablespoons soy margarine
4 cups whole roasted chestnuts (about 1 ½ pounds)
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1 leek, mostly white parts, well rinsed and chopped
1 parsnip, peeled and chopped
1 cup celery, peeled and chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
7 ½ cups vegetable broth
½ cup Madeira wine
2 or more parsley sprigs, chopped
Pinch of grated nutmeg
Sea salt
Fresh ground pepper
Tofutti brand imitation sour cream
Cayenne pepper

Preparation:

To roast chestnuts: Choose fresh, firm, unwrinkled chestnuts with no signs of spores. On the flat side of each chestnut, take a small knife and cut an X from one end to the other. Make sure you cut all the way through the shell. Lay the chestnuts in one layer in an oven proof dish. Bake at 325 degrees F for 25-30 minutes, until the cuts peel back naturally from the heat. Cool only slightly. Pull off outer shell and the fuzzy skin, and set nuts aside.

In a heavy saucepan, melt 4 tablespoons of margarine over medium heat. Add chestnuts and sauté until heated through, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

Melt the remaining four tablespoons of margarine in a heavy, large soup pot over medium heat. Add carrot, parsnip, leek and celery; sauté until soft, about 7 minutes. Add vegetable broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low. Add the chestnuts, Madeira wine, parsley, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Continue to simmer for another 15 minutes.

Puree the soup in batches in a food processor or blender. Transfer the pureed soup to a large soup pot and reheat, stirring frequently.

When it’s thoroughly heated, ladle the soup into bowls. Top it off with a dollop of non-dairy sour cream and sprinkle lightly with cayenne pepper.

Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake

Serves 8-10

1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs
1 tablespoon canola oil
4 tablespoons maple syrup
1 package Mori-Nu Lite Firm Tofu, pureed
8 ounces Tofutti “Better Than Cream Cheese”
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup Florida Crystals sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon powdered ginger
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons pure molasses (mild)
1/8 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda

Preparation:

Position a rack at the central height in the oven, and heat to 350 degrees F. Coat a 9-inch or 10-inch round springform pan with canola oil cooking spray. Mix graham cracker crumbs, canola oil, and maple syrup together, and press the mix into the prepared pan. Puree the remaining ingredients in a food processor and poor into the crust. Bake for 50 minutes. Let cool for 30 minutes; then refrigerate for 5-6 hours or overnight before serving.