Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Chara and I made an extensive plan involving a trip to Potato Chip Rock to do a bit of exploring. Our logic was that over the holiday, many people would be at home with their families, eating lots of tasty food, so we would have the opportunity to make the hike in relative peace. Oh, and we were going to bring wine and cheese to make it a) a picnic and b) vegetarian. But then something happened, a major storm swept through the west coast, forcing us to abandon our plans of Potato Chip Rock domination (and sweet photos for IG) in exchange for a more at-home option.
Since we are vegetarians, the standard Turkey dinner isn’t an option. And since we aren’t incredible chefs (yet), something complicated and fancy wasn’t an option either. So together we came up with our Thanksgiving menu that we believe is the perfect option for the moderately adept vegetarian cook that wants a hearty meal that won’t take up the entire kitchen OR the entire day OR a huge amount of cash (AKA: me).
Somehow in our search for the perfect recipes that would fit the above criteria, we fell across the food blog, Pinch of Yum. And from this blog, we were able to build our very own lazy vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner.
Here’s the menu:
STARTER:
Çelik Salad: walnut, arugula, walnuts, red onion, black pepper, and balsamic vinaigrette
MAIN:
DESSERT:
And here’s a confession: I’ve never baked bread before. Ever. So when I found the recipe for no knead cheese bread, I was excited but skeptical. The recipe claimed that it was easy and with only a few ingredients necessary, I couldn’t help but give it a try.
We went to bed with the dough sitting on the counter, waiting for its fate the next day. When we went to complete the baking process, it rose plenty overnight. I added some flour to the exterior, Chara added a cut down the middle - as is traditional in Turkish baking, and onwards we went.
Check out the results:
And the bread was by far the star of the show. As for the rest of it?
Meh. I’ll spare you the details of a not-so-successful lemon pie or shepherd’s pie. But just know, it did somewhat inspire us to try new things.
It did have one more very valuable benefit: it helped us to realize the power of baking and that no, you don’t need to buy bread from the grocery store.
And so, moving forward, I will be attempting to bake at least one item per week. Usually bread, but we will see what happens.
Got suggestions or recipes? Leave them in the comments!