What We Made For Easter Dinner, In Pictures- a Two Stupid Vegans production

LeftyMom

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Sun Apr-08-07 10:50 PM
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What We Made For Easter Dinner, In Pictures- a Two Stupid Vegans production

Part One: The People

Project Vegan Turducken was a project of two rather silly vegans, myself and flvegan, 12 combined years of vegan living, and fewer beers than you would really think would be downed in a project like this.

Part Two: The Plan

We've been joking about turducken for years. The reason why is pretty simple really, composed of a deboned chicken inside a deboned duck inside a deboned turkey, it's just about the least vegan food either of us have ever heard of. So last year, when a little Chinese vegetarian grocery opened up near me selling scarily realistic vegan mock chicken and mock duck, we were stuck by a very, very stupid but idea that grew to the weight of a historic inevitability: we could, nay MUST, create what we suspect may be the world's first vegan turducken.

The first challenge was logistical: we live 3,000 miles apart, which makes fooling around in the kitchen somewhat more difficult than for most couples. Luckily, I was planning to visit anyhow, so Operation Vegan Turducken was added to the agenda for my trip. However, a larger logistical problem remained: our only source of realistic vegan chicken and duck was in California, and I was headed to Florida. The solution proved relatively simple, I carried a softsided cooler full of frozen goodies in my carry-on, sort of like a heart intended for transplant but much more edible and without the very cool biohazard stickers.

Having mounted that small hurdle, packed up the simulated flesh (and laptop, socks, shampoo and other stuff I needed for my trip) and navigated the exciting world of post-9-11 airport security successfully, we ran into another problem upon my arrival: we had intended to use a large, turkey-shaped sort of fake turkey, probably an UnTurkey. Though we looked, we couldn't turn up anybody who carried them here this time of year. Of course, all the health food shops back home have them, so I had assumed this would not be an issue, and had I carried one of those along as well I'd have had more cooler than suitcase, and probably a very sore back by the time I could turn it all over to the self-appointed Designated Carrier of Heavy Things. So we decided to make do with a smaller and not really shaped like anything Tofurkey roast, get the stuffing scooped out, then tie the whole business up like a roast. It would look less like the actual dead critter product, but really we didn't mind that one bit, since that's a bit, well, unappetizing at best.

Part Three: The Cooking, in Pictures

Here are the packaged chicken and duck, and a duck partly unwrapped.

This is what a raw Tofurkey roast looks like. Mmmmm...

So we performed a little magic, and soon we had cleaned out little halves, waiting to get restuffed.

This is what the "chicken" looked like. It was made out of wheat gluten from China, so if we quit posting, you know why.

We put the "chicken" and "duck" inside (this required cutting them up somewhat) and tied the whole thing up with some cotton string purchased at fancy cooking supply store Les Home Depot, which, for some reason is open on Easter, unlike those evil bastards at Target.

Then they went in the oven. In the meantime, we made some yams, stuffing and somehow passed the time while everything baked.

Then we went back to the oven and Ta Da!

Behold: history on a plate! The plate with fewer yams was flvegan's, somehow he had reached the age of, well old enough that it's a scandal, let's leave it at that so he'll still talk to me, without ever trying any. He liked them. :D

It was pretty darn good too. :9