Cornbread Stuffing Recipe (ish)
One or two days before you need it, make cornbread recipe of your choice. Let it sit for a day, then cube it up and make breadcrumbs in the oven so they're dried out. IME this is actually good enough to hold up to liquid you'll add later without dissolving into mush. (Rainbow Plant Life's recipe is a good starter if you want a satiating cornbread, but I would cut the sugar for this use case - it's already high calorie/fat enough. Don't need the maple syrup and don't need even the true amount of sugar she uses, but you do you, it's holidays after all) Night before or morning of holiday, make stuffing with it. I typically use the same base approach I've used for years: carrots/celery/onion, pepper, herbs of choice, crushed up toasted nut of some kind, and then periodically ladle in a broth for it all to soak up as it bakes. I usually avoid adding salt early on since I use a chicken-less broth to mimic the flavors I remember, but it carries a higher sodium content. When it's done cooking, let it cool in the fridge and reheat it before serving - flavor's always improve for whatever reason. (Also randomly picked up a bunch of Jack & Annie's maple breakfast sausages last year and added them in chopped up, which worked really well) Keeps for a few days, acts as a fantastic binder for everything you could slop on a plate, and tastes great with cranberry sauce. It is hands down the only recipe/approach I've tried that gets close to what I remember eating growing up. Served it to multiple groups now and everyone just assumes it's "regular food".
Vegan tocilog
Chef Reina does some amazing recreations of otherwise tricky flavors. It's a bit of a hike to get here from San Francisco, but well worth the effort.
BBQ Juicy Marbles
Their new short ribs product is nothing short of amazing. Pretty much the gold standard in meat replicas as far as I'm concerned.
Vegan brisket experiment
A washed-flour seitan brisket with boiled down peach tree gum to mimic a fatty layer. Probably one of my most successful experiments! Most people agreed that the mouth feel and taste were much closer than they expected it to be. Just a shame that I avoid wheat these days due to allergies... otherwise I would've pushed this idea further.
Anniversary dinner at Surrell
A tofu, miso, and green onion appetizer. This restaurant is a very underrated spot for vegan food in Seattle; the chef is incredibly talented and adept at imparting flavor where you wouldn't think possible.
Anniversary dinner at Surrell (2)
A savory macaron. I can't recall the exact flavor at this point, but it was plated beautifully and was a fantastic start to an anniversary celebration.
Eggs Benedict
Self explanatory.
Shrimp fettucine alfredo
Homemade pasta with local shrimp.
How to Taste (by Becky Selengut)
This book should be required reading for anyone who enters a kitchen. I couldn't put it down! Really helped me understand how to push a taste to where I want it to be.
Red velvet galaxy cake
For my girlfriend's birthday, I opted to bake this year: a beet red velvet cake with a galaxy mirror glaze. I will never make this again... well, maybe if I vegan-ize it.
Cheesecake experiments
A bit more dense than I wanted, but this was one of my last experiments doing homemade dairy cheesecake. The whipped cream on top was also homemade... nowadays all I remember is how bloated this made me feel.
Atakilt Wat
Wanted to switch up flavor profiles for dinner tonight, so took a stab at... Ethiopian food? Atakilt Wat (potato, shallots, carrots, garlic, ginger, turmeric, cloves, cardamom, cumin, cabbage) on top of rice. Not bad, definitely tastes good.