How Not To Be a Snotty Vegetarian This Thanksgiving

True story: I once attended a Thanksgiving dinner where every single dish contained meat. Even the mashed potatoes were made with chicken broth. And I couldn’t be mad; no one likes a snotty vegetarian. Plus, Thanksgiving is the heptathlon of hosting. Those nice people spent weeks planning, polishing, cooking and, yes, probably shooting, to get the meal on the table. It’s hard enough to remember where the napkin rings are let alone the guests’ culinary particulars. So, I picked the bacon out of the salad and filled up on pie. A better solution, of course, is to bring a dish that both meets your dietary needs and is yummy enough to share. This year, I’m bringing a vegan “chicken” and dumplings. The chicken and dumplings of my youth (and probably yours) was made from bags of frozen vegetables and Campbell’s cream of chicken soup. Using fresh vegetables would be an automatic improvement. To update the ingredients, I substituted leeks for cocktail onions, parsnips for carrots, and omitted the peas entirely. I hate peas. After boiling the veggies in vegetable broth and thickening with flour, I had … floury vegetable soup. And it was a blah shade of brown. Trying again, I roasted the vegetables first, including some carrots for color. Like magic, roasting created amazingly flavorful vegetables that transformed the simple broth into a rich stew. But how to thicken it without flour? An old chef’s trick is to purée a few of the ingredients to give the whole soup some substance. Unfortunately, I went a wee bit manic and puréed all the vegetables in the pot, making a lovely vegetable sludge. We immersion-blender junkies must show restraint and purée only a quarter of the vegetables. OK, I’ll let you do a third, but that’s IT. Leaving most of the vegetables intact keeps the stew from becoming too thick. Now, everyone loves a dumpling. The good news: Vegan dumplings are actually easy to make. My first try yielded dumplings that were light and fluffy and soaked up the stew. But on their own, they looked and tasted bland. I added dried parsley for color and a teaspoon of nutritional yeast flakes* for savory flavor. Dumpling perfection. And lastly, there was the issue of the chicken. What to use instead? Some people swear by soy chicken substitutes, and if you are one of them, add your favorite and be happy. I’m not a huge fan – they’re like costume jewelry to me. No matter how much it looks like the real thing, deep down I know it’s a total fake. Instead, I added a can of cannellini beans. They’re packed with protein, not too mushy and have a pretty white color that could almost, almost pass for diced chicken. Enjoy. And yes, even if you bring this dish to your Thanksgiving diner, you can still fill up on pie. *Nutritional yeast is a vegan product that is packed with B-vitamins and tastes salty, nutty and kinda cheesy. It’s not to be confused with brewer’s yeast or active dry yeast, both of which will make your stew bubble like a third-grade volcano. You can find it in the bulk-food aisle at Dierbergs and Whole Foods. Vegan Dumpling Dough 10 to 15 dumplings 1 cup all-purpose flour
 2 tsp. baking powder
 ½ tsp. salt
 2 tsp. dried parsley ½ cup soy milk 2 Tbsp. Crisco 1 tsp. nutritional yeast • Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a medium mixing bowl. • Add the parsley and make a well with the dry ingredients inside the bowl. • Pour the soy milk into the middle of the well. Add the Crisco and use your fingers to pinch the mixture into a sticky, wet dough. • Sprinkle the dough with yeast and pinch again until incorporated. Set aside. “CHICKEN” Stew with Dumplings Approximately 6 cups 1 leek 1 lb. parsnips, peeled 2 celery ribs 1 large carrot, peeled 2 Tbsp. olive oil 2 tsp. kosher salt ¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper 1 batch vegan dumpling dough (recipe above) 6 cups vegetable broth ¼ cup dry sherry or white wine 2 bay leaves 1 15-oz. can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed • Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. • Spray a roasting pan with cooking spray. • Remove and discard the dark green leaves and roots from the leek. Slice in half lengthwise, rinse to remove soil and pat dry. Place the leek, parsnips, celery and carrot in the prepared roasting pan. • Trim the vegetables as necessary to make sure they sit in the roasting pan in a single layer. Brush the vegetables with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the leek begins to brown and the other vegetables are soft. Remove from the oven and set aside. • While the vegetables are roasting, make your dumpling dough (recipe at left). • Combine the vegetable broth and wine in a large pot with a tight-fitting lid. • When the vegetables are cool to the touch, slice them into bite-sized pieces and add them to the broth mixture. • Place an immersion blender into the stew. Pulse a few times so that a few – but not all – of the vegetables are puréed and the stew is slightly thickened. • Add the bay leaves and beans to the pot. Bring the stew to a boil and reduce to a simmer. • Using your fingers, shape the dough into golf-ball-sized dumplings. Place the dumplings on top of the stew, and cover with a tight-fitting lid. Cook on low for 15 minutes. • Remove the bay leaves and serve hot.