Firstly, it’s Thanksgiving. Don’t let the growing pile of dishes in the sink dissuade you from using what you got to use to get it right.  In fact, this may be my personal philosophy in life, as I’m a little bit of a figurative mess maker (literally, I am quite organized).  This is thee food holiday.  So find another area in your life to be repressed.  Tonight, we eat well!

I feel very embarrassed about this, but… I had no idea that “Vegducken” existed… that it was a big thing in 2015.  In fact, if it wasn’t for the tremendously high price of Vegan Commissary‘s Seitan Turducken ($90), then I wouldn’t have googled vegan turducken and made the Vegducken discovery.  But I didn’t like the recipes I found. So here, a Vegan Victuals Vegducken recipe.  Trial 1.

Stuffing is a must.  It’s Thanksgiving.  So don’t stuff your vegetable cavities with the vegetable flesh you just scraped from the very same vegetables. Though, this recipe from Bon Appetit that i am tweaking, asks you do that.  That is just kind of gross really.  Like “ABC” gum inside a fresh piece of Hubba Bubba.  Make some stuffing with totally different vegetables, some good grains, fresh herbs, pumpkin… c’mon now.  Yes, now.  Get going!

Stuffing

4 Tablespoons of Olive Oil
8 cups bread, diced
2 cups mushrooms, chopped
1 large onion, diced
4 stalks of celery, diced
2 Tablespoons rosemary, minced
1 Tablespoon sage, minced
2 cups pumpkin puree
2 cups vegetable stock
1/4 cup goji berries
2 Tablespoons pumpkin seeds
salt and pepper to taste

Ingredient notes:
Given this stuffing will be a layer in a Vegducken, I wanted it a bit wetter and less textured than a stand-alone stuffing. I skimped a bit on the amount of bread.  I used my favorite bread, Dave’s Killer Bread The Good Seed because it’s organic (so non-GMO), has Omega-y seeds all about it, it’s from Oregon, and I used to like hair metal when I was a kid.  I used a mix of mushrooms… because that is what Instacart replaced the Shiitake I put on my list with (misplaced modifier?) I took pictures of them because mushrooms are very photogenic.  

Also, sage is exactly what Thanksgiving tastes like. 

1.) Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 9×13 casserole dish.
2.) In a large sauté pan on medium heat, preheat olive oil.
3.) Add mushrooms and cook until they are lightly browned.
4.) Add the onions and celery to the mushrooms cook 10 minutes, until soft and translucent.
5.) Add the rosemary and sage to the pan and cook 2 minutes until aromatic. Season with salt and pepper.
6.) Lower the heat to medium-low. Add the pumpkin and vegetable stock to the vegetables and stir to combine. Season again with salt and pepper. Cook for an additional 5 minutes and remove from heat.
7.) In a large bowl, combine bread and vegetable mixture. Mix until all bread is wet.
8.) Add the goji berries and pumpkin seeds and mix well.
9.) Pour the stuffing into the prepared pan and flatten into an even layer.  See how it’s more wet than you’d want…

10.) Place the stuffing into the oven and bake for about 45 minutes, or until the top is browned slightly.

Maple Garlic Butter

So this one is pretty much straight from the Bon Appetit recipe. Of course subbing the butter with Earth Balance. This will be brushed onto all the veggie flesh, as well as on the exterior of the butternut squash skin.

2 clove garlic, micro-planed
1/4 cup Earth Balance
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
6 thyme sprigs
2 Tablespoons Maple Syrup

1.) Put solid Earth Balance in a small sauce pan and turn on low heat on the stove top.
2.) Add micro-plane garlic, red pepper flakes, and thyme sprigs, stirring to combine as the Earth Balance melts.
3.) After all is melted and garlic is fragrant, take off heat.
4.) Stir in maple syrup.

The Vegducken, trial 1

1 Butternut Squash, halved and seeds scooped
1 sweet potato, halved lengthwise
1 zucchini, halved lengthwise
1 Field Roast sausage, halved lengthwise
Maple garlic butter (above)

Ingredient notes:
You can use any tubular squash that can nest within each other.  Edible skin is a must though.  For color contract I thought I purchased a sweet potato with white flesh, but no, orange–just like the butternut. And Instacart also picked up the smallest zucchini in existence.  Ideally, your veggies should be about the same length, though mine weren’t.  Also, because of my terrible knife skills, I simply halved the two internal vegetables, not scooping them.  It just didn’t seem worth the effort.  Especially not without the right tools.

1.) Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2.) Scoop out flesh of Butternut squash, making a canal for the other vegetables. I found this to be easiest with a spoon, scraping like an Italian Ice (the Marinos Italian Ice-style, to be more specific).  Scoop out as much as you need to fit the other veggies.
3.) Slather the squash flesh with the maple butter and then spoon on the stuffing, pressing down with the back of the spoon. 
3.) Nest in your vegetable layers and sausage center, putting the stuffing and maple butter in between each.
4.) Put the filled butternut squash halves together, wrapping tightly with kitchen twine.

5.) Cover with foil and roast in a bread pan for stability.  Roast for 80-90 minutes, uncovered for the last half hour.
6.) Take out of oven and let rest in a pan for 20 minutes.

7.) Carefully remove from pan and let sit until you’re ready to serve.

Yadda, yadda, yadda, my first try at Vegducken.  With a whole bunch left over to have a photoshoot with. 

So there is a bunch I can improve upon here, but this was a great first trial.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Notes after eating:

So it was pretty darn bland despite seasoning it well before roasting.  As the water cooked from the squash it simply washed all the goodness away.  Pair this the fact that nothing gets deliciously caramelized within and you’ve got a centerpiece that took a whole lot of time and isn’t really worth it!

Next time I would just roast all pieces separately, and try placing it back together for serving. Even better, I’d roast it to slightly tender, scoop out what I need to nest the other vegetables within then slather surface area in flavor and fat.  This way I wouldn’t have to spend so much time digging out raw squash and cutting myself.