James has been very intrigued with my various seitanic rituals…ahem…experiments of late and wanted to try out a recipe for a stuffed seitan turkey in anticipation of the holiday season.

We usually spend Christmas Eve making a tourtiere with all the fixings and continue to eat that on Christmas day, but Annie and Jamie are coming up at the end of December, so we wanted a special recipe for New Year’s Eve.

So, to begin this endeavour, I made James a loaf of seitan from this vegan chick’n recipe. However, instead of simmering the dough in broth, I rolled it out to about a half-inch thickness on parchment paper and baked it at 375 for 25 minutes.

James (yes, those are his manly hands in the pictures!) then placed another piece of parchment over the baked dough and rolled it around a rolling pin and left it to “train” into the round shape as it cooled. He made the stuffing while he waited for it to cool.

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Next, he made the…Stuffing!!

1/2 cup white wine

2 cups chopped, dried fruit (cranberries, apricots, mango, prunes, apples)

1 cup diced celery

1.5 cups sweet onion

1/2 cup diced red pepper

1/3 cup vegan butter

3 cups bread cubes

1 cup vegetable broth

1 TBS chopped fresh thyme

1 TBS chopped fresh sage

1 TBS chopped fresh parsley

Pour wine over dried fruit and leave for 15 minutes. Saute the celery, onion, and red pepper in the vegan butter for five minutes. Place bread cubes in a large bowl and pour onion mixture over top. Add wine and dried fruit. Add vegetable broth and fresh herbs. Season with salt and pepper and mix thoroughly.

Next, unroll your dough and spread the stuffing along the full length of the dough and roll it back up. Place seam side down in an 11 x 14 casserole dish.

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Rub the outside with a little vegan butter:

And wrap in three pieces of softened rice paper. Don’t worry about getting the bottom–just cover the ends to keep the stuffing in and then cover the centre:

Pour around the roast:

2 cups apple cider (be prepared to top this up every time you baste!)

1/2 cup dried apples

Next, bake at 375 degrees for one and a half hours, basting every fifteen minutes.

When the roast is cooked, drain off the basting juice, strain it into a pan, and reduce by 1/3 over medium heat, and add a splash of sherry.

This will be the sauce for your stuffed vegan turkey. It’s not a gravy–more of a thin sauce, but lovely.

We served our delicious vegan stuffed turkey with asparagus and mashed potatoes. 

It was divine!!

And the song of the day is “Either Way” by Beta Radio”