VeganMoFo 2013 has come to an end! I didn’t reach my goal of posting every weekday, but I did make 19 posts which is great considering how sporadic my blogging has been the past two years.
Dave and I are kind of nerds when it comes to how much we like watching movies. We’ve been talking for a while about holding a Harry Potter marathon, where we watch all the movies in one day back to back. This would take about twenty hours and we’d like to wait until the weather is cooler, so as a test run we decided to have a Lord of the Rings marathon with a few friends. We originally intended to just make a bunch of easy food that we could eat all day in order to relax, but of course I had to get all intense about it and decided that we’d eat the way hobbits do, which is many, many meals a day!
“And laugh they did, and eat, and drink, often and heartily, being fond of simple jests at all times, and of six meals a day (when they could get them).” The Fellowship of the Ring, Prologue, J.R.R. Tolkien
In the movies it’s seven meals. I thought we wouldn’t need supper and dinner after a full day of eating and lazing, so we stuck with six. I found this post incredibly useful in planning the timing of the movies and meals, and this fan fiction post on meal etiquette helped us figure out what to actually serve for each meal. In the interest of not being in the kitchen all day, we chose a lot of foods that could be made ahead of time and reheated or served cold.
Here’s the schedule we aimed for, although everything ended up running a little later. We let the credits roll for bathroom and fresh air breaks, and only took real breaks for lunch and supper so that we could eat at the dining table.
8:30 – The Fellowship of the Ring
noon – The Two Towers
4:00 – The Return of the King
8:30 – Breakfast
9:45 – Second Breakfast
11:15 -Elevenses
1:00 – Lunch
3:45 – Afternoon Tea
6:00 – Supper
Our friends brought over their super awesome Salvation Army find, two authentic Lord of the Rings goblets! The Arwen glass held my OJ, and later, beer.
Breakfast was Cinnamon Roll Baked Oatmeal from Chocolate Covered Katie, baked in muffin cups for easy serving. Rather than frosting, I thought Stewed Apples would be a nice, light topping to start with. I wasn’t sure how the healthy, vegan baked oatmeal would go over, but everyone seemed to like it!
For Second Breakfast, Dave made everyone else egg and cheese casserole and sausages, so here is my version. I made a variation of the Shiitake Dill Frittata from Vegan Brunch, swapping the shiitakes out for criminis, subbing chives, parsley and tarragon for the dill, and adding Daiya cheddar shreds. The sausages are Vegan Dad’s Breakfast Sausages, which I like very much and now have a freezer full of. The toast was made from a country style wheat loaf, with boysenberry jam.
You know we had to have some Lembas bread for Elevenses! I veganized this recipe, adding some almond extract and chopped toasted almonds, since my extensive internet research suggested it was a good idea. It turned out a little dry and plain, but good enough to eat, which was kind of exactly the point. We also served Earl Grey tea and non-vegan chocolate biscuits.
Lunch was a picnicky affair, a build-your-own-plate type of meal. In the Lazy Susan is heirloom tomatoes, canned beet slices, olives, marinated mushrooms, dill pickles, and two types of mustard. Accompanied by potato salad with mustard vinaigrette, Black Forest Rye bread, and a green salad with balsamic vinaigrette. Dave and our guests also had a platter of cold cuts and cheeses.
I had open-faced sandwiches with Tofurky roast beef slices and Daiya swiss. I really enjoyed this meal, there were lots of different flavors and the dressings on the salads were very tasty. It was very filling while still feeling light.
Etiquette dictated that we serve something sweet after lunch but we didn’t want it to be heavy since we still had one and a half movies and two meals to get through. These fresh strawberries were nice with cool whipped coconut cream.
Afternoon Tea was a particularly special affair with a real life fancy tea set purchased last minute from Goodwill.
Tea sandwiches and scones seemed like the only appropriate food for high tea! Dave wasn’t sold on the tea sandwiches, but they turned out really well – cucumber and Tofutti cream cheese or radishes and Earth Balance on white bread. They would’ve been perfect if I had sprinkled on a bit of salt while assembling.
The scones were lemon poppyseed, adapted from my scone recipe and cut into mini scones. I added lemon zest, subbed fresh lemon juice for some of the liquid, and used baking soda in place of some of the baking powder.
None of us were hungry when it came time for dinner, but we forged ahead in the name of The King!
Dinner started with vegetable barley soup that had been simmering all day, and actually simmered a bit too long. It tasted good but the vegetables were definitely overcooked.
The main course was chicken (Gardein for me), mushrooms slow cooked in garlic and white wine, braised cabbage and kale, roasted root vegetables, and corn on the cob.
For dessert, I made a warm Blueberry-Blackberry Tart served with vanilla ice cream. The crust turned out a little tough, but that was probably my fault. I’m not that great with pie crust. The filling was really good though, and it was a nice end to our gluttonous day.
Yes, we ate all that food in one day! We finally finished the last disc after 10PM, and everyone pretty much went straight to bed. It was actually exhausting watching movies all day. I have to say that watching them all in a row made me appreciate them even more, including appreciation for my crush on Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn…
Vegan Homemade 