Thanksgiving Solution: Vegan Guests

"Domestic Mortal," you cry, "Vegetarians and vegans are coming to my Thanksgiving dinner and I don't know what to do!" Never fear, kind reader, for I have a solution.

This is a stuffed pumpkin, and it solves the problem of what to serve for a big dinner like Thanksgiving when you have herbivores on your guest list. It's real food, not some sort of processed stuff molded into a meat shape, and it gives you something to carve and present, just as you would with a turkey. It's also just easy and yummy, so you could serve it for any kind of dinner, and the ingredients are extremely flexible, so you could make a meat version if you wanted.

1. Cut around the stem of a pie or sugar pumpkin (don't try to use a Jack-o-lantern pumpkin), and remove the top. Scoop out the seeds, put them in a bowl of water, and separate them from the pulp with your fingers.

Put the seeds on a foil-lined baking sheet, mix with olive oil and salt (or your seasoning of choice) and bake while you're mixing the filling. I set the oven at 375 degrees and baked until golden brown. This took about 20 minutes for me, but times may vary, so keep an eye out.

The filling is a mixture of a bunch of things. I had a pouch of cooked grains from Trader Joe's that wanted to use up, but you could use any kind of cooked rice or grain, or even veggie-friendly stuffing. I looked in the fridge and found some cooked cauliflower and carrots, so I chopped those up and threw them in. I have a lot of dried fruits and nuts on hand all the time, so I added some dried cranberries, chopped dates, and chopped pecans. Half a chopped apple added body and sweetness. Spoon the filling into the pumpkin, and pat it down but don't squash it.

Other ingredient ideas:
cooked wild rice
caramelized onions
chopped pear
fresh herbs
cooked and chopped greens
cubed bread
nuts
whatever looks good!

Put the "cap" back on and bake at 400 degrees for about an hour, or at a lower temperature for longer if you're baking something else at the same time (like the turkey). It's fully cooked when you can slip a knife into the pumpkin. Take it out and tent it with foil to keep it warm until you're ready to serve, and then use a large sharp knife to slice into wedges from top to bottom.

Those seeds we toasted would be a great crunchy topping for the stuffed pumpkin slice, or you could put them out in a bowl before dinner so the herbivores can have a suitable snack while others are grazing on cheese or whatever.

Yum! Done!

Stains!

This morning was not good. I overslept, so I got to work late and hung up my coat next to everyone else's. Now, you have to understand that I really LOVE this coat and I spent way too much money on it because I fell in love with it, so I treat it like it's a darling pet. I should have put it in a desk drawer to protect it, but I didn't want it to get wrinkled. When I walked past the coat rack just minutes later, my coat had big spots of something black (ink?) all over the front of it. I frantically dabbed it with water, which did nothing, and then tried to used someone's stain stick on it, which also did nothing. Terror! I immediately ran off to the dry cleaner and left my coat there, meaning I had to walk back in near-freezing weather.

I was scared all day that the stain wouldn't come out, but when I went to pick up my coat in the afternoon they had been able to get out about 95% of the stain and they charged $6, which is a deal compared to the cost of the coat. Still, when I got home I got to thinking that I should brush up on ways to remove stains without having to pay a dry cleaner.

By far, the best resource I've found on the subject is a printer-friendly booklet prepared by the Iowa State University Extension, and it is also presented in a different format by the Ohio State University Information Extension. This is really an exhaustive exploration of the fine art of stain removal, and it gives great instructions, but I think I actually learned the most valuable tips from its section on what NOT to do. For instance:

* As much as I want to believe that white vinegar is the cure for every household problem under the sun, vinegar can damage certain delicate fabrics. Test it in an inconspicuous area before you try to use it as a stain remover.

* Don't use dish detergent to try to remove stains in your clothes! It's too harsh.

* Bar soap can actually make a stain permanent instead of helping to remove it.

I'll leave you with one additional tip, this time for carpeting. I figured this out several years ago because I had a pet who was obsessed with finding people's drinks and flipping them over. When you have a lot of liquid like that, grab three or four paper towel sheets in a stack and just press down lightly on the wet spot. Don't rub! Just press. Use the dry areas of the towels until the whole wad is saturated, and then change that out for a fresh handful of sheets. Keep doing this until you can't get out any more moisture. If you got to it quickly and the liquid wasn't too dark, you may have gotten the whole stain out already. I was often able to do this with tea. If you spilled a dark liquid like red wine or if you spilled something sticky, you should then follow the instructions at the links above for cleaning that specific type of stain.