When I stopped eating meat in my early 20s my Thanksgivings home in the Midwest became a little challenging. It's not so much that vegetarian Thanksgiving foods are difficult, but more that my family couldn't even manage to make the collards without simmering them with a ham bone. With a bemused smile my relatives would shake their heads in mock-apology and tell me nothing--absolutely nothing save the pie, was without meat. When I became a vegan a few years later they stopped seeing the humor entirely and were just horrified. On the bright side, they never tried to accommodate me, which is often a disaster.
And so I began to cook Thanksgiving myself. Sometimes staying where ever I lived and hosting friends that, like me, opted to save airfare and skip Thanksgiving with family. Or, when I did make it back home, I started making my own food. My cousins still make collards with a ham bone. My aunt and uncle bring a turkey. I make everything else.
Every year I switch it up, though there are a few staples--some kind of roll, some variant of mashed potatoes...and there's always pies. For our des olives weekly meet up we decided to work together to nail a few recipes--we'll share the results over a series of posts titled "Thanksgiving Trials." First up? A vegan take on the traditional white flour dinner roll.
Full disclosure on these rolls. I don't really believe in proofing. Well, I believe there's a place for it--and that place is French-style bakeries--not my kitchen. I just don't have time to be that fussy anymore, but maybe when my kids are older I'll resume my interest in croissant-making and other puff-pastry doughs that require that kind of attention to detail. For the time being, I make due with working in a warm kitchen or lazily setting doughs on top of my oven for a few minutes. They could probably be fluffier--but really, when you're working with vegan butter that's already melted I can't justify the time.
Vegan Dinner Rolls:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp sea salt (or regular)
2 1/4 tsp Active Dry Yeast
1 cup very warm water
2 tbsp Earth Balance Buttery Stick
1 egg replacer (1 tsp egg replacer + 2 tbsp warm water)
Preheat oven to 425.
In a stand mixer or by hand, mix 2 1/4 tsp of Active Dry Yeast with 1/4 cup of hot/warm water. Let sit two or three minutes until bubbly, then add 1 tsp of sugar and stir. Let it sit for 10 minutes.
Add 1 and 1/4 cup of flour, remaining sugar (1 tbsp + 2 tsp) and salt to yeast/sugar mixture. Mix briefly for 10 seconds, then add the remaining very warm water (3/4 cup) and 2 table spoons melted Earth balance and mix until smooth. Slowly add in the rest of the flour (1 cup).
With flour-covered hands and an extra sprinkling of flour to keep the dough from being too sticky when handling, create 6-8 balls (depending on how large you want you rolls). Place them right next to each other in the pie pan.
Set filled pie pan and rolls on TOP of the oven for 5 to 10 minutes and allow the rolls to rise briefly. If you like very buttery rolls, feel free to melt another table spoon or two of the Earth Balance and pour directly over the top, drizzling the rolls (after you've given them a few minutes to puff up.), but I thought there was enough buttery taste for me with just 2 Table Spoons.
Put in the over for 10 -12 minutes, watching to make sure the rolls don't become too brown but are cooked through.
Adapted from here.
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