What do I have in common with the Scott Pilgrim universe? I have brightly colored hair, love the Rolling Stones, play bass in an awesome band and have dated Jason Schwartzman. Okay, that’s not true, I’m not in an awesome band.
Ever since I read Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Vol. 2, I’ve been interested in trying the veggie casserole Stephen Stills makes in order to “impress your vegan relatives.” Here is a scan of the pages containing the recipe:
I thought about making it vegan, but realized I rarely use plain soy milk for anything but cooking. Fear not, I won’t have vegan powers any time soon. Plus, I’ve been on the wait-list for Vegan Academy for years now.
Ingredient list:
- 2 medium carrots
- 4 potatoes
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 stick celery with leaves
- Fake meat stuff- I used Quorn crumbles
- Vegan gravy stuff- Hain makes instant vegetarian gravy
- 1 onion
- Soy milk (I used 2% milk)
- Soy margarine (*gasp* I used butter)
- Red wine (optional)
- The finest olive oil
- Corn, spinach or tomatoes to go on top (I picked corn)
This was a very cheap grocery run. The two packages of Quorn cost $8 total and the veggies cost a few bucks. I bought two packages of gravy for maybe $2 total.
Here are Stephen Stills’ instructions with my modifications:
1. Cut the potatoes up into smallish pieces, leave the skins on if they look okay.
2. Boil the potatoes 15-20 minutes. While the potatoes are boiling…
3. Cut up the onion, carrot, celery and garlic as small as possible. Use a food processor or invite your friends and make them do all the work.
Holy cow, the food processor made this go so much faster! It’s also a lot easier to use minced garlic than cutting it yourself.
4. Mash the potatoes with 1 cup milk and half a stick of butter. I added a handful of shredded cheese and a dash of Tony Cachere’s. Fact: Tony Cachere’s makes everything better.
5. Heat the olive oil in a pan and add the veggies and cook for 15-20 minutes until they’re very soft, especially the carrots, which are probably the hardest.
Once again, the food processor really facilitated this.
6. Add the red wine (or drink it). I skipped this step because I didn’t have any. I’m curious to see how it makes it different.
7. Add the fake meat stuff and gravy stuff to the veggies. I used 2 packages of Quorn and one gravy packet.
8. Add milk and stir so everything’s a bit saucy. No exact measurements necessary, eyeballing is fine.
9. Get a 9 x 13 baking dish or a casserole or something and glop the fake meat/veggie mixture in.
10. Make a layer of potatoes on top or in between or you can optionally add a layer of sliced tomatoes, cooked spinach or corn.
The layering idea sounds great, except the potatoes vastly outnumbered the veggie mix. If I make this again, I’ll double the veggie parts. I topped mine with a can of corn.
11. Can serve it as is or bake it in the oven for a few minutes to crisp it up on top.
Ahh yes, now we come to my oven issues. I baked it for about 15 minutes on 450 degrees and nothing happened. I broiled it for a few minutes and did nothing but dry out the corn a little bit. Next time I make this recipe, I’ll bake first then the add veggies.
12. Grab a spatula and dish up.
The stock recipe is definitely plain. It’s a lot better with some more veggie gravy and Tony Cachere’s. At first I was tremendously underwhelmed by this recipe, but a 9 x 13 pan makes a lot of food, so I was snacking on this for about 5 days. I think this is one of those recipes that’s better on the 2nd day, it really started to grow on me and I looked forward to having it for dinner. It reminds me of an entire vegetarian Thanksgiving meal in one bite.
I would recommend trying this and doctoring it up a bit. It is easy and cheap!
Grad School Veg 