Sequestration Meal #524

 

I didn't have my New Year's Day meal on New Year's Day; life is what it is and I was on vacation anyway, with a blissful half-ignorance of what day it was. (That is the absolute best part of any vacation--not knowing what day it is, and having that not matter.)

But Russian/Olivier Salad is a traditional New Year's Day food in some part of the world, and having some leftover Tofurky ham on hand, as well as a few potatoes that needed using, so it was a natural beginning of a meal. I could have just eaten Russian salad for lunch and called it good, but I wanted to have it as a side instead. So I also made a new-to-me sandwich that was surprisingly good, if nothing like what it purports to mimic.

There is a recipe for an egg salad sandwich on the JUST Egg website. The first thing you might think, when you see such a thing, is that one makes egg salad out of hard boiled eggs (or one would, if one ate eggs), not scrambled egg patties, so this is a stretch. But I was intrigued, so I made it. It was nothing like anything I'd ever had--lemony, and with a totally different texture than egg salad (which I typically make with tofu)--and yet it was pretty great. I put the salad on whole wheat toast with spinach, tomato, and cucumber, plus some extra Vegenaise and salt and pepper, and it was everything a person would want it to be.

What's perhaps more important is that I had a holiday dessert!

Behold, the glories of fudge. The old-fashioned kind. The kind you make only when it is dry and cold and not raining at all, that you must babysit until it reaches precisely 234 degrees on the candy thermometer before removing it from the heat to cool just until you can hold your hand on the side of the pan for 5 seconds, which you then beat until you are ready to cry uncle, or until it is thick and not so glossy. The kind that will never turn out the same way twice, so you keep your fingers crossed. (Recipe from The Hidden Veggies.)

It set! Gloriously! And it tasted like I remembered, even though I haven't had this sort of fudge in perhaps 7 or 8 years. 

Happy very belated New Year everybody!