January 19, 2023
That Time I Finally Went to Vegan Treats (Mecca)by Randi / September 22, 2013
Tonight, Ross is getting his lumps. Phoebe is getting her peas and onions. And Mario is getting his tots*. Confused? Don’t be! We’re having three kinds of potatoes! People are needy about their potatoes! But it’s going to be awesome! In continuing this VeganMoFo theme of veganizing food made on “Friends”, we’re looking at the first ever Thanksgiving episode, “The One Where Underdog Gets Away.” The “Friends” Thanksgiving episodes are usually stellar, and this early installment is no different. Monica is in charge of her first Thanksgiving dinner, and all the Friends are pretty ignorant of how hard she is working. They all make personal requests – Chandler needs his tomato soup and grilled cheese*, Ross needs mashed potatoes with lumps, Phoebe needs her potatoes whipped and with peas and onions, and Joey needs his potatoes in tot form. (Joey is wise.)
Joey: Hey, Monica, I got a question. I don’t see any tater tots.
Monica: That’s not a question.
Joey: But my mom always makes them. It’s like a tradition. You get a little piece of turkey on your fork, a little cranberry sauce, and a tot! It’s bad enough I can’t be with my family because of my disease.
Monica: All right, fine. Tonight’s potatoes will be both mashed with lumps, and in the form of tots.
Monica: What, Phoebe, did you whip the potatoes? Ross needs lumps!
Phoebe: Oh, I’m sorry, oh, I just, I thought we could have them whipped and then add some peas and onions.
Monica: Why would we do that?
Phoebe: Well, ’cause then they’d be like my mom used to make them, you know, before she died.
Monica: Ok, three kinds of potatoes coming up.
Of course, Monica complies with these requests. But she kind of freaks out about how much stress she’s under. Watch the below, from 7:30 to 8:01.
Poor little Harmonica! And poor little burnt potatoes! Let’s get started cooking, and let’s not burn anything. This is all relatively simple, so we’re not going to give real recipe directions. You’ll be able to do it, I promise.
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POTATOES WITH LUMPS – ROSS
First, we’ll make Ross’s potatoes, with lumps. Get about 3-4 pounds of potatoes. I really like cooking with a bag of mixed colors, it’s so cheerful! Boil the potatoes until soft, then drain. Add half of those potatoes back into the pot, and add salt, pepper, olive oil or butter, a dash of unsweetened plain almond milk, and mash! Careful – do not overmash, because we need to keep some lumps in there! POTATOES WITH PEAS & ONIONS – PHOEBE Next, chop up an onion and saute it over medium heat in a bit of olive oil in a saucepan. You know how do to this! I believe in you! After about 5 minutes, add in about 1/2C frozen peas, and cook for about 5 more minutes. TOTS – JOEY’S I’m still really beat from my weekend, and from my full week now of being sick, so we’re going to use frozen tots instead of making them from scratch. I bet Trader Joe’s fantastic frozen (and vegan-marked) tots would still trump anything I tried from scratch. They cook really well, for about 20 minutes in a 400° oven. I let them cook an extra 10 minutes because crispy Tots are the work of heaven. |
Purdy taters! 
Am I always sauteing peas and onions? 
Just like Lily would make 
Gotta have my tots, man |
So, there you have it! Potatoes with lumps for Ross, tots for Joey, and whipped potatoes with peas and onions for Phoebe. If I had to pick and make just one for Thanksgiving, it would probably be Ross’s. You want a little texture with your mash, right? Phoebe’s are nice too, but other guests would probably be like ‘What’s in my potatoes? Difference, no!” However, for any other dinner, occasion, holiday, lunch, day of the week, whatever, Joey is right in this instance. Tots man!
Giveaway trivia:
1. Why does Monica refer to Joey as ‘Mario’?!
2. Why does Chandler not eat Thanksgiving food? (Hint: Even if you don’t know ‘Friends’, you’d know this if you’ve been reading these posts!)
3. Why does Monica’s big dinner burn?
Related Posts
Yummy Pasta Alert! Apple-Sage Sausage, Chard, & Cashew-Pistachio Cream
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I only made this because I like using hyphens. And because it’s uhhhmazing! This is rapidly becoming my favorite pasta dish. It’s really easy but it tastes like it’s difficult. You cook the best type of Field Roast sausage, the apple sage kind, with its perfectly paired green – rainbow swiss chard – and put it over fusilli. Then, you whip up this amazing creamy cheesy sauce in two seconds in your blender, and voila! Breakfast! No that’s from “Rookie of the Year”! I mean dinner! Or breakfast! Whatever you want dude!
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I like to pair this pasta with a simple green salad without dressing, because I’ll inevitably wipe up the remaining sauce with the leaves, as I do with any salad and any sauce. Also, I used quinoa-brown rice pasta (from Trader Joe’s) for this, so it can be easily made gluten-free. Of course, I’m not sure about any of the sauce ingredients being gluten-free. And, of courser, the Field Roast sausage is made of gluten, I’m pretty sure. But then even more of courser, most punks nowadays claiming they are gluten-free only mean they don’t want to eat pasta and bread because scary carbs/they don’t understand nutrition and people with real gluten allergies already know what they can and can’t eat so I don’t have to worry about it. So!
Gluten-Free (or Not! Probably Not!) Pasta with Apple-Sage Sausage, Swiss Chard, & Cashew-Pistachio Cream
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The foods
Ingredients:
Directions:
Cream sauce
Directions:
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 Party girls don’t get hurt  Can’t feel anything, when will I learn  I push it down, push it downnnn  123 123 drink, throw em back till I lose count  IIIIII’M GONNA SWIIIIIIING FROM THE CHANDELIEEEERRRR  FROM THE CHANDELIEEEEEERRRR |
Yuuummm! You should eat with a fork because it is pasta (and maybe salad). I used a spoon because I don’t like dirtying extra things. Also I usually just use my fingers. And my face.
I really loved the fresh parsley as an addition to an otherwise heavy cream. You can use this sauce in so many ways: over tofu or tempeh, in mashed potatoes (ERMA P. GERD), over pretty much anything you want except ice cream. I hope you enjoy!
I’M GONNA FLYYYY LIKE A BIRD THROUGH THE NIGHT
Veganizing “Friends”: The One With 5 Steaks & An Eggplant
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No, not that kind of stake! Remember from, well, “The One With Five Steaks & An Eggplant”, when Monica’s restaurant switches meat suppliers and she gets free stuff and brings it home to the guys to make amends? Let’s backtrack! So much is happening: Monica gets promoted at work, Ross’s birthday is coming up, Chandler is impersonating a hot guy for a hot lady. Half the Friends – Rachel, Phoebe, and Joey – don’t make as much money as the other three. The moneyed 3 don’t realize this, and they keep coming up with expensive ways to celebrate things like birthdays and promotions, to the 3 poorpups’ chagrin. Poor Rachel, Phoebe, and Joey – in multiple senses of the word – finally have to confront the others about the situation.
Joey: (clearing his throat a lot) Ok, um, uh, we three feel like, that uh, sometimes you guys don’t get that uh… (Pause) We don’t have as much money as you.
Monica: Ok.
Ross: I hear ya.
Chandler: We can talk about that.
Phoebe: Well, then…Let’s.
Ross: Well umm I, I just never think of money as an issue.
Rachel: That’s ’cause you have it.
Ross: That’s a good point.
This conversation occurs after a pretty uncomfortable (and unsatisfying) celebratory dinner for Monica, in which the 3 povers order basically nothing, but do it hilariously. “And…take care!” (This is the only video from this episode I could find, and since I have to share videos as much as possible, here you go.)
After the confrontation comes expected friction and resentment. Finally, Monica, Ross, and Chandler try to fix things by sharing the titular 5 steaks and an eggplant with the others.
Chandler: Gee, Monica, what’s in the bag?
Monica: I don’t know, Chandler. Let’s take a look.
Phoebe: Oh, it’s like a skit.
Monica: Why, it’s dinner for six. 5 steaks, and an eggplant for Phoebe.
Unfortunately, Monica ends up getting fired because she wasn’t supposed to take the food from the new meat supplier. See? Meat ALWAYS CAUSES TROUBLE. Best to just avoid it completely.
Anyway, we won’t get in trouble for having this food, so let’s make some eggplant. And then we’ll figure out what kind of steak/stake we want to work with. (Side note: I just thought of the most difficult Pictionary challenge ever: the kind of stakes that you mean when you say ‘the stakes are high’. How do you picturize that!!!!)
 Chop this b |
 Boil and cover. Duck and cover |
 Salty dog |
I’m going to give you instructions for extremely simple, fast, and yummy miso-glazed eggplant. This dinner is all about convenience, because I figured out what kind of ‘steak’ I want to use.
MISO-GLAZED EGGPLANT
- One eggplant, chopped into 1-inch pieces
- 2T miso
- 1T tamari
DIRECTIONS:
- Boil the eggplant in about 1 inch of water, covered, for about 10 minutes, until soft.
- Drain the water as best you can, and add the tamari and miso. Stir and cook over medium-high heat for about 10-15 minutes, until everything is browning and infused with the goodness of Asian salt products.
 See there are 5! |
Now for the five steaks…I think instead of whittling my own wooden stakes, I’m going to heat up some already made mandarin chicken pieces from Trader Joe’s. They are like steak. Enough. And they are really good. They come in a close second to the Trader Joe’s Chickenless Nuggets or whatever they are called, in the beige bag. Those are my favorite. Anyway. It’s all good fake chicken.
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It’s eggplant in an eggplant dish!!! Cute
So, this was a fun and slapdash “Friends”-themed dinner! See, even when you are pressed for time (and energy), you can always count on “Friends” to lead the way. Like they said, they’ll be there for you.
- In another storyline, Chandler was pretending to be a man with a much deeper and dorkier voice when a ‘hot-sounding woman’ called. What was this man’s name?
- Ross’s birthday hoopla in this episode includes dinner, cake, and a concert to see what band?
- Who gives Monica a hickey?
