Thanksgiving — Dinner

Vegan Thanksgiving! No kidding! It was actually great. And so much easier baking pies, rolls, sweet potatoes, stuffing, etc, without a big fat turkey taking up the oven for 5 hours. Details and recipes follow…

I just used a basic roll recipe, subbing sunflower butter (ok, it’s margarine, but “sunflower butter” sounds better) for butter. I rolled some in sunflower seed and flax seeds, for extra good-for-you-ness.

Apple pie in the traditional Pine way is already vegan. Suprise! We subbed sunflower butter for Crisco, though.

The main dish, inspried by The New York Times health blog, but I used quinoa instead of brown rice because quinoa is from the Americas! And Thanksgiving is all about America! (Tomatoes are also from the Americas.)

Manuela helped a lot with the chop-and-dicey stuff. Nice to have an extra pair of hands!

Braids, for minimal “ew what’s this” later on. It’s more stylish than a hair net.

Peanut fondue. OMG. I’m sorry Switzerland, your ass just got kicked. Because of course peanuts are from the Americas. I went with a simple appetizer fondue with apple and banana slices, but this could easily be extended to plantains and chocolate wafers (ehem, both from the Americas). Or you could Thai it up with skinny mini salad wraps. The possibilities are endless!

Peanut Fondue, a largish amount

3 T butter (of course I used sunflower)

3 T flour

1 t salt

(the proportions are not exact, you want a fairly wet flour- butter mixture and let it cook over mediumish heat for a few minutes until it starts smelling cooked and is sizzly)

1 c almond or rice milk, maybe a bit more

(whisk and whisk until it’s thickened)

1 c peanut butter

(whisk it in, at this point you’ll probably have to add more milk to get a good consistency… think dipping, scoopable but not too drippy).

This was similar to my same-old-same-old recipe (which actually changes year to year somewhat). This year the glaze was made of orange juice and zest, agave syrup, and nutmeg.

This was by request from Ruby, she loves this salad (supposedly, she rarely eats much of it, but always mentions it when I ask what she wants.) This year I added a bit of cabbage (coleslaw is also a favorite with Ruby) and used dried cranberries instead of raisins. Because cranberries are from the Americas! Instead of yogurt or sour cream dressing, I used the some de-fatted coconut milk which added moisture and a hint of flavor without being too coco-licious.

Another old-time favorite: spinach/greens with raspberries and walnuts. Nice to have something fresh on the table with all the other baked carb-heavy dishes.

Ah, the mushroom gravy was fantastic. Our store sells a nice frozen wild-mushroom blend that is easy to put into a stock pot with leftover onion, carrot, and celery bits for a hearty vegetarian stock. I finely diced some fresh mushrooms and sauteed until the juices started releasing, then added some flour and cooked that up a bit until browned. Then I added the mushroom stock and whisked like mad to make the sauce. Yummers.

Amazing how many traditional dishes are already vegan-friendly with mild tweeking. The stuffing was our same old stuffing, just subbing sunflower butter for the regular stuff and rice milk instead of cow milk. I was worried that the rice milk would be too sweet, but it wasn’t noticeable.

The belle of the ball: maple glazed brussels sprouts. Taken directly from Chef Chloe.

And the apple cider… a true Erntedankfest (that’s “harvest festival” in German) since we actually harvested these apples! And again, thank you to Ethan for the huge help in squashing and pressing. Couldn’t have done it without you!

I was a bit worried about the pumpkin pie, since it is traditionally a custard made with eggs. Everything I read on the internet said to just leave out the eggs. This recipe used coconut cream instead of condensed milk, left out the eggs, but did use corn starch as a thickener. It was a little heavily spiced (I think I might have added ginger twice, and eyeballed the cloves… oops!) but it was quite alright afterall.