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turkey

It is funny when people ask vegetarians what they eat during Thanksgiving. To me the answer is easy, everything except the turkey and ham (yes, my Grandma would cook both a ham and turkey for Thanksgiving). Vegan is a little bit more tricky, not because there is something particularly not vegan about Thanksgiving Day food, but because people love using butter and heavy cream. So a lot of a vegan’s job is trying to ask a host to use vegan butters or oils in the food. An easy answer is to make you own food, I usually recommend making a very not vegan dish, like a green bean casserole. Good news is that crescent rolls and cranberry sauces are usually accidentally vegan. Read labels to double check. If you found this page because you want to figure out what to cook for a vegan, I already wrote a post about it last year!

Last year Alexa asked for recommendations for cooking her own Thanksgiving, so I kind-of made a fantasy cooking list, but I wasn’t actually cooking all those things. I ate with my in-laws who amazingly made all the sides vegan (except for one dish where she left some cheese-less stuff onions for us). This year I am taking up Thanksgiving dinner. I am pretty excited but I am trying to not go too nuts, I mean it is going to be a small dinner, just my husband and his parents. We will have my family come over for desserts, which in someways nice to only have to make one pie in the end… but I’ll probably make a cake too. XD

Picking things were pretty hard, because there has been a recent obesession with people trying to make a new vegetarian showstopper. People are trying to make vegduckens, with epicurious and food52 both giving a stab at it. Food52 does a blow by blow coverage of the process, which is just interesting to read if you are trying to roast 6 different squashes nested into each other. Epicurious had a much simpler summer squash nested in an eggplant, nested in a butternut squash. But my husband didn’t seem interested in any of these ideas, so we ditched them. Maybe one year?

The Dinner Menu:

Sweet Potato Biscuits
Normally I just make the sweet potato drop biscuits from Appetite for Reduction, but these look so fluffy and flakey, I should give this recipe a try.

Garlicky Lacinato Kale
With so many different types of carbs out there, I figured having something green will help balance everything out a little.

Mashed Potatoes
Nothing special, just good old fashioned mashed potatoes with Earth Balance butter and soy milk. My husband badly wanted this, so I will make it.

Roasted Carrots with a Sweet Tahini Drizzle
My Father in Law always wants boiled carrots for dinner. I don’t know about you guys but I hate straight carrots. They are either too earthy or too sweet! But the tahini looks like it will balance everything out nicely.

Sage Stuffing and Shiitake Shallot Gravy
I’ve never made stuffing before so this should be interesting. Something about stuffing seems so unnatural, baking already cooked bread? And you make it soggy then bake it out? So, so, weird.

Seitan Stuffed with Wanuts, Dried Cranberries, and Mushrooms
Since I wasn’t doing a show stopping veggie, I figured I would make something meaty for Jon and I. This is a homemade seitan roast, and it looked impressive. So why not right?

Scarlet Barley
This recipe is from Appetite for Reduction, it is simple and easy and very striking. I figured it is a nice addition without much work since it is pretty much simmer on the stovetop.

Brussel sprouts, cranberry sauce, and turkey
Yeah, my in-laws are pitching in. They are still pretty attached to the turkey tradition, and I get that can be a hard thing to let go of, so if they want to roast a whole bird at home, then they can. But she is going to bring some brussel sprouts and cranberry sauce to add to the dinner. I think we will have plenty to eat.

The Dessert Menu:

Apple Pie
Jon and I have been kind-of working on our own apple pie recipe. I think we will pull all the stops to make the ultimate apple pie for dessert. And if it works out, we will post it on the blog.

Sweet Potato Cake
I am still not sure if I am going to make this cake, but it looks good. It probably isn’t too hard to put together and I will have to roast some sweet potatoes for the biscuits.

Non-vegan pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and some cranberry something…
I swear people love making dessert? I figured someone in my family would make a dessert, Jon’s father would make his pumpkin pie, and all would be good. No I find myself giving up my pecan pie. I thought about if I wanted to make another dessert, and I am still up in the air about that, but I figured why not give some booze options?

Apple Pie on the Rocks
This was found from Vegan Yack Attack. She made a note that fireball is not actually vegan, so I would have to pick up some other cinnamon vodka. I am not a huge flavored vodka cocktail fan, but I do like the look of that sugar rim.

Maple Bourbon Cocktail
I like bourbon, I like maple syrup, and I have tons of bitters to use up. I think this is the perfect cocktail to make for people want a little bit less of the sweetness from the apple pie on the rocks.

Sweet Potato Pie Cocktail
Why does everyone need to make liquid pie? This one depends if I can find the liquor in the store, Sweet Potato vodka by Art in the Age. I mostly like the visual of having the toasted marshmallows on the top.

Sweet Potato Latte
This is probably a quickie to make off to the side for the two little girls. If we have the sweet potato pie cocktail I will probably have marshmallows on top.

Plan of Action

I think planning is what makes Thanksgiving so hard, so I am trying to plan things out. My husband is taking off Wednesday from work, and so will I. We will use that day to prepare a few things. We will roast some sweet potatoes for the latte, cake, and biscuits. For the desserts, we will try and make the pie and cake ahead of time, and they should be find sitting out of the fridge for one day. We will probably also make the sweet potato lattes a head of time so we can just microwave them for the girls. The only thing for dinner I will prep would be to wash and clean the kale, and to make the mashed potatoes a head of time. 

Day of I will probably start with the seitan roast, as it is the most labor intensive. Once that starts up I’ll start cooking the barley since it is easy but takes over an hour to cook. Then I will move along to the stuffing, then carrots, and biscuits. Then I will finish up with the gravy and kale on the stovetop. I will probably have everything spread out and pre-measured before hand to make everything run smoothly and keep warm for dinner time. 

Then when dessert comes around, I will make cocktails as they are being ordered, and the little kids get the job of taking orders. And I will probably go out and buy some trader joe’s vegan vanilla ice cream with some coconut whip. I guess I will make another post after Thanksgiving reporting how well this actually went. XD

So what are you guys doing for Thanksgiving? Do you have a 100% vegan Thanksgiving? Or do you just bring your own casserole to dinner?


chickpeas

There aren’t many vegan’s who don’t love chickpeas. They are so versatile and they even have been growing in popularity in their flour form- besan. But this chickpea round-up is all about chickpeas in their cooked bean form. We tried to give lots of options here, pizza, curry, sandwich, salad, and even blondies!

This grouping I am happy to report yummy findings with very different flavor profiles! So I recommend reading all these reviews and pick at least one to cook at home. We got a wide range of styles so you can’t say there isn’t anything you would like.

03

Curried Chickpea Salad

I made this recipe on a whim – I wanted to try something new in the kitchen and something that was easy and flexible. I tend to look at a recipe and will tailor it to my liking by either adding a vegetable or spice if I think it’ll improve upon itself. This recipe only really asked for chickpeas, carrots, onions and the home-made curry sauce, but I added craisins to balance out the savoriness and add a little bit of sweet to it and the result was delicious! And it was nice because I was able to make enough to last me throughout the week for meals at work. It’s a great light dish or summer dish to bring to barbeques as well, I would think.

Bottom Line: Good recipe, will make again, would recommend.

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chickpea Cookie Bars

Funny thing is when I picked this recipe I had my doubts from the photos alone. The outside of the bar looks so nice and crunchy but the insides a little undercooked. My first instinct was to spread the batter out, but figured I would follow the recipe fairly strictly and kept with the loaf pan.

The dough was promising, in it’s raw state it was sweet and yummy with a little hint of chickpea. I poured the batter into the pan and baked for a full hour. The end result for the first day is alright. The outside was so crunchy compared to the inside that it was hard to cut into squares. But once the bars sat in a container for a day, they are a lot more paletable. I think I still might try and bake these in a larger more spread out pan next time.

Bottom Line: Not bad for a dessert chickpea bar.

Roasted Cauliflower, Chickpea + Quinoa Salad with Jalapeno Lime Dressing

I made this dish thinking about my lunches for the week. I figured it would make two lunches, and it would be great. Not really. The dish was alright, and I had two things cross my mind. One was that the dish would of tasted better when the chickpea and cauliflower came fresh out of the oven. Then my second thought was that the the dressing was lacking. So if I would do this differently I would make this as a main dinner dish, and double the dressing.

Bottom Line: Yummy, best eat right away, needs more dressing

Crowd Pleasing Vegan Caesar Salad

I made this dish a few times for family get togethers for this Christmas season. I can safely say it impressed everyone, vegans and omnivores alike. The dressing is creamy, garlicky, and salty. The crunchy chickpea croutons were different and added a unique twist to the dish. 

There are only one major “issue” which can be a plus (depending how you view it). The portions are HUGE! So much that I had a hard time tossing the greens in the dressing. This could be problematic if you are making this dish for yourself, but perfect when serving a large party.

But most/all aspects can be prepared a day before hand, so if you are bringing the salad to dinner you don’t have to sweat about cooking a dish while putting your hair up. I did have trouble storing the chickpeas, and they softened after a day. So if you are going to do something the day of, I would suggest roasting the chickpeas first thing that morning.

Bottom Line: Amazing, but large portions

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Buffalo Chickpea Ranch Pizza

This pizza can be easy to make, if you prep a few things in advance. For example I prepped the ranch dressing the morning of so I wouldn’t have to clean the blender again at night. Aside from that everything is easy to chop, coat, etc. The downside is the dough. I was not impressed by it. I got a tough and dense dough that I didn’t really like. And her recipe calls for pre-baking the dough creating too crunchy of a crust, and I found it broke in odd places.

BUT ignoring the crust, this dish was awesome. My husband had doubts as I spread such a small layer of sauce on the crust. But he was asking for more. I think this dish would probably find it’s way as a standard pizza in this household since it is so easy to make.

Bottom Line: Awesome, but I would use a different dough

Butternut Squash, Kale, and Chickpea Massaman Curry

This is a super easy dish to make, especially if you have the massaman curry already made. It takes about 30 minutes total and it is super filling. I jazzed the recipe up a little and served it over couscous instead of rice, but both would taste great. The only downside is that the dish largely relies on the curry paste of choice, so if you curry sucks, the dish will suck.

But the recipe given to make your own massaman curry at home was pretty good. I used that recipe to a t, with two exceptions, I didn’t add any shallots and I used pre-ground chili powder. The curry was awesome but sadly doesn’t freeze in solid cubes. Instead it is still soft in the freezer. Actually I am not sure if this is a bad or good thing.

Bottom Line: Quick to make.

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