Omnivore-Approved Vegan Thanksgiving Proves Huge Success
Posted in Events, General VEG! on 30. Nov, 2009
In the past, my family has been kind enough to prepare vegan side dishes for our Thanksgiving feast, but this year I had my omnivorous parents over for a 100% vegan holiday meal that was surely the envy of vegans everywhere.
My parents brought a fantastically creamy sweet potato dish made with soymilk and topped with spices and pecans, but the rest of our menu was mine for the making.
My Vegan Thanksgiving Menu
Main dish: I originally wanted to make Sage and Pumpkin Seed Encrusted Gardein, but sadly my Whole Foods did not have any Gardein chick’n. Instead, I picked up some Philly-made Ray’s Seitan. To make the dish, I rinsed the seitan, put it in a baking dish, covered it with mushroom broth and fresh sage leaves and put it in oven at 350 for 30 minutes. Since I had already bought sage, I also baked some whole wheat bread in my bread maker and whipped together some Smart Balance butter, fresh sage leaves and onion in my Blendtec.
Green Bean Casserole: This classically fattening side dish is one of my favorites. This year I kept the French fried onions, switched out canned green beans for fresh ones, and replaced the nasty condensed creamy soup with Imagine brand Creamy Portobello Mushroom Soup.
Cranberry Sauce: This is one of my mom’s favorite parts of Thanksgiving dinner, and also one of the only canned foods she not only likes, but prefers. I know that it’s easy to make from scratch (and that the canned kind has high fructose corn syrup), but seeing as how my mom agreed to a no-turkey dinner, I figured that I would give her this one.
Gravy: Turns out there are a million great vegan gravy recipes available. Since my family is one that loves mushrooms, I decided to go with Awesome Mushroom Gravy from VegWeb — and it thoroughly lived up to its name.
Dessert: Sure I could whip up a pie or two with no problem, but why bother when Whole Foods bakes amazing vegan ones for only about $7? I grabbed an apple pie and served it with Teeccino coffee substitute with whipped soy milk.
All of the food was so good, but as delicious as everything tasted, nothing was as satisfying as my mom saying that she “felt much better after this dinner than [she] usually [does] on Thanksgiving.” Score!
How did you veganize your turkey-free Thanksgiving plans? Leave a comment and share your menu!
I tried the classic Tofurky for the first time (I’m a newbie!). It was decent… better than I expected
My other dishes were equally as simple to prepare:
Mashed potatoes
Sauteed spinach w/ mushrooms
Homemade cranberry sauce
Stuffing
My MIL cooked, so all I had to do was make mashed potatoes, in which I just scrub red potatoes, boil them with skins on, then do a rough mash with Earth Balance, soy milk, salt, pepper and garlic. Everyone LOVES them and with all the veg, I had no problem filling up my plate. I’ve not eaten turkey for years and do not miss it all on Thanksgiving. Thankfully my MIL does not slather heaps of (real) butter on all the veggies. If anything she will drizzle with a mixture of EVOO, fresh lemon juice and garlic, that’s what I do at home too.
Glad your parents enjoyed your meal, it looks incredibly delicious.
I did miss having vegan stuffing and gravy a little bit, maybe I’ll make that for Christmas
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I’m the Dad. Either I neglected to tell her or Sally neglected to report that (as one on the carnivorous side of omnivorism), I also thoroughly enjoyed this meal. Not that any of the Vegans out there care, but if trying to share with meat-eaters, I found the seitan somewhat similar to pot roast – I would like to try it grilled first, before fabulously prepared, as Sally did, to see if it had a little more “chew” to it.