anybody excited for upcoming thanksgiving?
what do u normally have for thanksgiving dinners? this will be my first, being vegan. im very excited!
anybody excited for upcoming thanksgiving?
what do u normally have for thanksgiving dinners? this will be my first, being vegan. im very excited!
Last edited by Korn; Oct 20th, 2004 at 07:41 PM. Reason: This thread was made out of posts from three other threads
"you dont have to be tall to see the moon" - african proverb
I'm going to cook Thanksgiving dinner for my family. I don't know what I'm making yet, probably a variety of things, like soup, salad, fruit, vegetables, maybe a bean or lentil dish or nut dish, dessert.
There is a recipe from Veggie Life that involves making rice into the shape of a turkey, but I find that quite distasteful and disrespectful to the turkeys.
utopiankitchen.wordpress.com
im thinking about making a sort of nut/rice loaf, that tastes like stuffing, with a gravey. im making it tonight for a try out
"you dont have to be tall to see the moon" - african proverb
I will be making all kinds of stuff for Thanksgiving. Some kind of winter squash (with the seeds roasted), mashed potatoes, veggie gravy, veg stuffing, cranberry sauce, fruit salad, green salad, WW rolls, green beans and corn mix, brussel sprouts, brown rice, roasted sweet potatoes, and a tofu pumpkin pie for dessert. I want to try making a crema for that pie this year but I don't know if I'll do that or not. I may just buy a carton of Soy Delicious for the topping and have done.
I'd really like to try that Tofurkey dinner that comes complete with a tofurkey, stuffing and gravy. Then we could bake some of our own vegetables and I could make a delicious wild rice and cranberry dish.
Tofu pumpking pie.....mmmmm. Do you have a recipe for that Kiva Dancer?
Great reviews on this simple recipe: http://vegweb.com/food/sweets/3510.shtml
I can't wait to be a mischievous little vegan and slip this in with the other desserts at my very non-veg family's Thanksgiving get-together. *rubs hands evilly*
Mmmmm that sounds like a nice recipe! I like that lady's idea of the maple baked pecans for garnish
One year my mom whipped up a Martha Stewart pumpkin pie recipe that included maple syrup and was garnished with pecans and little leaf shaped cut-outs of pastry dough. I imagine spiced pecans would be great as well.
Isn't that just soooo Martha!slinkyvagabond
mmm the loaf was good, not so much tomato paste next time tho! and no flavoured tofu because both made it too rich! the gravey i made was delicious tho! my boyfriend ate dinner with me. hes so cute. hes a meat eater so its cute when he says its really good and i know hes dreaming of real meatloaf LOL.
"you dont have to be tall to see the moon" - african proverb
slinky, that recipe looks awesome. i think i may be a sneaky little vegan as well and bring it to my atkins-approved family's thanksgiving!
Since I've never purchased (or cooked with) tofu before, I have a newbie question. I want to make this pumpkin pie, but do you drain the tofu before blending it? I've only eaten tofu a couple of times and have no idea what it's like when you buy it, so I apologize if this is a stupid question.
I think it's always best to blanch the tofu (boil for 10 minutes), drain it, and then press it, which means basically putting the tofu on paper towels, putting another paper towel or two over it, and then laying like a soymilk container on top for a few minutes.
utopiankitchen.wordpress.com
why would u boil the tofu?
"you dont have to be tall to see the moon" - african proverb
hee hee... that's the recipe I use and it's gotten rave reviews every year I make it. Great stuff, this.slinkyvagabond
I've never blanched my tofu. I always use it straight from the pack.
uww27225: I think you may be thinking of curd style. The type I use for this pie is silken style tofu. It will usually say that on the package. You don't usually have to drain it, but I've seen some silken tofus that you do have to drain so I guess you could say that if it's packed in water, drain it. If it's not packed in water, use it straight out of the carton.
I don't know what the purpose is of boiling it. I just follow the directions. LOL
utopiankitchen.wordpress.com
There are some good vegetarian ideas in this link from epicurious, recipes can be veganized.
http://www.epicurious.com/gourmet/me...ks2003/harvest
About draining tofu, I rarely drain the tofu. I might press down on it a bit, but that's about it.
My wife and I made Thanksgiving dinner for our whole family last Thanksgiving. It turned out to be a huge success! We served the usual suspects (mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, etc.), but we also threw in a few oddball choices, like nutritional yeast covered tofu "chicken-like strips". Everyone really liked them. People were going back for seconds and thirds. We were very happy! I think the key to really clinching Thanksgiving is having knockout desserts. We had pumpkin pie, apple pie, and chocolate cake. My mom, unfortunately, doesn't like tofu (more so, the idea of tofu), so, of course, the first thing I did was give her a piece of pumpkin pie, which was made out of tofu. She hurriedly ate it down and said it was some of the best pumpkin pie she'd ever eaten. We plan on making Thanksgiving dinner again this year.
"A human can be healthy without killing animals for food. Therefore if he eats meat he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral." - Leo Tolstoy
Foxy - do you have a recipe for that loaf? Is it relatively simple?
Roxy.
yes i have a recipe. its pretty simple, but i revised the recipe so its not so strong this time
"meatloaf" :
1/2 cup walnuts
half small tin tomato paste
1 tsp liquid smoke
1 medium onion, chopped
celery, sliced
3 carrots, sliced
1 roasted red pepper, chopped (optional, it just adds sum flavour)
1 1/2 cups bread crumbs
1 cup brown rice (cooked) (half wild rice would give it a better texture ive heard but havnt tried it)
1/2 cup extra firm tofu
egg replacer (equivlalent to 3 eggs)
dash sherry or red wine
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp sage (or more, this really gives it the meaty flavour of a meatloaf)
sea salt and pepper
preset oven to 350 degrees
ground up walnuts, with tomato paste and liquid smoke. set aside.
cook onions and garlic in oil, in frying pan over medium heat until onions are translucent. add rest of veggies and tofu. add spices and sherry. cook until liquid is gone.
in large bowl, add walnut mixture, veggie mixture, bread crumbs, rice and egg replacer all together. place in greased baking pan (loaf size) and bake for thirty minutes.
u can put any topping on, such as a tomato sauce while it cooks. this recipe can obviously be altered anyway, but its delicious, with cranberry sauce or the onion gravey i posted a recipe for.
"you dont have to be tall to see the moon" - african proverb
I made this last night. It was my first time making a pie and my first time buying/using tofu. I thought it turned out really good. My s.o. didn't really like it, but she's not much of a pumpkin pie person.slinkyvagabond
Any suggestions for vegan whipped cream? I thought the pie was good, but I really like my pumpkin pie with whipped cream!
Thanks for the feedback uww. I want to make this one too, so I'm glad to hear that yours turned out.
Sorry, I don't have any suggestions for the whipped cream, but I'd be interested to hear what other people use.
This will be my first Thanksgiving/Christmas season as a vegan. I have two main concerns. Hubby and I will eat Thanksgiving dinner at his grandmother's house. She is elderly and is a "food pusher." ONe of her other grandchildren is a vegetarian however she cannot understand why she wouldn't eat "just a little ground beef" in the spaghetti sauce once. This is what I'm up against. I don't want to hurt her feelings. Should I offer to help cook and make some of the stuff vegan like the mashed potatoes? I'm also afraid that she really won't want my help. Maybe I should just bring a "side" dishes I can eat.
We will eat a Christmas season meal at my older brother's house. I'm really stressed as he tends to like to pick on me. It's not the affectionate kind of teasing. I'm also afraid his children who are my age, don't ask, will also harras me.
What do others do at family and holiday dinners? Also, I realize lots of folks don't celebrate the above holidays as this is a forum reaching around the world (though some other countries do have thanksgiving though not in NOvember) and not all Americans are Christian in tradition.
Last edited by Korn; Oct 20th, 2004 at 07:47 PM. Reason: This was the first post in another thread
I make my own food and bring it, asking them if they want me to bring extras. I am not participating in a deathly Thanksgiving "celebration" this year. I just can't. It's horrible that people center celebrations around a dead animal. So I invited my parents and my siblings to Thanksgiving at my house, telling them that it is a peaceful Thanksgiving. My parents and older brother are coming. They have a choice of menu between 3 options; they are to email me their 2 preferences. I will have traditional desserts and am also taking requests. The meals will be "gourmet," whatever that means.
As for Christmas, I haven't thought ahead that far, but if I go to someone else's house, I will bring my own food, as always.
utopiankitchen.wordpress.com
By the way, do you have any cookbooks? They come in handy for holiday dinner ideas, or meal ideas in general.
utopiankitchen.wordpress.com
I always make my own Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Usually, we'll make the side dishes, and then take some out for me before the butter or whatever is added. I make my own entree, though, and pumpkin pie.....a tradition. I have a supportive family, so this isn't a problem....If I were you, I'd just take my own food. At least you'll know what's in it.
I have a funny story along this line. Last year, I went to a cruel Thanksgiving, but of course I brought my own food, and I also made the mashed potatoes for everyone. There were two containers of mashed potatoes. I made a lot, and there was some leftover, apparently, in each container.
Well, my sister told me that her husband could tell the difference. I asked her what she was talking about. She said he could tell the difference between the vegan ones and the non-vegan ones. I told her that they were both vegan. LOL!!!!!!!! People have psychological issues with healthy, vegan food or something.
Like I would have cow milk in my house, anyway.
utopiankitchen.wordpress.com
I have been thinking about what to make for thanksgiving, thinking what my grandmas makes i dont know if any are vegan. So what dishes could i make that are vegan. I would like to show my family that it is not a restrictive life and is not bad food.
Hehehe...I've had the same thing happen, Artichoke. Sometimes I don't tell them it's vegan, because I know they'll have preconceived notions about it. I think they're on to me, though (lol)....
Jared, what type of food do you/they like? What pops into your head as a nice meal?
utopiankitchen.wordpress.com
Here's a list of "Traditional" foods that can be made Vegan with little modification:
Pumpkin, Pecan and Sweet Potato Pie
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
Cornbread and Rolls with Earth Balance (margarine)
Stuffing
Candied Yams with Vegan Marshmallows
Green Beans Almondine with Fried Onions
Cranberry Sauce
Salads of all kinds...
It's all been said already, but pretty much you have at least 5 options- offer to "help" her and do it all yourself (well along side her, at least) or eat first so you won't be eating there or fast and tell everyone you are fasting or bring a few Vegan dishes for everyone or bring your own meal separately.Andie
I always bring food for my family or do all of the cooking for any celebration or gathering. Period. I don't trust others to prepare truly Vegan food, because, even with specific instructions and assistance, they have always messed it up and I end up with things that are not vegan and are unhealthy.
Another thing that can be made vegan easily enough is sweet potato casserole... I'll try to dig up a recipe this coming week, or over the weekend. It's already ovo-lacto-honeyo vegetarian, and shouldn't be too hard to modify. Oh, and it's very very very addictive.
No Gods, No Masters.
Thanks for all the replies. I think this issue is more than food. It boils down to my position in the family. I'm the youngest child, younger than my brother's children. I'm also the family odd ball. At both my brothers and my grandparents-in-law, the hosts do almost all the food. It's some kind of power trip I think given their personalities. I would love to host the dinner but I think that would be taken as me usurping their place in the heirarchy. I live in the southern US, very traditional.
[QUOTE=Andie]Thanks for all the replies. I think this issue is more than food. QUOTE]
It always is! Here's where I feel a bit glad (one of the only times) that I don't have family or celebrate Traditional Holidays. I have no one to answer to but myself. Ever.
So, Andie, your choices are few and very clear. What are ya gonna do? Eat first? Bring your own meal? Fast?
I suggest making as little a deal about it as possible, either way.
I personally would not sit at a table full of dead things -for anyone's sake. Why would anyone who cares about you in the slightest, expect you to do something that you find repugnant and painful just to give them their "traditional" experience or save them from being uncomfortable? I mean, what's so bad about allowing a Vegan the right to choose to eat first (and not make a big deal of it) or bring their own food and still share company together? I think the dynamic that makes Omnis resist these allowances is sick and sad
Good luck to any and all who face this!
Your beliefs are more powerful than any "tradition" they uphold. If I were you, I'd start a new tradition of a cruelty-free meal on the weekend before or after Thanksgiving. That way, they don't have to miss their dead-animal "celebration."
utopiankitchen.wordpress.com
Well i am only 15 years old and my family has the traditional meals. Like homeade macaroni and cheese, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, green beens, mased potatos, stuffing and, of course, a dead turkey. Basically what most americans have, i think. I dont know if any of that is vegan. I love stuffing (or at least i used too) but is it vegan or even vegetarian? I would love to make stuffing and mashed potatoes vegan because they're my favorite dishes
JaredM
Stuffing may or may not be vegan but if made by a carni, probably not. Both stuffing and mashed potatoes are easily made vegan. Check out stuffing mixes for those which do not contain animal ingredients and just use earth balance or another soy margarine if it calls for butter or oil. Mashed potatoes taste great made with the fat being soy margarine, vegan mayo or olive oil and the liquid being soymilk, vegetable broth or even some of the liquid from the cooked potatoes.
I agree with ConsciousCuisine, I will not sit at a table with dead animal. I would rather decline attending telling my family respectfully that Thanksgiving sickens me, the concept of glorifying the murder of millions of turkeys (let alone the exploitation of native americans that this holiday stems from but that's another argument). Me and my husband have celebrated Thanksgiving for several years not quite happily at a vegan Chinese restaurant. They even make a vegan stuffed "chicken" for those in the mood. The interesting thing is that the restaurant keeps getting more and more crowded on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I think more veg*ns are catching on
This whole holiday thing has really gotten me thinking about family. How much of my relationship with extended family is genuine? My husband knows and loves me for who I am but I'm not sure about the rest of them. I'm going to ponder this and talk it over with my therapist who by the way thinks it's great I'm a vegan. She told me that it was evolved ( I think that's the word she used). She was genuinely curious what I ate and encouraged me to teach a class on vegan eating. I think she is a vegetarian.
For those of us who are unfortunate enough to live in the US, Thanksgiving is closing in rapidly. The last few years we would always host this event for my wife's family (her parents, her grandma, and her sister & boyfriend). This year, my wife is rather unkeen on hosting the feast, as we would dissappoint her family with no slaughtered bird present. I, on the other hand, think that this would be an awesome opportunity to present them with a slap-up, gorge yourself till you puke, guide to the incredible variety of vegan cuisine.
I figure others here might be in a similar situation, so I thought it made sense to collect all the things that people think would go well on the Thanksgiving table. Feel free to post links to recipes in the Recipes forum, or on other websites, or to mention recipes in cookbooks, etc.
One special request that my wife has, is that she wants stuffing, and she wants gravy. I think she'd also like some kind of meat substitute that might allow her the taste and texture sensations associated with turkey.
She just got out two recipe books from the library that we'll be going through for some ideas, and I'll post if any look good.
Last edited by Korn; Oct 20th, 2004 at 07:39 PM. Reason: This was the beginning of another thread, now merged with this one
No Gods, No Masters.
Here's a Thanksgiving fav:
*Pumpkin Pie*1 1/2 c soy milkPreheat oven to 350. Whisk together milk and egg replacer in a large bowl. add pumpkin, sweetener, cinnamon, and ginger and mix well. Pour into pie crust and bake for 30-40min until center is firm.
egg replacer (equal to 2 eggs)
1 can of pumpkin (16 oz)
1/2 c sweetener
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1 pie crust
You could have it with:
*Soy Milk Whipped Cream*1/4 c soy milk
2-4 Tbsp sweetener
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cornstarch
1/2 c oil
In a blender or food processor, blend milk, sweetener, vanilla, and cornstarch. Slowly drizzle in the oil while blender is running. Blend until smooth and creamy. Chill 1 hour before using.
-JK
Oooh! Soy whipped cream! That just might make my wife consider dropping the ovo and the lacto! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
No Gods, No Masters.
I'm taking vegan dressing, gravy, mac and uncheese and veggie dip to my brothers for Christmas. I'm taking this instead of a more non-tradition dish so I don't become the "curiousity" of the day. By the way, bro and his wife do all the cooking. My dishes are just "supplements" so I can eat!!! I'll share though
How do you make the vegan gravy? Or do you buy it?
No Gods, No Masters.
What a great thread. I will be going away for the holidays for several days and will be preparing food in advance so Jade and I can eat, other family members are welcome to it as well. I can hear the comments already about my daughter not eating meat. Why am I ‘punishing’ her? My family are meat lovers, and some of them have visible health issues that could be avoided if the made healthy food choices. I am planning on making a Vegan dessert for my relatives from one of the books I picked up yesterday. I just won't tell them it is Vegan.
I always make a sweet potato dish I got from Marilu Henner's Holiday's book. (It's a fun book although she is not vegan, the recipes are easy to adapt. She does have fish and poultry stuff in there but little to no dairy and free range eggs.)
Anyhoo - It's basically just margarine, maple sugar melted together with walnuts added and poured over baked sweet potatos. It is always a hit and it's very healthy and to me is better than candied ones. (with all the sugar and marshmallows!! eww)
I usually do the tofurkey thing, cause it's for me and my sister. She loves that stuff and will eat it constantly for days.
~Mel
~Mel
"Sweet songs the youth, the wise, the meaning of all wisdom...to believe in the good in man" - Legend
In what shapes can you get tofurkey?
No Gods, No Masters.
the one i get is just a round mound. It's not shaped really. I haven't seen anything else.
I did see a "turkey" an old teacher of mine made out of tofu, TVP and something...and he molded it to look like turkey, but that kinda creeps me out.
~Mel
~Mel
"Sweet songs the youth, the wise, the meaning of all wisdom...to believe in the good in man" - Legend
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