This was my first holiday since I've changed to a plant-based diet. I wasn't the least bit nervous about it, because all of my favorite Thanksgiving dishes involved no turkey (or any other meat for that matter). As I've stated before, I always loved the sides of a meal and usually used the meat portion as more of the side dish.
Thursday we went to Tim's family dinner. I was a little concerned about how much there would be to eat, since we were the first people in his family that didn't eat meat. I found that most of the stuff was ok for us. I should specify that although Tim is almost strictly vegan and I'm getting closer to it, we decided that we would go ahead and eat anything that might contain a small amount of milk or butter, such as mashed potatoes or rolls. Tim made Gardein Stuffed Turk'y for us to have, which also came with 2 small packets of gravy we were able to use on the Gardein and the potatoes. He also made his yummy sweet potato casserole, which he switched around to make it vegan this year. We also had a spinach salad with cranberries and walnuts, cornbread stuffing (which Tim also made for us in case the other was made with meat broth), rolls, cranberries (the kind in the can, which is my favorite! I'm weird, I know), mashed potatoes, and a glass of sweet red wine. :-)
These are a few pics Tim took of a couple of the dishes we had at his family's dinner.
This year our family had our Thanksgiving meal on Friday. Since my sister has been a vegetarian for many years I knew there would be plenty to eat. Plus, Tim made a Celebration Roast for the 3 of us that weren't eating meat, as well as some vegan gravy. My sister made a mushroom vegetarian gravy as well. Since the gravy has always been one of my favorite parts of the Thanksgiving meal more was better! :-) We also had baked sweet potatoes (with lots of different toppings separate so that everyone could make it their own way, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberries, a couple different bottles of wine to share, Gigi's midnight magic and raspberry mini cupcakes, and pumpkin pie. We also had some veggies and dip, cheese and crackers, and chips and salsa (we skipped the cheese) as an appetizer while we waited for dinner to be ready, as well as some peppermint kahlua.
As you can see there was plenty of dishes for us to eat at both family gatherings. After 2 days of eating full plates of Thanksgiving food I was stuffed! Then of course I brought home some leftovers and feasted (on a smaller scale) for another couple days. I forgot to swipe some rolls though to go with the leftovers. Fail!
Over the holidays I read a blog by The Happy Herbivore about her Thanksgiving meal. She made a fully vegan dinner for her parents, and got their reactions to all of the dishes she made. They are meat eaters who had never had a vegan Thanksgiving before, so it was great to hear their reactions to all the great dishes she made! You can read her blog post here. Not to ruin the story, but they loved everything she made. :-) It just goes to show that if you just just stick your toe into the vegan pool you'll find that the water isn't so cold afterall. ;-)
Speaking of which, Tim also made his vegan meatballs for his meat-loving buddies over the weekend for a gaming get together they had. They thought they were really good much to their surprise, but not ours though. We knew that they would if they'd just break out of their meat box and try something new.
My next blog I plan to address some of the most common questions, comments, etc. that I have come across in the short time I've adopted my plant-based diet. I know I said that on my last post, but I wanted to make sure I got my first Thanksgiving post in first. Once again, please follow my blog and feel free to ask any questions you may have. :-)
