At some holiday gatherings, there is very little for vegans to eat. Thursday’s Thanksgiving feast, however, was not one of those parties! Literally, every time I blinked, a new vegan dish appeared.
Anthony Nelson, your new genie is ready. 🙂
Dishes included the incredibly easy, yet so delicious Vegan Magic Mushrooms, and my favorite Creamy Vegan Polenta
Without lifting a finger (or engaging in the aforementioned blinking), I could’ve easily made a meal simply from the vegan side-dishes my mom prepared. Oh heck, I could’ve easily made a meal from just the magic mushrooms alone! My family’s always been big on vegetables; therefore some of what my mom prepares for Thanksgiving has always already been vegan. And other dishes, such as the polenta she made, are easily veganized.
Mom also makes a broccoli dish that is vegan (originally my grandma’s recipe). As I said, I could have made a meal feast from just the sides. But I didn’t. No, I made my own vegetarian main dish to share. It was so good, it deserves its own post. (I’ll post the recipe tomorrow.)
Everything looks so good! I was vegan earlier this year, and I was stressing out about what I was going to eat at Thanksgiving. (I might have been thinking a little too far ahead…) I’m a vegetarian now, so I was able to eat a lot more of the Thanksgiving feast, but your dishes would have been great to serve to vegans, vegetarians, and meat-eaters like 🙂
Oh man, all of that looks soooo good! I wish I could redo my Thanksgiving and include all of it. 🙂
I loved your thoughts on a ‘perfect’ vegan diet and it makes me happy that you still ate the pie. Like you said, some things just need to be “don’t ask-don’t tell,” especially when it’s made by someone you love. For example, my mom makes AWESOME tortilla soup, and she knows it’s my favorite. I visited her for the first time in months and she had a pot hot on the stove for me when I got there. It was the first time she’d cooked for me since I had become a vegetarian, and I guess she forgot that chicken stock was made out of well- chickens. But since she put so much thought into it, I ate it anyways. She’s my mom, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. But the next time I visited, I helped make the soup and recommended we use vegetable stock instead and she realized what happened and quickly apologized. It was just as delicious and now she always makes it with vegetable stock- even when I’m not there! 😀
And my mission this week is to try some of your magic mushrooms. Yum!
Aww Ashley, I’m so happy to know there’s someone out there who feels like I do! My mom made me “vegan” chocolate chip cookies once, and didn’t realize there was dairy in the chips. I ate them, but I made sure to stock her pantry vegan chocolate chips for the future! 🙂
I cooked a turkey for scott, the one time a year i cook meat for him. 99% of the time he’s a vegan at home b/c i am doing the cooking! i posted about it on Friday on my TGiving food/recipes post (again). I always have to remind ppl he is his own person and he’s not vegan. I catch a TON of heat on my blog b/c I posted meat (out of like 1000 posts, I think 2 or 3 have had meat on them) but whatever. It’s what I made, he loved it, bought me a dozen roses AND another floral arrangement…he loved it that much that I cooked for him.
So I am happy to cook for others how they wish to eat and be a short order cook. With food allergies, diff dietary paths, vegan, not, GF, not, raw vs. cooked, cant please everyone in the house so i dont mind cooking separate meals…most of the time 🙂 Sometimes they must eat what i serve LOL
Great meal, great pics, lovely post, Katie!
Oh my word it all looks delicious! You might have persuaded me to have some magic mushrooms at dinner 😀 I prefer to make my own food, mainly because I eat a lot earlier than my family so I know I’m not inconveniencing my mum by asking her to make me dinner 2 hours earlier – let’s face it, mums have better things to do than make dinner all day! On the other hand I LOVE cooking for others – I somehow manage to get roped into doing a lot in the kitchen at Christmas. When do you put your Chritsmas tree up? I’ve got another two days to go and we’re all getting terribly excited!
Oh and glad you had a good Thanksgiving. 😀
Haha I eat earlier than my family too! I’ll call my mom at 9pm sometimes and she’s like, “Oh we’re just having dinner.” I usually eat around 5 or 6, so I’m thinking, “Dinner?? It’s almost bedtime!”
Usually we put our tree up in early December. But my sister likes to help, and she lives in Boston, so this year we took advantage of her being here for Thanksgiving and already put it up :).
I usually make my own food, but I am quite happy when my mother cooks for me.
There’s something extra special about Mom food.
Your vegan feast looks amazing– so glad you had a vegan and family oriented thanksgiving 🙂
Um, can I come to your house for the next holiday? Everything looks delish!
Yes, please do! I need to meet my twin someday ;).
Mmm know you think the savoury dishes are less interesting but I disagree, they look delish. Keep them coming. Ps you have me on a polenta kick now
Thanks! I’m thinking of doing a weekly “Savory Sunday” thing, so I can post all my savory recipes… they’re building up!
Ha ha this is funny — Im using a library computer right now which has a filter that censors any references to sex or drugs. I clicked on your link for the Vegan Magic Mushrooms and got censored! lol, I’ll have to check this recipe out at home!
This is why I lump myself in with the “flexitarians.” I would be vegan if I could, and most of my meals are vegan, but my husband is a devout carnivore, as are both families, and I feel terrible turning down food when someone worked hard to make it! But at the very least, I make sure that the meat and eggs we buy were raised as responsibly and humanely as possible. One reason I dislike meat so much is feeling so bad for the kind of conditions the animal had to endure, and the method of their demise–but I really don’t feel too bad eating an unfertilized egg from a happy chicken in a backyard flock, or having some honey from my SIL’s bees, since I know her husband takes care of them like they’re his babies, and he’d never let them have insufficient food. It’s really only the commercial practices that absolutely disgust!!!
So so true… I have a distant cousin who calls herself a vegan, but she lives on a farm and consumes the eggs from her own chickens. While that wouldn’t “technically” be vegan, people have to remember that the whole reason to be vegan is not because someone wants to fit into a definition! It’s to cause as little suffering to others as possible :).