Vegan Thanksgiving
- November 2011
- Vegan
The premise of Thanksgiving–I mean the history behind the idea–is disturbing to me. Personally, I find it beyond reprehensible to show up in a country and proceed to virtually decimate one’s hosts. Especially after having a meal with them. Moving on to the current moment, centering an entire holiday around torturing and slaughtering innocent creatures is far from palatable to me.
However, as with so many things in life, one can either decide to abstain from everything out of principle and live in a cave, or one can embrace the positive and make a conscious decision to let go of the negative. Food is wonderful, and sharing good food with family and friends is even more wonderful. I see this holiday as an opportunity to deeply appreciate those best things in life, and to embrace the positive elements together.
Also, Thanksgiving can be an occasion to reflect upon our history, to look it in the face, acknowledge wrong and make a conscious choice to do better.
November is a great time of year to be in Moab (although it usually snows on Thanksgiving), and I like to take advantage of the opportunity to have everyone over for a vegan meal of my favorite dishes!
This year I’m going to make butternut squash soup, roasted root vegetables (I like to make sweet potatoes, potatoes, parsnips, beets with ginger and garlic), sauteed kale and spinach, cornbread, quinoa with black beans and corn, and pumpkin and apple pie. This meal will be delicious, healthy, and leave everyone feeling great the next day, no matter how much they eat–which is a very good feature.
Any other great dishes that should be included?
sauteed swiss chard lightly sauteed in EVOO w/ garlic
I’m going to try the Fall Succotash recipe from Chef Eric Benedict. I found it in an article on the 17-th century feast he has planned: http://host.madison.com/entertainment/dining/article_2e772772-ad86-54b4-b6d0-bcf53707b040.html?mode=story
wow, that’s a treasure trove of good ideas, thanks for the link, and I might have to make that too…
You should make a vegan mushroom gravy. It’s got a really rich flavor that’s I’m sure on par with normal gravy. Of course you don’t have to have turkey but eat it with everything else.
That will be great with mashed potatoes, thanks for the suggestion! Any recipes?
Here is the page on this site that made me think of it (basically a project of some friends and mine) http://www.questorganic.com/72/vegan-recipes-for-gravy
the mushroom gravy turned out great! it was a perfect suggestion 🙂
Surprised no one commented on the general, moral/historical/pragmatic observations conveyed here in the first two paragraphs . . . insightful, cogent, concise, and eloquent. Very impressive.
maybe everyone just nodded and moved onto the recipes, which is very sensible 🙂
Cool post steph, Very well said!! That butternut squash soup sounds amazing, gonna have to try that:)
hope you like it 🙂