A Very Vegan Thanksgiving

This a bit overdue but I'd be remiss to not document how I successfully made it through Thanksgiving without any meat products and a refusal to even consider Tofurkey.

Aperitif
Every good holiday starts with an afternoon champagne cocktail. Our traditional go to would be Prosecco w/ pomegranate which is always delish, but this being I think the peak of pumpkin mania, we went with a Pumpkin Pie spice cocktail.

Appetizers
My Mom had wanted to keep this simple which worked in my favor. We picked up a slew of marinated veggies from Standard market. Roasted peppers, artichoke, white bean and marinated mushrooms.

Dinner
After tooling around Vegan blogs for a while, I landed on this very simple Butternut Squash soup recipe. The key was to not burn the garlic! Please make note of the timing of the roasting.

The next thing I made was Brussel Sprouts. Funny thing about Brussel Sprouts is that my Dad banned them from the house for years....and now we all love them. We roasted then spiked up a bit with a lemon, dijon and thyme marinade.

I love sweet potatoes and I love marshmallows but for the love of god, they do not belong together!! Roast them with a bit of salt, pepper and rosemary and call it a day. I like to over cook mine and make them crispy.

There is nothing like summer corn on the cob, but frozen corn is a Thanksgiving staple. Just zap these puppies in the microwave with a bit of EVOO and Salt/Pepper.

My traditional annual contribution is cranberry sauce. This year I tested 2. One with sugar and one with agave. The difference is that with the sugar version you dissolve with the water first and with the Agave you add at the end.

Dessert

I searched for recipes for a full month. Since I ended with with 2 pie crusts I decided to land on 2 kinds. Both delicious, but in the end I found the Agave one better. And of course a dollop of Almond Dream Vanilla ice cream wouldn't hurt anyone.



Phew....OK so does it sound like I left the meal hungry?

The Workout crave

10 weeks ago I went Vegan. At about 5 weeks in I started battling a sinus infection, fairly common for me as a year round sufferer of allergies. The cold was on and off for 3 weeks due to my refusal to take antibiotics, the only known real "cure" for this type of infection. Musinex D is great at putting colds at bay but doesn't knock anything out completely. I hate taking antibiotics, simply put they destroy your gut...and circling back to the point of this blog, all I want is a healthy digestive system.

Alas I took the meds and the cold went away. With my sleep returned and energy restored, I started working out again. I typically work out 3-5 times a week and with the cold was down to about once a week. With this return I was presented with my next challenge, the "crave." Not the White Castle type but not too far off. I can't say what exactly I wanted but I'm pretty sure a burger would have satisfied it. 

As a result I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to combat my sugar and salty cravings. All vegan and gluten free of course.

Salty:

- Veggie sushi

- Roasted sweet potatoes dipped in ketchup (Annie's organic)

- Roasted Brussel Sprouts

- Amy's black been chili

- Amy's bean/rice burrito 

- Chipotle Veggie Bowl (brown rice, black beans, onion/peppers, tomato salsa, guacamole, lettuce)

- Urban Vegan Yellow curry w/ Tofu

- Roti Rice plate w/ veggies, hummus, tomato/cucumber salad, eggplant

- Protien Bar veggie chili quinoa bowl w/ sweet potato chips

Sweet:

- Swirlz Chocolate peanut butter cupcake

- Almond Dream Toffee Chocolate crunch ice cream

- So Delicious Mint chocolate chip ice cream

- Natures Path pumpkin waffles

I haven't completely beat the crave, but I'm not going hungry.