Thanxgiving Part 1: The Spread!

I love, love, love Thanksgiving! Some of my favorite foods are served at this feast and it is always so much fun to cook for hours and hours and see everyone's delighted faces at your hard work! This year, I went all out and made eeeeeverything from scratch...even the faux turkey! Over the next few days, I'll be posting some of the recipes, so as to not overwhelm in one post, so keep an eye out for all my Thanksgiving recipes!!

The Spread: Homemade Seitan Faux Turkey with Savory Onion Gravy, stuffed with Apple-Sage Stuffing, Mashed Potatoes with Chives (my grandma made these vegan for me! with chives from her own garden!), and Garlic Roasted Brussels Sprouts...

The garlic, bread for the stuffing, apples, chives, and brussels sprouts were all local!The Seitan Faux Turkey RoastI also made Candied Ginger Cranberry Sauce!! I'll give you my recipe below.

Candied Ginger-Cranberry Sauce
3- 12 oz. bags fresh cranberries Juice and zest of 2 lemons Juice and zest of 1 orange 1/2 cup crystallized ginger, chopped 3 cups water 1/2 cup sugar 2 Tbs brown sugar or molasses 1/4 tsp nutmeg 1/8 tsp cloves 1 cinnamon stick 1/2 tsp salt

In a large saucepan, combine all of the ingredients except the ginger and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat, cover, and let simmer for 30 minutes. Add the chopped ginger and let simmer for 15 more minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. Remember to remove cinnamon stick before serving. Serve warm or chilled. Best made the day ahead of time to let thicken and enhance the flavors!

My grandma made vegan Mashed Potatoes with Chives for me! Thanks, granny! You're awesome!Local Garlic-Roasted Brussels SproutsSavory Onion Gravy! I love gravy boats!!And because Thanksgiving is just another word for pie: Pies!!!

First is a Pecan Pie, made with locally-grown pecans!! Check out that homemade crust, ya'll!! It was superb, if I do say so myself :) The recipe for the pie filling came from Bryanna Clark Grogan's Vegan Feast Kitchen, because it's amazing! The pie crust is my own creation. And then there was Pumpkin Pie! The recipe will be coming tomorrow, along with a step-by-step on doing the pumpkin puree from scratch! The pumpkin is local, from the farmers' market, and the pie crust is the same as the pecan pie above. This is even better with a big dollop of vegan whipped cream, of course!!

I Got Vegan Soul Kitchen!

For a graduation present, my wonderful and lovely friend, Anna, got me Vegan Soul Kitchen by Bryant Terry! I have read several other bloggers talk about this cookbook and it looked like something that would be right up my culinary alley...and I was right! Filled with delicious and healthy soul food, this cookbook transforms any kitchen to a down-home oasis.

The first recipes I made from Vegan Soul Kitchen were the Whole-Grain Mustard and Cornmeal Crusted Seitan and the Garlic Broth-Braised Brussels Sprouts. These were both so simple to make and absolutely delicious to eat! I served them with a side of spice roasted sweet potatoes, a recipe of my own. I made this dinner for my friend, Sarah, and myself, and we both thought these were great, homey dishes!I highly recommend this cookbook to anyone who loves comfort food, healthy food, or easy-to-prepare food!

With a little room leftover for dessert, Sarah and I hit up Sparky's, the local ice cream shop, for some vegan sorbet! The sorbet flavor of the day was Pineapple-Lime Sorbet...this was summer in a cup!! Very refreshing and cool!

I'm so glad summer is here! Now, if I only had air conditioning....

Thanksgiving Wrap-Up!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving...I thank you for saving a turkey, and probably lots of other creatures, too! :) My holiday was wonderful! What's not to love?! Lots of food, friends and family, no school, playing board games, and even more food! That's my kind of break!

For breakfast on Thanksgiving morning, I made Pumpkin-Cranberry Scones from Veganomicon:

They were a little softer and cakier than I typically like my scones (just like the book said they would be!), but they were delicious! I love that it calls for fresh instead of dried cranberries...it just adds that little extra zing that I love! Plus I got to use some of the local farmer's market pumpkin that I pureed myself! DIY bonus!

Meal one, for lunch, was at my family's house, where I made all of the food for Steve, my mom, and myself (everyone else had to fend for themselves!! vegan power). I made the following:
--Tofurkey Roast with Mushroom Gravy
--Chili-Maple Glazed Sweet Potaotes and Chestnuts
--Garlic-Roasted Brussel Sprouts
--Double Cranberry Chutney (from Veg Times)
--Uprise Bakery Cranberry Pecan Rolls with my homemade Apple Butter
Yeah, we were STUFFED! I think Tofurkey roasts are my favorite thing about this holiday!!

And I made two desserts:

Pumpkin "Cheezecake" (again with my own pumpkin puree!)

Pecan Pie...with a homemade crust! Both from the Vegan Feast Kitchen Blog!

Thanksgiving two was for dinner at Steven's family's house....

We just did leftovers for the side dishes, but had a Celebration Roast by Field Roast...since we demolished the Tofurkey Roast at lunch! This was our first time trying the Celebration Roast, and I must say that it was great! I liked the butternut squash in the roast, and the spices were tasty. However, I must give my honest opinion that Tofurkey's is better overall...especially in texuture, but I for sure like the wild rice stuffing and the general flavors better, too. But both are delicious and WAAAAY better than cruelty turkeys!!

All in all, a wonderful day! I ate too much and had a bad cold....but I had a lot of fun, too!!