Vegan's Day

Turkey-free Thanksgiving 2011

I know my Thanksgiving meal blog post is a bit late, but the past few days have been a bit cr-razy. Lots of things going on and the other day my oven decided to crap out on me while I was baking some pumpkin bread. Let's just say that I had a bit of a melt-down, rushing around looking for a new oven and also trying to fix my beloved old one. So I was a bit stressed and crunched for time to do any blogging. But thankfully, I was able to get my trusty lil' convection oven fixed today and now it's running smoothly. It's certainly not the most high-tech oven, but we've been through a lot together and I know it so well that it's like my baby! Hopefully it will stay strong for me to crank out many more pumpkin loaves and cookies.

Anyway, back to Thanksgiving. On Saturday, I went over to Sean & Kia's place for thanksgiving dinner. This was the first time in a few years that I didn't host the dinner at my place. It was nice to let someone else stress out over the menu-planning and cooking for once. haha. But even if Kia was stressed, she didn't show it and did an amazing job. She put together a smorgasbord of vegan-awesome, complete with tofurky, pineapple-glazed ham, and pumpkin cheesecake. It was probably the most impressive homemade vegan thanksgiving meal I've ever had. She went above and beyond, especially in creating the seitan dishes that I would be too scared to attempt myself. Anyway, here's everything that we had to eat for our turkey-free Thanksgiving Feast:

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To start, we each got a bowl of creamy veggie soup that tasted like it had smoked bacon in it. It was perfect as a soup, but was also doubled as a tasty gravy sauce for the mashed potatoes, seitan slices, and er... just about everything.

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Perhaps the star of the meal was this stuffed tofurky roast. Looks amazing, no?

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Kabocha gnocchi & asparagus with creamy sauce.

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Button mushrooms filled with stuffing.

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Mashed potatoes!

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Vegan pineapple-glazed ham. "Wow" is all I have to say.

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scones

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Kabocha with lentil salad

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The condiments: spinach pesto & homemade cranberry sauce.

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And since I didn't want to go empty handed, I brought some green bean casserole! Green beans in Korea are generally super expensive (and hard to find), but I was able to get a big bunch at a reasonable price, at the Chinese market in my neighborhood. For the recipe, I kind of just winged it after looking at several vegan ones online. Since french fried onions don't exist in Korea, I just sprinkled the top with vegan breadcrumbs mixed with a teeny bit of melted nondairy butter, salt and pepper. I imagine it was slightly healthier than using the traditional deep fried onions.

Here's what I did:

{ Vegan Green Bean Casserole }
serves 6-8

500g green beans, chopped
1 tsp salt
a pot of water

1/2 Tbs olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 cups mushrooms, sliced (I used button and enoki)
1/2 carrot, sliced into small pieces
1/2 tsp sage
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried parsley
salt & pepper to taste
2-3 Tbs flour
1 cup water
1/2 cup soy milk (I used a sugar-free version)

1 cup vegan breadcrumbs
1/2 Tbs nondairy butter
pinch of salt & pepper

1. Boil a pot of water and add chopped green beans and salt. Cook until the green beans are tender but still slightly crunchy. Rinse and let drain in a collander.
2. Preheat oven to 400F.
3. In a medium-sized pot, heat up some olive oil and then add the onion, garlic, and mushrooms. Stir until the onions are translucent. Add carrots, green beans and herbs. Cook and stir for a few minutes.
4. Dissolve the flour in about 1 cup of water and pour into the pot, stirring as it thickens. Add soy milk and cover the pot as it cooks for a few more minutes, until the carrots are soft. If the sauce is too thick, add more water or soy milk. Transfer to a baking casserole dish.
5. In a small bowl, rub some vegan butter into the bread crumbs, with some salt and pepper. Toss a bit before sprinkling over the veggies in the casserole dish. Place in the oven for about 15 minutes, or until the breadcrumbs are brown and the sauce underneath is bubbling on the sides. That's about it! :)

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Dayam hot vegan deliciousness on a plate.

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X-treme close up of green bean casserole.

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Dan brought some super yummy bean burger patties which were addictively good, especially when topped with Anna's sun-dried tomato spread.

Talk about a feast!! And that doesn't even include the desserts. Kia was on a mission to make all of us feel stuffed to the max, by serving up two different desserts, using her brand new copy of Vegan Pie in the Sky by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. I can't wait to get my hands on my own copy to complete the recipe book trilogy!

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Pumpkin cheesecake...

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...and chocolate pudding pie! Woahhhh~~

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Anna baked this awesome apple crisp with some special ingredient that I can't remember the name of... It was goooood!

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My dessert sampler plate. Everything was delicious! The pumpkin cheesecake was really good, but I think my favorite was the chocolate pudding pie. It wasn't fully set yet so it fell apart a bit, but who cares, it was yuummmmy~ tasted like childhood.

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I also brought along some gingerbread cookies for dessert. I used the recipe from the PPK, but reduced the oil and sugar quite a bit.

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The after-effects.

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The dogs also got some thanksgiving love. "Look stupid, Marcel! Gooood boy~" ^^

Well, by the end of the evening, I was completely stuffed to the brim. As always Kia & Sean were so generous in hosting this amazing gathering, and it was such a pleasure to hang out with some lovely friends. I definitely feel that I have a lot to be thankful for this year. Family, friends, my new apartment, my online bake shop, this blog, my readers and customers, delicious compassionate food, and good health... grateful for everything.