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#VeganMoFo Day 30: This Might Not Look Like YOUR Thanksgiving Prep…

…but my traditions are a little different. Look, Thanksgiving is one of the more problematic holidays, but it’s also become one of my favorites. As a kid, I wasn’t a huge fan of the menu: turkey is bland, mashed potatoes and gravy are fine, and I would’ve eaten my weight in pumpkin pie and whipped cream, but everything else? No, thanks. So as an adult, and adult who decided she wanted to HOST Thanksgiving after moving away from family, I moved away from all that autumnal Americana and treated it as an excuse to cook my ass off and make stuff I wouldn’t otherwise bother making. The menu became a creative exercise; the cooking, bonding and fun with my mom and others.

A key part of our tradition has become figuring out where we want to cook every year. We’ve dabbled in Mediterranean-inspired fare, done a full day of cooking and eating Japanese food, one thing after another; there’s been Indian food, soul food-inspired, and Italian. We don’t claim any deep knowledge of these cuisines, but we enjoy learning about the flavors, ingredients, and techniques–especially if they’re already vegan (or vegan-friendly). We try new things but make use of local, seasonal produce. We have an overflowing list of things to incorporate into our cooking for the next year, and recipes we shortlisted that didn’t make the final cut to try later on. But mostly, we enjoy the process–then we enjoy the food. It’s a good time.

This year, my mom and I both thought we’d like to try making tamales, which has always seemed like an intimidating project. Tamales on their own don’t make a complete meal, however, so we’d like to create a Mexican-inspired menu that isn’t comprised of the usual suspects (tacos, enchiladas, etc.). To that end, I picked up a new cookbook: Decolonize Your Diet, which takes a health-focused, culture-honoring approach to the traditional cuisine of the authors’ families.

While I’m still contemplating the menu – I think we’ll be a small group this year (though if you’re reading this and you’re in or near the Bay Area and in want of a plate of food this holiday, drop me a line) – I figured I’d take this opportunity to try at least one recipe from this super interesting cookbook. I might not make it for Thanksgiving, but it’s still trying something new, in the spirit of how I celebrate that day.

What I made was their cauliflower ceviche with homemade blue corn mini-baked tostadas. It was kind of like a cross between a salsa and a tabbouleh, served almost like a personal nacho chip with avocado (this is a terrible description, but it was tasty).

I’ve made corn tortillas many times in my handy tortilla press, and I have a stash of blue corn masa harina with which to make many more. I imagine, whatever my menu includes, I’ll have that opportunity. And I’m grateful for it.

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Food Blog

Thanksgiving 2015: My food photography skills need work

The food was good. Maybe too many carbs, but we were super excited about making pasta. And bread. And gnocchi. So it just kind of happened. I did my best to surround all that with vegetables. Whatever, it’s the holidays, we’re not usually so indulgent!

My mom did all the bread, the pasta, and the gnocchi. I made pretty much everything else, or we worked together to complete the recipes. (I also made the vegan butter we used, Miyoko Schinner’s recipe from Homemade Vegan Kitchen.)

Antipasti

  • Baked ricotta (Kite Hill + a scoop of Miyoko’s double cream chive, with lemon zest and olive oil, inspired by this)
  • Roast romanesco cauliflower with cippollini onion agrodolce (modified from Crossroads cookbook)
  • Pesto foccacia (from VeganBaking.net)
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Primo

  • Savory pumpkin-stuffed ravioli with sage brown butter and toasted black walnuts
  • Sweet potato gnocchi, also with sage brown butter
  • Braised broccoli rabe with garlic

I don’t really have a recipe for any of these. The pasta dough was Vegan Homemade Kitchen; the filling was me absolutely winging it and doing a decent job. To be honest, I don’t even remember what all I put in there. The gnocchi, my mom’s first attempt, was based on the recipe in Crossroads, IIRC.

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Secondo

  • Seitan roulade with a sundried tomato glaze and stuffed with eggplant, pesto, and homemade croutons (inspired by this roulade from Vegetarian Times)
  • Potato gnocchi with homemade basil-walnut pesto
  • Kale and cranberry beans (based on a recipe from Crossroads calling for butter beans instead)
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Dessert

  • Pumpkin parfait (from Crossroads, minus the ginger syrup)
  • Biscotti with black walnuts, dried cherries, and lemon zest (modified from a recipe in Vegan Cookies Take Over Your Cookie Jar)
  • Cocoa-hazelnut medallions (Nutella-inspired and warped from this recipe)

The photo of that parfait is garbage, but it was pretty lovely. What you can’t see in the blur is the layer of gorgeously moist spice cake, pumpkin mousse, coconut whipped cream with vanilla bean, and almond-pumpkin seed brittle. It was like a deconstructed pumpkin pie and it was fan-fucking-tastic. The other two were as tasty as they look.

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Lasagna with pumpkin bechamel and artichoke and tomato panzenella (from Vegan Eats World) made with homemade bread

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Thanksgiving #1 spread: spinach lasagna with pumpkin bechamel, artichoke and tomato panzanella, olives and dips

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Thanksgiving prep is being documented over on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/emilyca/

Our menu is non-traditional, as usual: Greek theme on Thanksgiving proper; Mexican-inspired the night before. Different guests for each (different sides of boyfriend’s family). My mom came down on Saturday to prep with me. It’s a blast.