Sunday, October 7, 2007

The Thanksgiving Post

Phew! It's been a while! We have been so busy, it's ridiculous. I keep waiting for life to calm down, but it just never seems to happen. Our trip to the mountains was lovely, but not as relaxing as I'd hoped. I have lots of things to post about, but I think I'll save it for later, and make this an exclusively Thanksgiving post.
This Thankgiving, I am thankful for family, friends, and Canadian cookbook authors! Did I mention that I got my copy of Eat, Drink and Be Vegan this week? Yahoo! I think I spent a good couple of hours looking through it with awe and excitement. Naturally, I had to put it to use in my holiday meals. Being the daughter of divorced parents, we generally have 2 celebrations for each holiday (if my husband's family lived nearby, we'd likely have 3). To make my life a little easier, I decided to make the same dishes for each dinner, varying only the desserts. Here's what we had (2 nights in a row...):
The Tofu Roast from La Dolce Vegan. This received rave reviews from pretty much everyone. I think it will definitely become a holiday staple. In the midst of my cooking/ eating frenzy, I neglected to take any pictures of the final product, so all I have for you are 2 pre-oven, pre-basting pics. Sorry!
Saturday night was dinner at my dad's, and for dessert, I made the Pumpkin-Cheese Pie from ED&BV. Yum! It was awesome. I used the Brown Rice Pumpkin Seed pie crust from ExtraVeganZa. It was so good. Everyone loved it, and my grandma wants the recipe (for this and the tofu roast!). (On a side note, my grandpa has been veg for over 25 years... how cool is that?!)
Tonight we had dinner at my mom's, and I made the Chocolate-Pumpkin Pie from ED&BV (which Dreena has kindly posted here). Wow. Seriously... go make this now. It is that freaking good. Everyone loved it. It is super rich and decadent, and oh-so yummy! Why are you still reading? Go make this pie!
Pre-oven:
And post-oven:
I made the Walnut-Cocoa Crust (or something to that affect) from ExtraVeganZa. Not only is it healthier than store-bought, but we couldn't find any vegan chocolate pie crusts. (Which is actually quite odd, since Oreos are vegan... We were able to find vegan graham cracker crusts, which is also odd, since graham crackers usually contain honey. Strange.)
My side-dish contribution was the Roasted Root Vegetables and Squash from ExtraVeganZa. It's filled with sweet potatoes, beets, carrots, rutabagas and more! And look how pretty it is...
Apparently I mostly take pictures of things before they're cooked. Ah well. You get the idea.
I also whipped up the Traditional Cranberry Sauce and the Thick 'N' Rich Gravy from ED&BV. So good!
Here's tonight's dinner, all put together:
My sisters made the super-yummy vegetable salad, and my step-sister made the green salad (with walnuts and a pear-vanilla vinaigrette, which was awesome).
And here's a pie of Chocolate-Pumpkin Pie, that I saved just for you!
Mmmm. (Yeah, I think every member of my family - my sisters, my mom, my dad, and I - has the plain white Corelle plates. Weird.)
It was a busy weekend, and I'm looking forward to slowing down and relaxing tomorrow.
Oh, and by the way, check out what we got from the csa this week:
Yay!
Have a happy Thanksgiving, Canadian friends. Everyone else, enjoy your weekends!
Peace!

9 comments:

Rose said...

Yum! Your Thanksgiving dinner looks so great :) I really need some inspiration because this will be my first vegan Thanksgiving dinner and I'm still deciding what to make

ChocolateCoveredVegan said...

Oh wow, can I come over for the leftovers (if there even are any!)?

VeggieMama said...

Everything looks delicious!

Julie said...

Looks like you had an awesome Thanksgiving! I'll have to try those pie recipes when the US Thanksgiving comes around.

urban vegan said...

Happy belated Thanksgiving. I've been meaning to try that tofu roast. Looks like you ate well and have tons to be thankful for!

Monika K said...

Sounds like a yummy Thanksgiving feast! I should try that roast - it sounds fascinating (although I'm not the hugest soy/tofu fan). Does the roast taste really soy-y?

Love the pic of your son, by the way. Too cute! (-:

The Little Mama said...

Thanks so much everyone!
One tip for the tofu roast that I forgot to mention, was to put a square of parchment paper under the roast as it cooks, otherwise (as we discovered at dinner #1) it sticks like crazy to the tinfoil.
Monika K: It doesn't really taste soy-y at all. The tofu is blended with tamari and sage, and then basted, so it really absorbs a lot of other flavours.
I just found out that it's Columbus Day in the US today, so Happy Columbus Day, neighbours!

Lizzy said...

What lovely thanksgivng dinners you had! Man.. I can't wait for our thanksgiving!

Anardana said...

Yum!! I had a very uninspired thanksgiving dinner, so that looks ever better than it usually would!