Having a Stress-Free Thanksgiving

The Holidays are upon us!

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, let us continue to focus on gratitude and how important it is show how much we love those around us.  We all know when some family and friends together it can become pretty stressful.  Everyone has their own opinions and like to let it be heard.  Remember to be the one to put out positive energy, helping to keep the chaos down.

It doesn't have to be challenging when different eating habits come together for a meal like Thanksgiving.  In our home, we enjoy a mostly plant-based meal, no turkey, ham or any type of meat.  There might be a little dairy, but only if you choose to partake.  Aside from meat, most traditional Thanksgiving meals are already plant-based anyway. You can replace butter with Earth Balance and eggs can be replaced with "flax eggs" when baking treats.

This year we are having our son, daughter-in-law and grandson join us for the feast.  They will be bringing their own roasted turkey breast and chocolate pie (our Grandson is a chocolate loving freak!) while we enjoy our usual "Tofurky Roast" and vegan pumpkin pie.

Here is our Thanksgiving Menu from Bree:

Tofurky Roast: Despite the mocking reactions of non-vegetarians when they hear the word “tofurky”, the Tofurky Roast is actually really good. It’s a lot less dry than your typical Thanksgiving turkey and is great the next day on a sandwich.

Mashed Potatoes: The variation of mashed potatoes changes year-to-year, so it could be chunky or more of a puree, but we always use Earth Balance and season with lots of salt and pepper. After making pierogi filling this way recently, I think this year we’ll add some caramelized onions to the mashed potatoes for extra flavor.

Cornbread Stuffing with Sage: We live in the south, so it’s cornbread stuffing for us with lots of sage for peak autumnal flavor.

Cranberry-Apple Sauce: This is my mom’s go-to sauce and it’s delicious. It’s made from fresh cranberries, so it’s not a jello-like texture. It’s more like a sauce with small apple chunks that add sweetness and good texture.

Deviled Eggs: To me, you can’t have Thanksgiving without deviled eggs as an appetizer. There’s no vegan hack here. But there is a dairy-free version 😅

Italian Green Beans: The flat, Italian-style green beans are my absolute favorite. I can’t explain it, I just love the texture of these.

Parker House Rolls: We change style of rolls year-by-year, but this year we’re planning on doing classic, homemade Parker House rolls because I’m trying to practice baking bread more.

Sweet Potato Casserole: For another side, we like to do sweet potato casserole. This is one of those cases where we use Earth Balance in place of butter.

Vegan Pumpkin Pie: It’s really simple to make pumpkin pie vegan because you really just don’t need to use the eggs or evaporated milk used in other recipes in order to get the custardy filling. I love the Minimalist Baker recipe.

Apple Pie: I’ve considered doing a cranberry pie this year, but I’m sticking with a classic apple. I’m going to use a traditional apfelstrudel filling and do a Dutch crumb topping.

Happy Thanksgiving!