Revenge is a dish best served Vegan!

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

I had a surprisingly good one!

I say ‘surprisingly’ because last year’s was such a flop. Basically what happened, is that we were supposed to go to my in-law’s friend’s house and we were all going to eat together. At least that’s what I thought. What ended up happening is that they ate without us, and we got to eat leftovers at the kitchen table while everyone else played cards.

Well, I was determined not to let this somewhat thoughtless attitude ruin my Thanksgiving THIS year. So I came up with a whole menu and a plan...if they invited us to eat with them, I would bring the food I made to share. If they ate without us, we would eat our Thanksgiving meal at home and perhaps go over for dessert. As predicted, I asked them when they were eating (at 2pm) and they said they already ate. Nice.

I left it up to Nick if he wanted to go over there for dessert, or to play cards, and he’d rather stay home and play Arkham Asylum. Cool with me! I mean, I might’ve tried to convince him that Thanksgiving was family time and we really should go hang out with his parents because family time is important during the holidays. But hey, if they’re not going to wait for us, I don’t see why I should go to bat for them.

Curious about the menu? Well, it would be a monster post with recipes, but I’ll give a brief description and photo.

We started with Cinnamon rolls made from scratch (yeast and all) to eat while watching the parade! There was a recipe for glaze, but they were so gooey, that they didn’t need it. Seriously, almost the entire pan is gone now. It was pretty labor intensive. As indicated by these series of photos that I feel I need to share with you. It was from the book Vegan Brunch.

Dough, rolled out, sprinkled with filling and dotted with butter. (Earth Balance)

Dough, filling and butter rolled into cinnamon tube! Time to cut.

I think I may have stuffed too many rolls in a confined space. 

Still tasted good, though!

Okay, now the actual Thanksgiving dinner.

To start with.. A salad.

Spinach Salad with Pears, dried cranberries, candied pecans and a vinaigrette dressing. Yes, I candied the pecans myself. No, it actually wasn’t very hard! Might do it again, just to impress people.

Le Main Course:

Glazed Lentil loaf with apples and walnuts.  I really enjoy this recipe. It’s savory with a hint of sweet with the apple and the glaze. Then the toasted walnuts give it a little extra crunch.

Garlic mashed potatoes: Red skin farmer’s market potatoes. With the skins still on. Mmmm.. with Gravy! (Not pictured)

Sweet Potato Casserole

We had Roasted Brussel Sprouts: Photo not shown. But they basically looked like Brussel sprouts. 

Focaccia Bread: I made a small loaf with the rosemary I got from the Farmer’s Market.

Dessert:

Pumpkin Gingerbread with Spiced Buttercream Frosting.  The recipe made a lot of frosting. I was nipping tastes of it until I realized that I could practically hear my heart racing. (Lots of sugar. As you can imagine)

Unfrosted

 Frosted!

 Pumpkin Pie with brownie base and crunchy pecan topping. 

We were both so totally full, that we couldn’t finish our firsts, nevermind having dessert right away. We watched The Dark Knight and digested for a bit.  And now a relaxing weekend to play video games, watch movies… and hopefully live off of the leftovers for a few days. :)