Vegan for Thanksgiving

I have an unexpected guest for Thanksgiving, vegan, my husband's cousin, new to Chicago. I have been told NOT to go out of my way but it seems everything I will be having will not be suited to any vegan. Suggestions for anything that would not be going out of my way while keeping everyone else happy with the regular (important to in laws) turkey day menu?

Yeah, my suggestion is that you're doing plenty of work and this unexpected guest needs to take responsibility for their own meal.

Okay, so that didn't fly. Work in a salad with a vinaigrette dressing (you can toss that together in no time) and roast some root vegetables with some simple flavoring (soy sauce, maple syrup and rosemary, whatever). Beyond that, I can't think of anything I make for T-Day that wouldn't be significantly impaired by lacking eggs or dairy. If they really expect multiple courses, maybe there's a way to achieve that via takeout from Whole Foods or some other place that has a fair amount of vegan choices.

yep, gotta show that reply to the mom in law

Glad I could help bring harmony to the holidays!

I've done this a number of times (think I mentioned it somewhere) Basically, wine, apple cider, and olive oil are vegan, and are easy to use to replace chicken stock and butter in most Thanksgiving dishes: Check that your bread for dressing/stuffing is vegan (cornbread is not, but french/italian breads often are, and sturdier breads work great in dressing) and use the above for your liquids/fats and you're all set. The recipe I'm trying this year (except I'm cheating and using chicken stock and probably skipping the tamari) is vegan if you sub EVOO for butter, and if you do the thing with the pumpkin, you'll have a satisfying vegan main dish; I've made similar vegan fruit-based stuffings before with success. One year, instead of the chicken-stock-based wild rice I usually do, I made saffron rice with white wine and garlic - a little out of the ordinary for Thanksgiving, but it worked. Once I even made a gravy with cooked pureed mushrooms and garlic.

If you're planning some sort of mashed potatoes (regular or sweet) your vegan will probably appreciate it if you just hold one back after you cook it but before you mash and serve it straight-up, or throw one in to bake while the turkey is roasting. A crudite tray will go a long way as well; hummos is a good vegan dip and you can offer others for the non-vegans. Fruits (pears or apples) poached in a syrup of coffee, spices, wine and sugar, or even plain make an easy vegan dessert.

That being said, when we had vegans over for Thanksgiving they usually brought a large dish to share and took responsibility for their own food. Be prepared - in some cases, vegan people I've known have asked to read the ingredients list of prepared foods (I don't think this was as insulting as it sounds; there are a lot of ingredients that seem to be vegan that aren't: honey, for one - if you aren't trained to look for it you wouldn't know.)

What the hell animal does cornbread come from? Or are you assuming that it must have butter and egg in it?

All the cornbread recipes I know of have eggs and butter (or in my case, bacon drippings and a lot of them) and often buttermilk. Is your cornbread vegan? If so, can you post a recipe?

I once went to a Thanksgiving with a herb beer bread that was completely vegan. A vegan who was also at the dinner was ecstatic about it because it was delicious and approved. I, unfortunately, no longer have the recipe but i'm sure there's something out there on the interwebs that would be similar. It was a quick bread with beer and herbs. You could have made a fabulous stuffing from it -- had i thought to do that.

I'm definitely of the opinion that if you attend something and have major food issues -- it's your responsibility to bring something to eat. Although as a hostess, I would also very much want to make all my guests comfortable and full.

I'm glad I'm going to a restaurant this year -- it's a nice change of pace.

s

No, mine has all that stuff too, I just didn't know if there was something else about how corn meal was made that rendered it unveganlichkeit.

I'm glad that the only vegetarian who's ever come to my T-day is my sister, the vegetarian who eats barbecue.

Because of this thread, this year I will give thanks that no vegans are coming to my house for Thanksgiving

=R=

I was invited to a Thanksgiving open house by a vegan pal. He asked that no meat dishes be brought, but egg and dairy were ok as ingredients as long as they were identified.

Here's my contribution... meat-shaped marzipan, aka "meatzipan":



grace

Did you make those or buy those, Grace? They are beautiful!

Meatzipan is murderzipan.

Grace, I love your marzipan meat substitute. How was it received?

Thanks! I made those, and ended up making a second batch by request for a non-vegetarian friend. Hey, if there's a market for meatzipan, maybe that's my next food venture

My vegan pal was all too happy to chomp on the meatzipan bacon, while incriminating photos were snapped.

grace

David Hammond wrote:Grace, I love your marzipan meat substitute. How was it received?

The easiest thing you can do is head out to Trader Joe's or Whole Foods and get a Tofurkey. I just saw them at TJ's for $10. It's no fuss - all you do is put it in the oven and bake it, there's no other prep involved. It's got stuffing already and is completely vegan.

If you give your vegan guest that, some cranberry sauce, and a vegetable (corn?) with just olive oil or vegan margarine then you'll give them more than enough food.

In my opinion, this is probably the easiest way to go since all you're doing is dropping ten bucks for something to bake rather than messing around with alternative recipes when you're already feeding a group.

Careful giving the vegan cranberry sauce. Plain white sugar isn't vegan.

Wow, this I didn't know, but here's documentation.

Not sure why vegans eat soy given all the birds, mice, rabbits, etc, that get chewed up by the combine.

This would be my argument against vegitarianism in general: if we want to make enough food for everyone, we have to farm. If we farm, animals die in a number of ways: we destroy their habitat, they get killed by farming equipment, or by farmers trying to protect their crops. I'm guessing getting run over by a harrow is a lot less humane than many animal farming/processing methods.

However, I've found that altering your cooking to accomodate others often results in more creative dishes, and I'm not about to address a political issue over dinner, so if we have vegans I try to accomodate them.

If you have a vegan for Thanksgiving, is it better roasted or braised?

leek wrote:Careful giving the vegan cranberry sauce. Plain white sugar isn't vegan.

Every vegan is different of course, but I wouldn't be too concerned about this - the vegans who get uppity about things like white sugar probably would bring their own dish because there's virtually no chance anything you make will be to their standards.

If the OP goes the Tofurkey route they could probably buy a package of cranberry sauce that's sweetened with cane juice of some such thing. Part of the reason why I would lean towards going with vegan store bought stuff is because there's no "this margarine has lechithin, so it's not vegan" issue.

As a former vegan, who now has a love for sweetbreads, the logic is you are doing what you can to minimize suffering. Of course, animals are displaced by farming, killed by harvest machines, but then animals (insects especially) are killed everytime we drive a car, but that's unavoidable whereas eating animals is.

After many years of thinking about it, I found the whole logic to be shortsighted but I wouldn't get into an debate about it. It's one of those things that's not worth arguing about - sort of like abortion, you are not only not going to win, you're going to just create an uncomfortable environment, no matter what side you're on.

As a former vegan, who now has a love for sweetbreads, the logic is you are doing what you can to minimize suffering.

This is one of the things that occurred to me while doing the mulefoot pigs video-- the person who merely refuses to eat pork isn't doing nearly as much for the overarching cause of pig happiness as the person who chooses to spend their money on pork raised the right way.

You can only be concerned about your white sugar being filtered through possibly-animal-sourced charcoal if you can convince yourself that it was grown in soil completely devoid of previous animal life. That's what my forebears called "Jesuitical casuistry."

Mike G wrote: the person who merely refuses to eat pork isn't doing nearly as much for the overarching cause of pig happiness as the person who chooses to spend their money on pork raised the right way.

This is probably the most concise and logical phrasing of the pro-meat argument I've ever read (from an ethical standpoint). Well said!

Yeah! My vegan eats sugar (Snoopy dance!). Yams, done, apple pie, probably not, maybe fresh fruit.

Bake an apple while you're baking your pie: core it but don't peel it, zizz of dried fruit and nuts (raisins or whatever you've got around) and the same sugar/seasoning mixture you're using for your pie in the food processor, wet it with a little apple cider (making up for butter) stuff it in the hole and drizzle maple syrup over. Bake at 375 for about 25 minutes.

Looks like the question was answered last week:

http://gapersblock.com/drivethru/2008/1 ... gan_frien/

Ha! Made mashed potatoes without butter, fresh asparagus, fresh fruit salad and threw in green beans as side dishes to the usual fare. I saw the VEGAN in my platter of turkey!!!!! WTF! I think either my mother-in-law is losing it or I had a vegan who just gave it up. He was so nice, brought a great bottle of wine and a CHEESECAKE, obviously very happy to be invited. I was to embarrassed to ask what the hell was going on? Smile, you are on Candid Camera.

swine dining wrote:Here's my contribution... meat-shaped marzipan, aka "meatzipan":

Hysterical! I must learn to make these!

diane ck wrote: I saw the VEGAN in my platter of turkey!!!!!

Also hysterical!

Our potential vegetarian guest fell ill and wasn't able to make it, so I sent the roasted veggie dish I made home with her friend. But it turns out we would have been OK with everything except for the turkey - the friend says she only doesn't eat meat itself. She's fine with stocks and fats from meat, just not actual meat.