A Very Vegan Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving, I had the pleasure of preparing food for a crowd of people. Quite a crowd of people; there were thirteen including myself & the little one! That's definitely more people than I'm used to cooking for, so it was a challenge! This was a get-together the day after Thanksgiving for some friends and family and some new friends of all dietary persuasions! It was really a blessing and totally worth all the effort to be able to share it with such open-minded & appreciative people. When I got back from dropping the kiddo off at her dad's, everyone had put away the food and done the dishes. It was amazing.

Most of the recipes I quantified turned out to be enough or just enough, except I could have easily doubled the gravy recipe. I was really impressed with some of the new recipes I used (and was nervous about using at first!). I spent Wednesday cleaning & sanitizing the house, as I get a little OCD about cleaning before important events. Then I prepped a bunch that evening, cooked for nearly 17 hours on Thanksgiving, and finished the remaining dishes Friday afternoon/evening. I reheated at the refrigerated things I'd made before in a really hot oven - I'd never done this with a mass quantity of food before, but it worked fine, & I kept a few more things heated on the stovetop & my dual buffet I'd not gotten to use yet! It tickles me that everyone ate my entire faux cheesecake with strawberry sauce! Better than Cream Cheese is truly a good substitute for the original here. I might make another one in a couple days so I can use the rest of the strawberry sauce! We had a merry night of stuffing ourselves silly (sometimes uncomfortably full!) drinking a little chardonnay and beer, and finishing the night off with freshly ground vanilla, hazelnut cream, and cinnamon flavored coffee.

                                            Pressing 12 blocks of tofu for the 2 roasts!

 "Sausage" balls! Made with Lightlife sausage, cheddar-style Daiya and biscuit mix. Everyone in my family makes the original version around the holidays, and these taste better than the original! I did 1.5x the recipe, and they all got eaten :)

 Toasted pumpkin seeds in chile & sesame oils with black lava salt for an appetizer; also had kalamata olives in thymed oil.

 The cheesecake before it was chilled. I was worried about this one, and the pictures don't do it justice. It was probably the tastiest pie!

 This picture is dark too; it's the pumpkin pie.

                                The giant bowl of sausage balls on the appetizer table

Used 10 pounds of potatoes for mashing with earth balance & rice milk - it made 2 9x13" pans! About 1/3 of the second pan was gone by the end of the night. Whoa!

Two loaves of beer bread. The front one is made with Sam Adams Black Lager, and the back is Boston Lager. Both very good, but I prefer the dark one.

I'm so excited I got to use the buffet I got this year! It was perfect! It's just heated with two regular tealight candles, which worked surprisingly well - after I reheated the sweet potato casseroles in the 425 oven, the candles kept them hot until they burned out.

The sweet potato casseroles were the same except for the toppings. They both had brown sugar, earth balance, and Dandies vegan marshmallows melted in. This one is topped with pecans that I lightly caramelized with pure maple syrup and ground cinnamon.

...and these I topped traditionally with more marshmallows! (Those got nice & melty & golden brown when I reheated them in the oven just before serving!)

 And this lovely creamy mac'n'cheeze recipe I got from the Daiya site, if I'm not mistaken. I used rice milk & mimiccreme in it & doubled it for this big 9x13 pan.

          Maple pecan pie! This tasted just how I remember pecan pie, and it is so delicious!

 My daughter talked me into making hush puppies, even though it is time-consuming and dangerous! They were yummy & enjoyed though, so I guess it was worth a couple minor grease burns :)

 The orange-flavored tofu roast, with tangerine zest, brown sugar, ginger, red chilies, white pepper, mirin, and sesame & peanut oils.

 The traditional-flavored roast, with not chicken broth, thyme, sage, rosemary, and earth balance.

 A yummy new recipe for gravy that I added some mimiccreme to, and about 20 servings of stuffing! I'm glad they finally have a stuffing mix that is vegan because you add your own broth, as well as chopped celery and onions.

Yet another poorly lit picture of a dessert sampler. I was really just too tired and busy to be bothered with taking expert photos at this point...and being as it's dessert, I was extremely full too!

There were also a big tray of mini corn-on-the cob and a big tray of whole green beans/wax beans - the latter of which I tossed in oil, earth balance, cracked mixed peppercorns, and red salt.

All in all, I'd call it a grand success. Happy Holidays/Joyeux Fete de la Grace!