(BELATED) TOFURKEY DAY - PART TWO

I'm a little late on this post ... let's just say I was on such a high that I kept opening and closing my fridge to smile at my left overs. Oh, also I had a 13 hour travel day and am moving apartments so am currently surrounded by boxes. What better way to procrastinate than to put on Breaking Bad and blog.

Run down of my first time ever cooking vegan thanksgiving. It also coincides with my first time ever cooking thanksgiving. Shocker, I know.

Mile One: Decided to tackle vegan thanksgiving. It wasn't much of a decision since if I didn't, I'd be eating the jarred cranberry sauce all night while everyone else feasted. And I hate cranberry sauce.

Mile Two: See post below. Onions aren't my best friend. My mom looked over my shoulder with a lot of comments like "ohhh, that looks interesting."

Mile Three: I'm not sure how many miles I'm running today. I just started with this mile one thing and now I'm off ... half regretting it. Side note on miles: sister and fiance ran five miles this morning. Nature versus nurture strikes again.

Mile Six: Let's skip ahead a little. Things I never realized about cooking:

- there's a shitload to chop if you want it to taste good. I guess that's why my food never tastes good ... I don't put anything in it. I just kind of heat a skillet and throw one (maybe two) ingredients in.

- Recipes. They're not so bad if you don't feel dumb rereading them sixteen times. Why haven't I used them before?

- MUCH easier to cook when you have a stocked kitchen. Why the hell does my mom have all this stuff?! Oh right ... adults.

Mile Ten: Ooops. Forgot to time the cooking of dishes. My method for madness was to start with the one I wanted to eat while cooking the others - stuffing. Forgot that I still had three dishes after that and was sharing the kitchen with my very hyper sister cooking loads and loads of caramel-chocolate popcorn. Totally cute DYI project for hostess gift that I would never ever try to tackle. Way too sticky. Realized my timing mistake so had to jump in shower and finish cooking while trying to get ready for dinner.

Mile Eleven: This is a random ending number. I DID IT!
My menu for myself:

- Herb roasted seitan with a mushroom gravy (vegan gravy?!)

- apple and walnut stuffing (you can see it all mashed together on my plate)

- cornbread (photo of this is before cook ing)

Didn't have time to make the pumpkin bundt cakes but was saved by no desert from my awesome bro who bought me a vegan pie home from work!

Reactions to my dinner ... we were in a food competition with three families. And I must say (and so did several others) my stuffing was pretty effing good. Best reaction of the night - woman from Philly trying to hide her disgust with my food choices . She wouldn't let me take a photo of her super disgusted face ... "oh. you don't eat meat?" She also looked at the cashews in the stuffing and asked if they were "bloated tics." Ahhhh red wine. Ahhhh gluttony.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving ... 500% thankful for my first thanksgiving in a long time that I didn't have to call home from a bad job whispering "mom? are you there? get me out of here ..."

TOFURKEY DAY - PART ONE

Oh shizzle, you have to prep this stuff? I always wondered why it took everyone all day to cook.

I've talked a big talk to the family about the vegan thing. Questions I've gotten on this trip home:

"oh no, you can't eat bread?"

"wait, you can't eat salad?"

"you can eat milk right?"

Okay, so obviously this concept is hard to grasp. My mom was really cute and loaded up her grocery cart with anything that said "vegan." So far I have yet to break open something called "vegan fruit dip." I don't know about you, but I really don't want to dip my fruit in anything.

Stuffing in the oven ... mom just ran over to my computer live streaming the parade to watch Santa. True story - she closed her eyes and quietly said "I believe, I believe." Yep. That happened.

Off to see if any of these dishes can actually be finished ... btw, I can't really chop onions. Both sisters tried to hide their shock at the fact that I just kind of hack at the chopping board. Try it ... way more fun.

MAKE ME A (VEGAN) WIFE

Bite size back story: My entire life the word vegan has made me think of insane people who must not like enjoyment. When defending my choice to be a vegetarian I would always follow with "but I'd never be vegan. That's just severe." I remember my mom talking about her California family and saying things like "ohhhh, they got all california ..." (aka, they're hippies and a tiny bit strange.) To be fair to my mother, she also took a TM (aka really crazy meditations shit) class so she can't be that far behind them in hippie-dom.

Present day: I am a two week old vegan. Ohhhh, I'm such a cute little baby vegan. Like my decision to become a veggie, it happened cold turkey and because of a book. Could I have ever imagined all those years back when watching Clueless that Cher would turn me into a no-cheese-person? Well, in the words of the teen icon, meat and cheese is way harsh. And look at her, she's pretty hot.

Side note: any vegans out there that have suggestions on how to get through the holidays without cheese for my wine, speak now. Connecticut women are really serious about wine and cheese.

In an effort to convert BF (not because I like converting; because I don't want him to have a heart attack. Also, seeing abs would be nice) I took him to see a documentary about all this food shizzle. I won't lecture here ... mainly because I'd get facts wrong ... but if you're at all interested in finding out more check out the doc FORKS OVER KNIVES when it comes out.

On to the major problem at hand - I need to figure out a way to not eat rice and beans the rest of my life. Both because it's boring and because I'm starting to smell. Plus, I impulsively emailed my family that I would be making vegan thanksgiving ... and then realized I don't know how to make vegan anything, never mind the mother of all entertaining holidays.

My solution - SPORKS COOKING CLASS! Yee-haw, cute vegan sisters who teach class ... honestly, it was amazing-ness. You know that peaceful tingly feeling you get at the end of a yoga class? (good yoga class. not gym yoga) Well, these gals give you that feeling.

I mean, look how cute this little spork bowl is - their mom made it! I'm such a sucker for adorableness. (shit, major stuff is going down on breaking bad while I write this ... a shiv?! Get out of there!)

Here was their menu:

SOUTHERN THANKSGIVING FEAST – GLUTEN-FREE!

- Bourbon-Glazed Tempeh with Carrots
- Cranberry Cornbread with Whipped Lemon Butter
- Maple Candied Yams with a Marshmallow Topping
- Mini Spiced Pumpkin Bundt Cakes with a Chocolate Ganache

Let me start by saying - I hate pumpkins. Let me end by saying - I thought I hated pumpkins. Crazy awesome pumpkin bundt cakes. Everything else was crazy awesome too ... just thought I'd single out the desert. Since they cooked and I just watched, I don't have any embarrassing stories about how I didn't know what "slice the carrots" meant. I shall update with that post, post holidays. (ohhh, I love to be able to use the same word with a different meaning like that!)