Basically title. I'm easing into my 1 year anniverary and wanting to come up with something that I can make and take to the in-laws since I don't want to put them out too much for my sake. They all eat omni and I don't expect them to cater to me. Last year I did tofurkey sausages and they were ok and they might be a fallback if I don't come up with something else. I was gonna get a Field Roast roast but it's $19 at Nat Grocers and yeah, I'm not spending that kind of money on something that only I am gonna eat.
I'd like it to be close to traditional but am open for alternative suggestions since, well, I love food. Right now I am thinking about doing vegan mashed potatoes since that is easy mode and I can scale it down to 1 or 2 helpings.
But other than that idk. Welcome to all ideas, so what you got?
Disclaimer: literally zero allergies or food aversions so I am open to anything. TIA.
Will check back after church crap...
I usually make roasted potatoes, carrots, and brussel sprouts for my vegan friends for thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't have a recipe but it's basically:
Chop veggies into bite sized pieces
Toss with olive oil and garlic salt
Roast in oven at a high temperature for like 10-15 until they're done.
It takes some practice getting the timing right because the veggies all take different amount of time, but I like having the variety of three different roasted vegetables.
I love me some roasted veggies. I am leaning towards this if I go the mushroom wellington route actually. I think it would be a good side and if I do roasted pots, I can dodge having to make mashed, so that makes things a bit easier. I think I am leaning towards the wellington if I can find vegan puff pasty.
Mushroom Wellington is excellent as a main and has many recipes online. Basically, savory mushroom filling wrapped in puff pastry.
On the $19 field roast, my partner made one of those from scratch for a family meal and it was great. I'll get the recipe and post back later today. I think the recipe came out of the book "the vegan butcher"
I feel for you on the omni family front. It's taken a lot of work for my partner and I, but over the years we've shown the rest of the family (that are mostly omni if not insane carnists) that vegan food is good for a feast and now we do big family meals all vegan
Mushroom Wellington is excellent as a main and has many recipes online. Basically, savory mushroom filling wrapped in puff pastry.
My partner and I made some mushroom galletes before. We just used a simple olive oil crust, some oyster and shiitake mushrooms, and some onion gravy. You can take the idea of a vegan filled pastry and do quite a lot with it!
vegan filled pastry
You had me at fatty carbs wrapping up any kind of filling
I'm def interested in that recipe for the roast. I wanna try to make seitan as a project this next year at some time because store bought us super expensive for not a lot. It would be an easy thing to toss into pasta or ramen when I'm not feeling beans.
Gonna look for the mushroom Wellington recipe too. That sounds good with my mashed potatoes I wanna make. And maybe some mixed veggies on the side or roasted fresh veggies?
My in-law family is alright. They don't make a big deal about what I can and can't eat like I think other families do. My wife's cousin was quizzing me on what I can and can't eat during thanksgiving but it was friendly small talk to questions. Nothing malicious. And when we go out to eat my in-laws make sure it's a place I can eat at. We have a few vegan friendly Americana style restaurants and the Thai places are pretty good at catering to vegans. So there are some safe places for sure. I just mostly want to take the initiative to make my own food so it doesn't cause conflict. And of course others are welcome to try what I make. No one wanted my vegan pumpkin pie tho, and aside from being slightly underdone, I thought it was bangin'.
here is the roast recipe, it's a bit involved but very good. with ingredient prices here it was about 1/3 or 1/4th the price of tofurkey loaf. we've only made the roast recipe, not the turkey one.
https://www.rizzoliusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Vegan-Roast-Turkey_The-Vegan-Butcher.pdf
It does seem quite a bit involved. I am gonna save the recipe to possibly try when I also attempt seitan next year since wheat gluten. Thanks for the share.
If you want something easier than Seitan, but similar, these Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomicon are a regular favorite in my home:
1 cup cooked chickpeas (if canned, I just use the whole can)
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup vital wheat gluten
1/4 veg broth
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp sage
Mash the chickpeas with oil in a large bowl, add the remaining ingredients, mix, and knead ~3 minutes. Divide the dough into equalish pieces and squash into "cutlets." Oil a skillet and fry.
I've def seen a recipe similar to this with chickpeas that caught my eye. It was a sort of "shredded chicken" style thing. I think I need to finally acquire some vital wheat gluten.
Also, gonna look up this book lol, love the name!
This is one of my staples year round. Might be a little more involved, but all the ingredients are all either produce aisle standards or pantry items that will keep indefinitely. https://ilovevegan.com/the-ultimate-vegan-thanksgiving-loaf/
A seitan loaf is usually relatively easy to make, but there's seemingly thousands of different recipes so you may want to try making one before just to make sure it'll turn out alright. I'm not sure if they continue selling them past Thanksgiving but I had a Gardein turk'y loaf that was really good and has wild rice/cranberries in the middle.
I'm planning on tackling seitan as a project next year sometime so it might make it to xmas 2024. I'm not sure anybody around me carried the Gardein Turk'y loaf but I did learn about those today and will keep an eye out. Gardein has bee pretty decent.
Seitan isn't incredibly intimidating to make, the last time I gave it a go I foil wrapped a loaf that went in the oven and it came out decent, it's just a little time consuming so I haven't bothered in a while. The only place I saw the Gardein loafs at was a Grocery Outlet, which usually has surprisingly affordable vegan stuff, can regularly get packages of veggie meats that I can't find anywhere else for like $2-3 each.
How about texas caviar with a loaf of sliced French bread or some crackers?
I’d sub a basic vinaigrette for the bottled Italian dressing listed in the recipe.
Dang this sounds good. I made a similar salad back when I was doing Mediterranean that had feta in it. I could spurge on some vegan "feta" for some saltines. I also like your vinegarette suggestion. Thanks!
I got a couple of vegan cookbooks at the house. Will take a look when I get home.
I appreciate it! I am trying to avoid anything super complex since we have kids and holidays are generally chaos. But I'll def take any recipes you think are interesting too!
My rec is to make accidentally vegan stuff that you like (garlic mashed potatoes, maybe?) and then either make a nice bean dish for protein or go for straight-up processed stuff, like the fake chicken stuff that's come out in the last year and isn't that dissimilar to turkey (it has the same taste/texture as East Asian chicken substitute, usually made from wheat gluten).
IMO the field roast loaf things taste pretty mid. You'd be better off making something like a fake sausage savory pie or something. Could make a mushroom gravy to go with it. Actually that sounds better than any of my other suggestions. A vegan shepherd's pie would also do.
So I actually made a lentil based shepherd's pie for Thanksgiving. It turned out not great but I'd like to revisit it. The filling was underdone and the potatoes ended up really dry. I followed a recipe instead of my heart so that is probably why. The recipe called for just butter for the pots and I was like "these are gonna be dry af." lol
Something I could do is take your fake breaded removeden idea and get so me veggie friendly gravy mix and make that the main course, then do masked potatoes on the side with that Texas Caviar recipe that was suggested as my veggie side/alternate side dish for other if they want it, since it would be veggies and beans. Might go that route since it would be less stress. Make the bean dish ahead of time, make pots morning of, then do the chicken as they are getting dinner set up.
