Thanksgiving | 11-25-10 Three years old

After two days of prepping and cooking, it's over. Well, not exactly, if you count leftovers, but Thanksgiving dinner 2010 is a thing of the past. I hope those of you who celebrated, whether peacefully and quietly, or in a riotous crowd, enjoyed the holiday. We had a three-generation family celebration with everyone contributing to the menu (except little Miss E of course — she contributed her charm). On Wednesday I posted photos of the planned dinner, and yesterday I was just too tired to post anything at all. So here's a little wrap-up, including my opinion on raw butternut squash salad.



We started the meal by munching on appetizers. Our youngest son and his girl friend made creamy smooth and scrumptious baba ghannouj and hummus, and yes, they roasted the eggplants on the gas stove burner. The hummus was especially creamy because they removed the skins from the chickpeas — something I would probably never have the patience to do. In the upper left of the photo you can barely see the cashew-walnut cheese I made. I covered it in black pepper, smoked paprika and green onions to disguise its weird purplish color. I think adding walnuts to the cashews was the cause of the odd shade, but the taste and texture were great. I made it in my Vitamix and it was ultimately creamy. The spreads were perfect with the home-made pita brought by our middle son, fake triscuits from Whole Foods, and carrot sticks.



When our oldest son and daughter-in-law showed up with this appetizer tray, I wondered why I had bothered to cook the rest of the meal. I think we would all have been happy to munch the appetizers and have a little dessert.



But, alas, we managed to also eat a full meal. Here's the stuffed seitan.



To accompany it we had a few sides, like roasted brussels sprouts with rosemary and garlic. I could eat these every night.



These are the leftover sweet and tart carrots, which I forgot to photograph last night. I made them with capers this year because we seem to have a lot of capers.



I really love cranberry sauce so I always make way too much, thinking everyone else loves it as much as I do. I'm thinking pancakes with cranberry sauce on top for breakfast tomorrow. We'll be having pancakes because Miss E is sleeping over tonight, and she likes cranberry sauce as much as I do. Genetic, I guess.



I think this dish, green onion salsa from Viva Vegan, was the star of the meal — everyone loved it. I made it with Italian flat parsley instead of cilantro because one of our guests hates cilantro. It's supposed to go with empanadas, but I thought it would be a nice condiment with seitan and stuffing.



And here's the raw butternut squash salad from Mark Bittman. OK, I tried it, and it's very pretty; I made it with dried cherries instead of raisins to accommodate our raisin-hater. Some people liked it and some didn't. I found it a tad, um, slimy, and won't be making it again. I'll probably cook the leftovers and turn them into soup. But, hey, it's a Mark Bittman recipe, so who are you going to believe, him or me?



Here's the obligatory picture of my plate. At the bottom is the potato kugel brought by our oldest son. I LOVE this dish, and for me, no holiday would be complete without it. But, did I remember to take a photo? Nope.



Finally, we reach the end of the feast. Here is an apple-blueberry tart sweetened with apricot jam. I was making this up pretty much as I assembled it. The crust, however, was from The Vegan Girl's Guide to Life, and was made the day before Thanksgiving and held in the freezer. I made a tart instead of a pie so I used the leftover dough from the double-crust recipe to make little stars for the top.



And last but not least, is the pumpkin pie. It's a fat-free pie from Happy Herbavore, but I couldn't help myself from putting chocolate chips on top during the last 10 minutes of baking. I won't disclose how many pieces I ate last night, nor today. That's enough about that.



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This blog was three years old ... yesterday
I meant to have a post on Thanksgiving, because who could think of a better day to have a blog birthday? But I forgot. I wanted to thank you, the people who read this blog, for reading and commenting, and just for being there. The world seems a much cozier place because of all of you, readers and bloggers from around the world, who post thoughts and ideas and endless wonderful recipes. THANK YOU.