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Vegetarian Thanksgiving Tips

November 16th, 2009

Thanksgiving is technically about giving thanks and spending time with loved ones, but it’s really just an excuse to eat copious amounts of delicious food- depending on what you consider delicious.

A holiday nicknamed “turkey day” certainly does not bode well for vegans and vegetarians, especially those spending the day in a crowd of meat-eaters. Annoying vegetarian jokes aside (snappy comebacks here), the day’s emphasis on poultry heightens the omnivore/herbivore rift. The veggies worry about what on the Thanksgiving table will be edible, while their omnivorous hosts worry about what to cook that meets the criteria. After a few Thanksgivings of going through this myself, I’ve found there are a few things to do to circumvent unnecessary conflict.

If you are vegetarian:

Let your host know what you eat and don’t eat. It sounds like a no-brainer but can be surprisingly difficult, especially if you are dining with a group you do not know well. Perhaps you’re worried about judgment (what, no turkey? What’s wrong with you?) and feel you can slip beneath the radar. Or you may not want to trouble your already stressed-out host with an additional concern. However, it is a host’s duty to make sure their guests, including you, are comfortable. Plus, he or she will be offended if you do not eat anything, and possibly upset that you didn’t say anything sooner.

Offer to bring something. Your host may not know what to make, so ask if there is anything you can bring. Thanksgiving dinner may not be the best occasion to showcase your famous carob-tofu-agar pie. Instead, bring something delicious that you know everyone will want to try and enjoy.

Eat before and pocket an energy bar. If you are nervous about what on the table will meet your dietary requirements, eat a small meal prior to leaving the house. At Thanksgiving, it’s better to be too full than hungry. If worse comes to worse, have a safe snack on hand that you can slip away privately to eat.

Understand that there will be dishes you cannot eat. Your host won’t please everyone, but hopefully they will offer enough to satisfy you.

If you are hosting a vegetarian guest:

Ask what they would like to eat or if they can bring something. You may feel ungracious asking a guest to help with the meal planning or to bring a dish, but most vegetarians will be happy to lighten your load and relived to know that they have at least one thing on their plate.

Make accommodations. You do not need to ensure that every dish meets your guests’ needs, but have enough dishes that do so your vegetarian guests leave as full and happy as the rest of the crowd. Simple tricks can make this easier. Cook some stuffing outside the turkey. Bake a plain yam in the oven with the candied yams. Swap out butter for olive oil. Make universally acceptable vegetarian dishes, like roasted root vegetables, stuffed pumpkin or an elegant salad. Even an act as simple as microwaving a Field Roast loaf goes a long way. Discretely point out to your guest what foods on the table fit their diet.

Any additions?

A few meatless recipes for the Thanksgiving table:

Holiday Loaf

More thoughts on the matter:

Tips and recipes from NPR by Nicole of Cucina Nicolina
Cheap Healthy Good: Veggie Might: Vegetarian Thanksgiving Tips, Part I- The Main Dish
Healthy.Happy.Life: Vegan Thanksgiving 101: Tips, Advice and the Basics.
U of C Vegan Society: Vegan Thanksgiving Tips

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Categories:	Holiday • Meatless Monday • Vegetarian • vegan	4 Comments
Tags:	Thanksgiving

Vegan Soul Kitchen

November 9th, 2009

helen. 1 Comment

Raise your hand if you’ve ever entered a bookstore intending to buy a literary work and left with a cookbook or two. It’s ok. It happens to all of us.

Vegan Soul Kitchen came out in March of this year, and I had been lusting for it since hearing an interview with Bryant Terry, the author, on The Splendid Table in April. Therefore, when Amazon gently recommended it to me- on sale- as I bought my fall textbooks, I happily added it to my virtual shopping cart.

The recipes are modernized, veganized versions of the traditional African American and Southern recipes Terry enjoyed growing up in Memphis. When one thinks of Southern cooking, “vegan” is not the first word that comes to mind. Even the vegetables tend to be battered, deep fried and flavored with bacon or lard. Terry proves that one can enjoy Southern and African American cooking without sacrificing lifestyle or nutrition. “To be clear, though, I am not presenting this as a ‘healthy cookbook,’” Terry writes in the introduction, “Vegan Soul Kitchen is a real food cookbook for anyone with a soul that likes tasty eats.”

The recipes range from drinks to sides to entrees to desserts, with an entire section devoted to watermelon. One theme throughout is a focus on sustainability. As an example, Terry encourages readers to compost the matter remaining after making the stock for the Tempeh, Shitake Mushroom and Cornmeal Dumpling Stew I prepared last night. I picked up all of the vegetables for the stew (except the mushrooms for the stock) at the farmer’s market yesterday: every ingredient called for in the recipe is in season at the same time. In fact, the concept of the book grew out of the director of CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) asking Terry to create recipes for CSA members.

The book is peppered with pop culture references; for example, Terry titles his vegetable section “So Fresh and So Green Green.” (Outkast, anyone?) He also includes a soundtrack for each dish, drawn from an eclectic variety of musical genres. The songs accompanying my stew were “Chicken an’ Dumplins” by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers and “Shroom Music (Champion Bound)” by Quasimoto (neither of which I had in my iTunes library).

However, the only music I needed was the sound of a hearty, delicious meal simmering on my stove.

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Categories:	Cookbooks • Meatless Monday • Uncategorized • books • vegan	1 Comment
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Raw Tacos

November 6th, 2009

Carrie. 1 Comment

There’s no meat in the fridge, no canned salmon in the cabinet, not even a packet of spam. What’s a woman to feed a carnivorous husband? So I found a recipe for raw tacos! Walnuts? Check. Spices? Check. Soy Sauce? Check. Food processor? Not so much, but I’m resourceful and make do with a coffee grinder.

After grinding, mixing, and using over sized lettuce leaves as shells, I served these tacos to my husband. He protested a little, but he tried a bite. And he liked it! He and I both agree that thanks to using the same spices that you would normally use in taco meat, it tasted just like a normal taco. He even enjoyed the lettuce leaves as a shell. Children might like this recipe too, ok maybe not the lettuce leaf.

Try it for yourself! Just drop a glob of guacamole, mango rawlsa, and some rawesome sour cream and you’ll have a meatless, vegan, gluten-free meal! Feeling adventurous? Try making your own raw taco shells, maybe even explore some other raw, meatless international food like Raw Pad Thai or Rawssian borscht!

Today is National Nachos Day, so how about you mix up a little meatless, raw nachos by making Spicy Corn Raw Tortilla Chips, Raw Nacho Cheese, and Raw Refried Beans. Of course you could also just use meatless refried beans if you don’t want to go all out raw, but hey, guacamole can always be raw right?

Photo by Geoff604.

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Categories:	Meatless Monday • Mexican • Nuts • Vegetarian	1 Comment
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A Very Vegan and Vegetarian Friday Fun Links

November 6th, 2009

Sheri Wetherell. 1 Comment

We’re wrapping up a week of Meatless Monday (thru Friday) posts with a vegan/vegetarian finale! One of my favorite discoveries in my week of no meat? Breadfruit! Which we made into a delicious Breadfruit Coconut Curry.

The politics:

Meatless days a good idea for a healthy life. Even Presidents Wilson, Truman and Roosevelt thought so.
But, the meat industry says it threatens their way of life (well, frankly, eating meat every day threatens our lives)
High “red” meat consumption increases risk of Type 2 diabetes
Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs both blast Meatless Monday

The fun stuff:

Jones Soda’s newest wacky vegan holiday flavor: Tofurkey and Gravy
Brown Bagging it? Find inspiration in Vegan Lunchbox Around the World
Going meatless too daunting? Take baby steps with Almost Meatless
A new twist on an old fave: Mac and Cheese (with hidden veggies!)
YumSugar’s favorite vegetarian recipes
Al Dente cooks up tasty Brussels sprouts

Photo by: thebittenword.com

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Categories:	Meatless Monday • Uncategorized	1 Comment
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Breadfruit Coconut Curry

November 4th, 2009

Sheri Wetherell. 2 Comments

Our omnivore’s attempt to go vegetarian for a week of Meatless Monday led us to the discovery of a new food – the breadfruit, native to the Pacific Islands. We’d seen it before in Asian markets, but for some reason, were never compelled enough to buy one. This week we finally did, and I have to say, it is now one of my favorites.

I have a deep love of potatoes and breadfruit is quite like the potato – starchy, bland and high in carbs – but ready and able to take on any flavor. The football-sized fruit is also fast-growing and high in fiber and protein, which makes it a great food for combating world malnutrition. See this interesting article in Newsweek titled Breadfruit to the Rescue. If you were a fan of Mutiny on the Bounty, you’ll find it quite fascinating!

Most recipes we found called for stuffing it whole with any combination of meat and vegetables, then grilling it on an open fire. Since it’s quite cold now here in Seattle we opted out for the outdoor cooking, and instead cracked open the fruit and cut the flesh into cubes. We then simmered it in coconut milk, turmeric, garlic, ginger and a bit of chili powder – a delicious concoction we’ve named Breadfruit Coconut Curry.

For the full recipe and instructions click below:

Here are some other interesting breadfruit recipes:

Find breadfruit appetizers, main dishes, desserts and more on National Tropical Botanical Garden
Breadfruit Cake from GroupRecipes
Vegan Breadfruit Pizza from Child of the Nature Isle
Breadfruit Casserole from Nevis, West Indies

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Categories:	Fruit • Meatless Monday • Vegetarian • vegan	2 Comments
Tags:	breadfruit • coconut curry • curry • malnutrition • Meatless Monday

Foodista goes Meatless this week

November 2nd, 2009

helen. 1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago, we announced that we are participating in Meatless Mondays, a campaign run in association with the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. The goal of Meatless Mondays is to raise awareness of the health and environmental benefits of eating less meat; reducing our meat consumption by 15% (equal to one day a week) can make a huge difference.

We’re in our third week, and things are going well. In order to prove that it can be easy and fun (or at least not all that painful) to give up meat on Mondays, the Foodista Blog is going meatless all this week. Every day, we’ll feature exciting and delicious vegetarian dishes. For some members of Team Foodista, a week without meat will be easy; we already do not eat it or eat it sparingly. For others (particularly the Mangalitsa Lard Chicken Confit lovers), it may be more of a challenge.

Whether it’s permanently or even for just a day, the prospect of going vegetarian can be intimidating to some people because they feel they will need to give up their favorite foods or learn how to cook in an entirely new and unfamiliar way. While it’s true that vegetarian cooking can be an excellent way to experiment with different recipes and techniques, it doesn’t need to be. Many of our most beloved dishes are already meatless. Is a day, week, or lifetime of eating falafel, hummus, polenta, baked ziti, or muttar paneer really all that terrible?

Here’s what a Meatless Monday might look like:

Breakfast: