Vegan Thanksgiving 2012

Hey guys! Yesterday was the second annual "Way too early to actually be a Thanksgiving party vegan Thanksgiving party!"  Friends drove in from around the state, and many wonderful noms were had (amidst the videogaming and drinking of wine and spiked cider, of course).

Now let me just say that I have never been a modest cook.  I know what I do well, and I do those things in abundance, but I have never before had a table of (mostly) omnivores clap for me.  Twice, I might add.  It was weird and slightly uncomfortable, but in retrospect my ego is having a field day with it.

BUT ANYWAY, you're all here to see the food, right?  And to steal the recipes I used?  Good.  Here they are!  (And I'm sorry, but in the insanity of getting everything put together yesterday, no pictures were taken, so you get shots of my leftovers.)

Here's what's left of the spread.  There were also pumpkin cinnamon rolls (more on that later) and some crescent rolls with Trader Joe's Pumpkin Butter (and oh holy god, go buy some and put it in your mouth).

First up, the stuffing:

This recipe is one that my family has used for years (but they use actual sausage and turkey instead of my tofurky stuff).  I don't know that I've ever actually used a recipe for this, but I'll do my best to guess accurately.  Really, go with your gut, and always use more sage than you think you should, and it will turn out exactly like my dad's.

Ingredients:
Sage stuffing mix (the rough equivalent of two boxes of Stove Top stuffing (but theirs has chicken in it; bleh)
Vegetable broth (one cup more than is called for by the stuffing)
olive oil (at your leisure, Thanksgiving isn't about eating healthily)
1 onion, diced
1 - 1 1/2 cups of diced mushrooms
1 pkg Tofurky turkey slices (optional), diced
1 pkg Tofurky beer brats (not even slightly optional), cut into half circles
salt, pepper to taste
1/2 tsp garlic
1/2 tsp marjoram
1 tsp thyme
at least 1 tablespoon of sage


Dump stuffing into large bowl, pour in all the broth (including the extra cup, should be quite wet).  Sautee the onions and mushrooms with the seasonings, add to stuffing.  Sautee diced turkey slices, add to stuffing.  Brown the beer brats (or other vegan sausage) in the pan and add to stuffing.  You may have to do it in two batches depending on how big your skillet is.    Mix everything together really well, and let it sit covered in the fridge overnight.  Next day, bake for 30-40 minutes at 375 (uncovered) and then eat everything.  (You may actually add more liquid before you bake it.  It should be pretty wet before it goes in.)


 Moving on, we had some green bean and corn casserole!

I used this recipe (here)  but with some adjustments.  First off, I doubled the green beans (two cans instead of one) and added a can of corn (it's a little soupy with just one can of beans).  Then, I nixed the carrots, and used flour to make a roux with the veggies before adding the milk instead of mixing cornstarch with water.  Then, in place of the french fried onions, my family likes to crush up toll house crackers and cover the top with that.  This is also one I like to make the day before (without the crackers) and then bake the day of to save myself some time/sanity.  Crackers go on right before it goes in the oven, and this stuff is delish.

I don't have a close up of the sweet potatoes, but essentially, I peeled, cubed, and boiled two large sweet potatoes, drained the water, added about 1/4 cup of soy milk, some vegan margarine, and about 3 tablespoons of brown sugar and then mashed the hell out of them.  So good.

Also unpictured are the cranberry sauce and the roasted cauliflower.  The cranberry sauce, I say without shame, came from a can.  As far as I'm concerned, it's kind of the fruitcake of Thanksgiving.  No one is excited about it, but you kind of have to have it.  The cauliflower you just chop, toss with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper and then bake at 375 for about 25 minutes until it's golden brown.

Now, the best part.  Pumpkin cinnamon rolls.  Sadly, this is the only picture I have of them.

 I take it as a testament to their goodness that they are the only thing I had no leftovers of.  Also, I only made eight (and there were seven of us, and Tristan had the other one for breakfast).  However, the website I got the recipe from (here) does have some lovely pictures.  Oh, they were perfect.  Totally a new tradition.

And my favorite part, scarfing down all the leftovers.  This is what Thanksgiving is all about it.  Well, this is what hosting Thanksgiving is about.

Look at all that glorious food.  Nomnomnomnomnom.

Oh, and here's the spiked cider I mentioned.  Well, this is just cider.  We heated all the cider in a big pot on the stove, and then you pour some vanilla vodka into a glass and top it with this, and it tastes like apple pie.  I preferred the Malbec I had with dinner (Hell yeah, Yellow Tail), but this was wonderful as an after with the cinnamon rolls.

After dinner, we all rolled ourselves to the N64 to play Super Smash Bros. and MarioKart, and a lovely time was had by all.  Tristan and I finished the night off by watching It's a Wonderful Life, and then fell asleep to the storm that rolled through town.

So that was my Thanksgiving up here at school.  The family one will be much closer to actual Thanksgiving, but this gives me a test run on all my recipes and lets me eat all the leftovers, so it's definitely a tradition I'll keep up for as long as I can. 

Here's hoping your Thanksgiving is as tasty and lovely as mine was!

Progress!

Woo!  Day 10 of 300x30 and I'm feeling awesome, and yesterday Tristan and I settled on a church and a date!  The wedding is officially officially happening!  Can't wait for June 29th, 2013. <3

In other news, I really need to start posting some of what the kids I work with say.  For example:
Student: Miss Lisa, what's "the bush"?
Me: In what context?
Student: Like, if someone said "I'm going to punch you in the bush."
Me: @_@

I seriously had a minor heart attack trying to figure out how to reply to that.

Well, gotta go pack a lunch and head off to the monsters for the day!

y0 dawg

Hola, long time no see. Apparently, this is going to be the semester that kills me. Despite the fact that I'm right on schedule for completing my senior show, I feel like I'm behind schedule. I have a solid three-day block with pretty much zero time for homework, meaning I need to complete all homework over the weekend and try to keep it straight for the next week. I'm about to start student teaching on Wednesdays in a room full of gradeschoolers who are probably aware of how much they intimidate me. I'm planning my wedding (btw, we're engaged!). I'm coordinating my singing group's spring festival. I haven't completely given up on my dream of continuing to have at least a meager social life (read as: dancing probably once a month and having the freedom to watch a movie with a friend on occasion or have my roommate kick my ass at Mario Kart). I'm not asking much, life. Just let me stay sane through May and it'll all work out. (Right? Right.)

On an unrelated note, huzzah! I've been vegan a year now and still going strong. Here's a fantastic (and short, 12 minute-ish) video about the social and environmental impact of a vegan lifestyle.

A Life Connected: VEGAN from NonviolenceUnited.org on Vimeo.

Love yo faces (and yes, I watch too much PhillyD).

Today will be good.

I have a really good feeling about today. I woke up on time, had a long lovely breakfast followed by a long lovely shower, and I made my first micro-loan through Kiva.org . Kiva is a site where you can loan money to struggling entrepreneurs around the world (and you can loan as much as you want or as little as $25), and then you're paid back as their business starts to take off. The repayment rate is 98.87%, so there's almost no risk of losing your investment. I'm helping out a farmer in Ecuador named Christian Israel so he can buy seeds and fertilizer. Join me in helping someone start over! http://kiva.org/invitedby/lisa9711

If you aren't familiar with a group called Nerdfighters, I recommend looking them up. They're an internet-based community dedicated to "decreasing world-suck levels and increasing world-awesome." One of the brothers who helped found the group, John Green, made a YouTube video a few days ago about the site (his second video about it in the last three years), and in the last two days, the Nerdfighters team on Kiva has raised over $20,000 for people around the world. That's a group I can love and get behind.

I'm actually going to be doing a folklore project on the group in the coming months, so it'll be interesting to see what I dig up.

I'd keep talking about the wonderful things in life, but I'm about to late for class. That would not make today wonderful. Ciao!

This might hurt

Hey everyone, long time no blog. I'm sorry that this blog seems to be slowly dying, but, like old diaries, I'll probably come back to it every now and then to reminisce. That said, this post is not a goodbye. I'm hoping it's actually a wake-up call for some people.

I told y'all back in February that I've gone vegan. I still am. I am not the sort of person who preaches. I grew up with one, and I understand how off putting that approach can be. Also, I appreciate it when people stay out of my business, so I try to stay out of theirs. However, I stumbled across a video interview with Ellen DeGeneres earlier today in which she was answering questions about her own veganism. She mentioned the film Earthlings, saying it was a major player in her decision. The interviewer then asked if Ellen had seen Food, Inc., and if that video had cemented what she'd learned in Earthlings. Ellen replied that Food, Inc. had seemed like a Disney movie in comparison. Having seen the film and having been disgusted by it, I was curious how intense Earthlings might actually be. Conveniently, the full film is available on YouTube and was a recommended video on the sidebar. I watched it. She was right.

People frequently ask me if my veganism is a health thing or an ethics thing. I always told them it was health. That answer has changed, now, and I honestly regret having answered any differently in the past.

I am not a perfect person. Sometimes I drink too much, I procrastinate, I can't keep an exercise schedule to save my life, I swear like a sailor, and I let dishes pile up in the sink. These are but a few of my many downfalls. I do, however, make an honest effort to improve the world I live in, and I am proud to say that I do not contribute to the brutality visited upon animals. Below, I'm embedding Earthlings in its entirety. Whether or not you click "play" is up to you.