Vegetarian Thanksgiving? - Dearborn Heights,MI

What a great idea for a thread.

Here's what I've done in the past: stuffed pumpkin

Link: http://www.ivu.org/recipes/northam/holiday.html

Makes a great presentation.

Go to Martha Stewart Living online and she had a great grain salad in there as well as a chestnut stuffing with dried cranberries. There were tons more as well, cabbage salad, apple something. I don't have it in front of me.

Have fun!

Veggie lasana-we make it every year and switch between alferdo and red sauce.

We eat a lot of Indian food, so we often will make samosa for Thanksgiving, and eat it with dahl and chutney. Pani Puri is also fun. Sometimes we'll make kadhi, or have a vegetable (shaak), dahl, roti or puri, and rice. I learned how by browsing recipes on the web to see the basic idea and then adapted them to our tastes. My husband is from India, and it's been a success, even with his family.

My mother, who is not vegetarian, makes a veggie lasagna for us when we go over.

Have fun!

Hi A.! I am personally not a vegetarian, but we are spending Thanksgiving with our friends who are. Besides the traditional side dishes, they also make a "lentil loaf", which is great and cuts like meatloaf, and also a mushroom risotto.

Our family tradition is what we call Chicken Croquets. I'll post the recipe below. Even the meat eaters HAVE to have one or two, they're just SO GOOD!

Chicken Croquettes – Serves 3-4 (or less if you're really hungry)

Cream Sauce:
3 TBSP Butter
3 TBSP Flour
1/3c. Milk

Breading:
1 egg
Cracker/Cornflake Crumbs

Oil for deep frying. (if you don't have a deep fryer, use a deep sauce pan and have at depth of least 3-4 inches of oil, but of course try to stay a few inches from the top to avoid overflowing)

Filling:
1t. McKay's Chicken Seasoning (http://www.mckays-seasoning.com/)
1 can. Worthington FriChik Original – Shredded (http://www.vegefood.com/store/)
1 stalk celery
1 green onion diced
2 TBSP parsley
Bread Crumbs

Melt butter in sauce pan in medium heat. Add flour and mix with whisk thoroughly. Add milk slowly and mix in with a whisk. This forms a thick paste and should be removed from heat soon after all milk is worked in. Allow the Cream Sauce to chill for an hour or so before forming the croquettes.

Drain juice from the FriChik and set aside to use in a gravy. Place FriChik, celery and green onion (chop both of these into smaller pieces) into a food processor and chop until it has a chicken salad type texture. Scoop mixture into a mixing bowl and add parsley and Chicken Seasoning. Add the chilled Cream sauce and mix thoroughly. Add ¼ c. of bread crumbs and mix in. This is where I get into trouble with measuring – I'm a do it by texture person – so continue to add small amounts of bread crumbs until your filling is sticky enough to form balls. This makes sure the croquettes are firm after they've been deep fried.

Form filling into egg sized/shaped croquettes and dip in beaten egg, and then roll in the bread crumb/Cornflake crumbs. Deep fry until the breading is medium brown. Serve as soon as possible. They don't taste too great left over; though can be put into a warm oven after frying until time to eat dinner without ruining them.

FriChik Gravy
2 TBSP Butter
3 TBSP Flour
1TBSP MaKay's Chicken Seasoning
Juice from FriChik
1c. Water

Melt butter in a sauce pan. Use a whisk and mix in the flour. Add Juice from FriChik slowly mixing in constantly with the whisk to avoid lumps. Add water a little at a time, allow gravy to start to boil and then turn heat down to low. Add water as needed until gravy is at desired thickness. Salt and season to taste.

Here's another good one.

"Turkey" Stuffing Taco's
1-2 pkg. Soy Turkey luncheon slices (about 20 or so total)
1 pkg. Pepperage farms Herb stuffing
vegetable boullion (to make the suffing)
Butter
1 onion
2 stalks celery

Saute diced onion and celery in butter until tender. Make stuffing according to directions and add onion and celery to it. Using the turkey slices, add stuffing like you're making a taco. Place in rows in a baking dish and bake for 30 min at 350 (or until desired brownness).

Here's another one that would work too. Just make it the day before.

Chicken Loaf and Gravy

1 Can Worthington FriChik
1 Pt. Cottage Cheese
1C. Special K Cereal
1C. Soda Cracker Crumbs
3 eggs beaten
2T. Mayo
½ c. Grated Onion
2t. McKay’s Chicken Seasoning

Put FriChik through the food processor, save juice for gravy later. Mix in the other ingredients in mixing bowl. Bake in a loaf pan for 1 hour at 350 the night before. Chill in the fridge over night. Slice, arrange on a platter and reheat in the oven before serving. Goes nicely with Mashed potatoes and the above mentioned gravy. Also if you need something to be vegan, just substitute the cottage cheese for tofu (firm) and the eggs with egg replacer, I've done this before and it tastes the same.

Hope these are helpful! Best wishes!

Here are two idea that we LOVE!! Happy Thanksgiving!

Meatless "Jingle" Balls
1 ¼ cups cornbread stuffing, generic or Pepperidge farm
¾ C pecan meal
1/3 C minced fresh parsley (not dried)
1 large sweet onion, finely chopped and browned in skillet in 1 T oil
½ tsp ground cumin
1 tsp sweet basil
½ tsp oregano
2 T braggs liquid aminos
½ C water
1 tsp chicken seasoning
2 T flax seeds

Combine cornbread stuffing, pecan meal and parsley in a bowl.

Brown the onion very brown, then add cumin, basil, oregano and liquid aminos. When onions are well-coated, add onion mixture to the cornbread mixture.

In a blender, blend water, seasoning and flax seeds for 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of blender and blend until mixture gets very think, about 2 more minutes.

Put flax ,mixture into a glass measuring cup , being careful to get most of it out of the blender, and cook it in your microwave for 1 ½ minutes (check it...it'll boil over). When mixture is cooked, add it to the above cornbread mixture and mix well.

Using a 1 T scoop, form balls on a 12x15 rectangle baking stone or cookie sheet, and bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

SAUCE:
1 jar (10 oz) smuckers all fruit seedless blackberry or black-raspberry jam
1 jar (28 oz) classico sun-dried tomato sauce, or favorite

Makes 16 meatballs.

Orange Cranberry Sauce with Apricots and Golden Raisins
1 C orange juice
1 C water
4 C fresh whole cranberries
3/4 C cane juice crystals
1 C diced dried apricots
1 C golden raisins
1 T orange zest or 2 T extra o.j. concentrate

In a large saucepan over medium heat, mix the orange juice, water, cranberries, cane juice crystals, apricots, raisins, and orange zest. Stir constantly until sugar has dissolved, about 5 minutes. Bring to a boil , and cook 10 minutes, or until cranberries have bust. Remove from heat, and chill at least 8 hours, or overnight, before serving cold.

We just went to a Thanksgiving dinner last night. It was more of a potluck and my girlfriend made a bean loaf. It was fabulous! She said it's really easy. Unfortunately I don't have the recipe and she's now out of town for some days. I do remember her saying it had lentil beans and some type of tufo which gives it the meaty texture. This was my first Thanksgiving officially as a vegetarian and with mushroom gravy I didn't miss out on much but the turkey.

I brought a spinach casserole that's easy and terrificly tasty... 1 box frozen spinach, 8 oz sour cream, 1 pkt. dried onion soup mix, shredded cheddar cheese. Cook spinach and drain well. Mix lightly with sour cream and soup mix. Put into lightly oiled shallow casserole dish then sprinkle cheese and some breadcrumbs (if you like) on top. Bake 375 for 20 minutes. :o)

Hi A.---Go out and see if you can still get a copy of Vegetarian Times magazine. WOW, it has a GREAT Thanksgiving Day menu in there. You could also try to find it as www.vegetariantimes.com. I know they have lots of recipes and will probably have those that are featured in the magazine.

Their menu is as follows:

Beautiful Fall Salad-greens with beets, oranges, fennel bulb, red onion and kalamata olives
Green Beans w/walnuts and shallot crisps
Garlicky mashed sweet potatoes
Double cranberry chutney
Mushroom, Cheese and Veggie Strudel
Triple Nut Chocolate Tart

Can't wait to try these recipes. Enjoy!

D. ###-###-####

Hi A.,

I think this year I'm going to try a Pecan Loaf which I tried at a vegetarian holiday tasting extravaganza. It has tofu, vital wheat flour, oats, pecan meal and and flax seed meal. It has some other stuff too of course. I also might try making a corn chowder. I know some of my non-vegetarian friends actually liked a Tofurky last year. Good luck. I would love to hear what you are going to try this year too.

We will have a "traditional" Thanksgiving and just replace the turkey with a Tofurkey Roast. I made one last year and it was pretty good :) I just make sure everything else is vegetarian and don't even miss the turkey!