Thanksgiving Centerpieces
One year I made an impressive vegetarian Thanksgiving centerpiece dish for my family. It a glorious, layered dome of vegetarian stuffing, seitan, and gravy, encased in puff pastry, basted and baked to golden perfection.
In the spirit of the holiday, and in honor of my hip sister, I decorated it with a puff-pastry Peace symbol. That is, I tried to. As my sister gleefully pointed out, it was really adorned with the Mercedes Benz symbol.
Ah well; it really was a marvel of culinary engineering. As have been other nontraditional Thanksgiving main dishes over the years: The vegan spanakopita casserole, prepared from the recipe in Vegan With a Vengance; a nut roast from Venturesome Vegetarian Cooking; Christmas Eve couscous (a festive dish for any holiday) from Rose Elliott’s Vegetarian Christmas. The point is, there is no need for vegetarians to despair over a Thanksgiving centerpiece. Here are some recipes and resources for those in need of more ideas:
Meatout Mondays offers this recipe for Apple Stuffed Holiday Squash. More Thanksgiving recipes are available from a related site, Gentle Thanksgiving. (Both Meatout Mondays and Gentle Thanksgiving are projects of FARM – Farm Animal Reform Movement.)
Ingredients:
1 apple, skinned, cored & diced
1/2 cup barley
2 Tbs. fresh basil, chopped
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
2 Tbs. maple syrup
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 acorn squashes
2 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 cup apple juice
Directions:
1. Cook barley according to the package directions and set aside.
2. Combine apples, basil, walnuts, maple and cinnamon in a medium bowl; mix in the barley.
3. Wash and cut the squashes in half across the middle and remove the seeds; cut the ends off the bottom of each half so they will sit flat; sprinkle each half with olive oil and place on a baking sheet or baking dish.
4. Fill each squash center with the stuffing mix, cover with foil, and bake covered at 350 F for one hour; remove the foil and bake for 20 minutes or until squash is tender and browned.
5. Boil 1/2 cup of apple juice until it becomes syrupy, then drizzle over squash before serving.
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Many veggie cookbook authors and animal groups post recipes online. For example, Nava Atlas offers several festive recipes Nava Atlas. Vegan.com has recipes for an eight-course vegan feast with recipes from Robin Robertson, including such dishes as Roasted Wheatmeat with Oyster Mushroom and “Sausage” Stuffing and Ginger-Dusted Pumpkin Cheezecake. Mercy for Animals has recipes for every course – including vegan takes on pumpkin pie and green bean casserole.
And this is just the beginning. Enter “vegan thanksgiving recipes” in any search engine, and you’ll find more than you can use.
