Usually we have 2 family Thanksgivings, one with my partner’s family and one with mine. This year though, we only had one dinner (with my family) that was sandwiched between visiting his family and then some of my extended family. It was a full day to say the least.

We did most of our food prep on Wednesday, while dancing and singing to some 90’s alternative (nostalgia) and tunes from our regular rotation. Since we weren’t cooking for 2 dinners and we simplified our menu in general, it was nice to take our time and enjoy cooking together.

As with last year, about 1/2 of us at the table partook in the vegan Thanksgiving food and the other half had the turkey and nonvegan stuffing plus some of the vegan food.

The rundown:

We started with an amuse bouche which was my ginger kuri pudding with granola and pomegranate seeds. Think of it as pumpkin pie but better.

For our main feast we had:

• Field Roast en croute: My partner cannot go a Thanksgiving without one of these! It’s my favorite of the vegan turkey products, too, because I’m not so big on meat replicas and this is more of it’s own thing. Also, this was the only thing not homemade.
• Mushroom walnut stuffing
• Creamy roasted garlic mashed potatoes: my mom made all the potatoes vegan (earth balance and almond milk), and my partner stirred some of his cashew garlic cream into it.
• Spiced orange cranberry sauce
• Balsamic roasted brussels sprouts
• Umami-rich brown gravy
• Mac and cheese: My partner went over the top with this version of his Thanksgiving staple. Pasta tossed with a homemade creamy cheese sauce and topped with Daiya cheddar then baked to perfection.

All of the desserts were vegan this year. Hooray! We had:

• Chocolate pecan pie: This recipe from Vegan Chocolate has become a family favorite.
• Pumpkin pie: We used a new recipe for this and adapted it slightly. We honestly should’ve made 2 of them instead of one because it was so darn good.
• Apple crisp: My mom made an apple crisp. She again used earth balance in place of butter in her recipe and she also subbed in coconut sugar for the brown sugar which I appreciated so much because too much white sugar makes me feel bonkers.
• Fortune cookie: This was Tucker’s dessert (that you can see in the first picture with the pies). lol. Fortune cookies are one of his favorite things, and his pappap always saves them for him. How sweet!

Many thanks for our families, the love we share, our compassion in action, and so much more. Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksliving, too!