Seriously though, what am I cooking for Thanksgiving?

OK, the big day is less than two weeks away! We are cooking for friends, and we still haven't nailed down a menu. This is getting a little silly.

In an effort to not drive ourselves completely nuts, as we are prone to do, I'm voting that we not try to cook ourselves into oblivion instead and get something pre-made for the main course. Last year we tried to more or less make our own Tofurky loaf thing. It was interesting, but did not to exactly what the recipe claimed it would. And it was complicated! Let's just say that there was cheesecloth involved. Honestly, when there's mock meat involved, I am perfectly content to let someone else do the creating. Though there's a very good chance that we will embellish!

Contenders include the Tofurky Feast, the plain old Tofurky Roast (which I believe is what comes in the Feast - it just also includes other stuffs), and the Field Roast Celebration Roast. Anybody tried either of these? I'd love to hear some firsthand opinions. Everything we've tried from Field Roast has excellent flavor, but how does it hold together? Inquiring minds want to know.

Then, there are sides. There must be sides!!

Last year I made a cream of oyster (mushroom) soup, and if I do say so myself it was freaking amazing. Too bad I have no idea how I did it! I could probably figure it out. But the question remains of whether to soup or not to soup. But, you know, everyone loves soup... And I do make a mean curried butternut squash...

Of course there will be something made from potatoes. WE MUST HAVE POTATOES! But what shall I do with them? I could just chop them up and bake them with some salt and pepper and rosemary. Because let's face it people, potatoes are delicious. But I could also slice them into thin rounds and then stack them into muffin tins, seasoning as I go, and bake them thus, resulting in crazy stacks-of-rounds! And then there's the mashed-or-smashed approach. Or... perhaps... a shepherd's pie? Oh my.

Now, something deep down inside of me wants there to be an object of macaroni-and-cheese like quality. But what if... what if instead of macaroni it were lasagna noodles, baked in layers in muffin tins with cheddar Daiya? Hmm... or perhaps a casserole of cheesy quina spaghetti?? My brain is exploding with insane ideas of cheeziness and starch. AND I LOVE IT!

Green bean casserole is a given. Jonathan makes it every year, and it is AMAZING. This has generated much interest, so if I can get him to give up his top-secret recipe (read: if he can figure out how he makes it without actually making it), I'll be posting!

Now, I'm sure you can tell that I'm a bit of a traditionalist. But I am rather fond of polenta. And so, I find myself wondering: do I need to make mini polenta pizzas? Do I???

And let's not forget the most important feature of the meal: dessert!

I want to make a pie... but what kind of pie? Definitely something with a cookie kind of crust - I have a recipe from, believe it or not, Martha Stewart's Everyday Foods magazine that can be veganized really easily for a press in pie crust basically made of crushed cookies. I'm there. But what to fill it with? I'm thinking of inventing something of the chocolate cream ice box variety - perhaps utilizing lots of coconut milk...?

There may also need to be cupcakes, and/or muffins. Because baking = happiness. Plus, I'll be needing to get my hands on some of Sweet & Sara's new Pumpkin Spice marshmallows, because Oh, My, Goodness, they are the magic of the season.

DECISIONS. Gotta make 'em. I know! I'll just take the next two weeks off of work and cook - I'm sure to have struck upon all the right recipes by the time the 25th rolls around! ;)

Savoring November

Soon, for so many of us, it will be cold, cold, cold, and the trees will be stark and bare. But for this brief moment called autumn, the air is brisk but not harsh, and the leaves are red and gold and orange - not yet all brown and fallen away...

Autumn Romance necklace from Art by Susmitha

Jasper Leaves bracelet by Crooked Metal Jewelry

Fall Foliage Cuties by My Zoetrope

Rose Hip Glycerite from Twig & Leaf Botanicals

"Hidden in the Holler" Autumn Leaves light switch plate from Aguavino

An inadvertent entry to the GVEG...

If you're on the west coast, or really anywhere in the vegan community (thanks to that there internet), you've probably heard of Food Fight! Vegan Grocery in Portland, Oregon. Food Fight! frequently designs its own wares, and one of its soon-to-be iconic logos is so apt to this month's Great Vegan Etsy Giveaway challenge that we just can't resist posting it here:


In all the many ways in which I have tried to explain my veganism to those who do not understand, I think this might just hit the nail on the head best of all... or at least in the fewest words!

Once again thanks to tha internets, you don't have to be in Portland to partake of their wonders; the website is fully stocked and functional (and often hilarious!). So swing by and pick up a tote - and maybe some white chocolate chips for your Thanksgiving baking? ;)

Happy VeganMoFo Day 12!

Speaking of a Thanksgiving Menu...

Every year it's the same thing at my house. The fun and excitement of, "what will we cook for our vegan Thanksgiving?!" mixed with the anxiety and dread of "what will we cook for our vegan Thanksgiving!??" Old favorites like green bean casserole and homemade cranberry sauce compete with shiny new ideas (Jackfruit tacos?!). What's to be the centerpiece: seitan, tofu, Tofurkey? A vegan turducken?

The fact is that when it comes to vegan Thanksgiving feasts, the possibilities are nearly endless. There are so many amazing possibilities for main courses, sides, and desserts that it can make one a little dizzy just trying to nail it down. But never fear: it can be done!

So tell us, what are your Thanksgiving plans? Comments please! If you'd like to share an original vegan recipe with us, we'd love to post it - and give you full credit of course! :D

Have YOU adopted a turkey yet?

It's November - a time when the air gets a little crisper, vegan bloggers go crazy for VeganMoFo, we all plan insane Thanksgiving menus... and we all adopt turkeys at Farm Sanctuary!

Adopt a turkey? Why, that's madness! But no, it's true - you can adopt your very own turkey today! You won't actually be taking him (or her) home, of course; your turkey will be staying warm and snug at home at the Farm. But your donation will help provide all the necessities and comforts that make life there so grand!

If you haven't done so already, make adopting a turkey part of your Thanksgiving tradition. And if you haven't adopted a turkey yet this year, what are you waiting for?! :D

The Vegan Girl's Guide to Life! Out now, signings everywhere!

It seems like every day the vegan community grows exponentially. And a big part of that growth is a proliferation of amazing vegan cookbooks! Just this week a new book has been released: The Vegan Girl's Guide to Life. But this is no ordinary cookbook. In fact it can hardly be called a cookbook at all, though I hear it does have some kickass recipes. So what is it? Well:

"The Vegan Girl's Guide to Life contains the basic who-what-where-when-why of veganism, but also has tips like what to feed non-vegans, the best vegan beauty products, fun vacation spots, and an assortment of recipes and crafty projects including Jackfruit "Carnitas" Tacos, Twice Baked Chipotle Sweet Potatoes, Cracked Coriander Seed and Chai Tea-Rubbed Vegan Steak Lo Mein, Double Chocolate Cookies, Purple Cow Cupcakes, DIY Dessert Stands, a Cross Stitch pattern by Stitch'd Ink, and how to make your own produce bags.

Reading like a Who's Who of vegan women, contributions from recipes to craft projects are contributed by respected vegan chefs and bloggers including Hannah Kaminsky, Celine Steen, Jenn Shagrin, Kittee Berns, Kelly Peloza and more."

And there you have it. Writer and editor Melisser Eliott is currently trotting the globe sharing the book with anyone and everyone - don't you want to meet her? The schedule of signing events currently looks like this, but you can always stop by the Urban Housewife blog for updates:

• November 10th Philadelphia, PA at Grindcore House, 6pm to 8pm
• November 12th Manhattan, NY at MooShoes, 7pm to 9pm
• November 16th Syracuse, NY at Strong Hearts Cafe, 7pm to 9pm
• November 17th Boston, MA at Peace O' Pie, 7pm to 9pm
• November 20th Brooklyn, NY at Champs Bakery, 7pm to 9pm
• November 21st Montclair, NJ at Go Lightly Eco Store 1pm to 3pm
• November 28th Paris, FR at Paris Vegan Day, book signing and talk
• November 30th Manchester, UK at The Thirsty Scholar, 6pm to 8pm
• December 2nd Brighton, UK at RedVeg, time TBA
• December 4th London, UK at Vx, book signing and talk 2pm to 6pm - 5% off all Vx purchases at the event!
• December 5th London, UK at the Animal Aid Christmas Fayre, talk at 3:15pm, signing to follow

It's always great to support your fellow vegans, and it's also always great to smother your omni friends and co-workers in vegan baked goods! You never know - it may be a cupcake that makes them see the light. Happy reading, and happy VeganMoFo Day 9! :D

GVEG Entry: The Healthy View

Here's an entry from the current Great Vegan Etsy Giveaway that takes a different perspective than most: it's from a young person who turned to veganism as a potential avenue to health, and in the process has begun to discover all that being vegan can offer. I know you'll enjoy this extensive entry from Andrew "VegMuffinMan" Morrison, a relatively new vegan who's "loving every minute of it"!

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My name is Andrew Morrison and I started off with a problem. A weight problem, like most of America today. Thing was, I actually wanted to do something about it instead of just wishing I could change. A friend of mine tried vegetarianism for a year and claimed they felt so much healthier after doing it. They eventually stopped it, but it gave me an idea. Starting on January 21st of 2010, I went vegetarian. I had wanted to do it earlier, but a friend invited me over for dinner and we had lasagna…no, not meatless lasagna.

I didn’t eat cheese, but did have things like ricotta pancakes, goat cheese, and a few baked stuff . But one day I decided that if I were to do this, I needed to go all the way. So I went for it all. In early April, I was a vegan. And from that January to April, I lost 80 lbs. I didn’t feel weak at all and actually had more strength and energy. I learned to do it without problems by reading other blogs and they helped so much with recipes and such. They helped out so much!

Veganism to me is a lot more than just a plate of raw vegetables. It is a complete lifestyle full of new discoveries and foods I had never even heard of before, but now love. Yes, you can make awesome cookies without eggs. Yes, you can have the best muffins you have ever tried without milk. Yeah, pizza is still the best food in the world with a little Daiya cheese on it. Heck, even Oreos and most Pop-Tarts are vegan. And so is an awesome pumpkin pie I made a few weeks back!

I don’t eat junk all the time and though compassion has become another reason for staying vegan, health is still a big thing to me. I am going to be in my body for a while, so might as well take care of it, right? I try to keep things as natural as possible. I don’t even own any all purpose flour. I only use whole wheat. And I love making stuff from scratch.

I am 16, I’m a vegan, and I’m loving every minute of it…..

-Andrew "VegMuffinMan" Morrison-

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Rock on with your vegan pumpkin pie, Andrew! Happy World Vegan Month, and Happy VeganMoFo Day 7! :D

Dairy Management, Inc.? The New York Times investigates.

This week the New York Times published an article investigating the actions of a group called Dairy Management (ever wonder who was behind "Got Milk?), which looks like a private investor group but is in fact funded by the U.S. Government. The article is receiving a lot of attention in the food world because it pulls no punches about Dairy Management's intentions: to push foods (mainly cheese) that are known to be major contributors to disease and obesity. Here are some highlights (rearranged for clarity):

While Warning About Fat, U.S. Pushes Cheese Sales

By MICHAEL MOSS
Published: November 6, 2010

Domino’s Pizza was hurting early last year. Domestic sales had fallen, and a survey of big pizza chain customers left the company tied for the worst tasting pies. Then help arrived from an organization called Dairy Management. It teamed up with Domino’s to develop a new line of pizzas with 40 percent more cheese, and proceeded to devise and pay for a $12 million marketing campaign.

In 1995, the government created Dairy Management Inc., a nonprofit corporation that has defined its mission as increasing dairy consumption by “offering the products consumers want, where and when they want them.”

And Dairy Management, which has made cheese its cause, is not a private business consultant. It is a marketing creation of the United States Department of Agriculture — the same agency at the center of a federal anti-obesity drive that discourages over-consumption of some of the very foods Dairy Management is vigorously promoting.

Dairy Management, whose annual budget approaches $140 million, is largely financed by a government-mandated fee on the dairy industry. But it also receives several million dollars a year from the Agriculture Department, which appoints some of its board members, approves its marketing campaigns and major contracts and periodically reports to Congress on its work. It also includes the National Dairy Council, a 95-year-old group that acts as its research and communications arm.

Dairy Management runs the largest of 18 Agriculture Department programs that market beef, pork, potatoes and other commodities. Their budgets are largely paid by levies imposed on farmers, but Dairy Management, which reported expenditures of $136 million last year, also received $5.3 million that year from the Agriculture Department to promote dairy sales overseas.

By comparison, the department’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, which promotes healthy diets, has a total budget of $6.5 million.

Every day, the nation’s cows produce an average of about 60 million gallons of raw milk, yet less than a third goes toward making milk that people drink. And the majority of that milk has fat removed to make the low-fat or nonfat milk that Americans prefer. A vast amount of leftover whole milk and extracted milk fat results.

Dairy Management, through the “Got Milk?” campaign, has been successful at slowing the decline in milk consumption, particularly focusing on schoolchildren. It has also relentlessly marketed cheese and pushed back against the Agriculture Department’s suggestion that people eat only low-fat or fat-free varieties.

In one instance, Dairy Management spent millions of dollars on research to support a national advertising campaign promoting the notion that people could lose weight by consuming more dairy products, records and interviews show. The campaign went on for four years, ending in 2007, even though other researchers — one paid by Dairy Management itself — found no such weight-loss benefits.

“Great news for dieters,” Dairy Management said in an advertisement in People magazine in 2005. “Clinical studies show that people on a reduced-calorie diet who consume three servings of milk, cheese or yogurt each day can lose significantly more weight and more body fat than those who just cut calories.” It was based on research by Michael B. Zemel, a University of Tennessee nutritionist and author of “The Calcium Key: The Revolutionary Diet Discovery That Will Help You Lose Weight Faster.”

The campaign lasted until 2007, when the Federal Trade Commission acted on a two-year-old petition by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, an advocacy group that challenged the campaign’s claims. “If you want to look at why people are fat today, it’s pretty hard to identify a contributor more significant than this meteoric rise in cheese consumption,” Dr. Neal D. Barnard, president of the physicians’ group, said in an interview.

Agriculture Department data show that cheese is a major reason the average American diet contains too much saturated fat. Research has found that the cardiovascular benefits in cutting saturated fat may depend on what replaces it. Refined starches and sugar might be just as bad or even worse, while switching to unsaturated fats has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease.

My biggest question in all of this may be, why is the U.S. Government bailing out Domino's!?

And finally, an oldie but goodie... marketing cheese to kids certainly isn't a new idea...