A Gratitude Feast (and food this past week)

Happy Belated Thanksgiving Fellow Bloggers!
It was an enjoyable few days to visit home, cook and bake lots of goodies, and see family. (We are not looking foward to going back to school tomorrow:) )

On Thanksgiving we felt thankful for family and enjoyed the day despite a not-so-vegan/vegetarian feast. It was difficult to get a full plate of goodies that were filling enough, vegetarian, and healthy. We had lunch with our Dad's family and most of it was not vegetarian. We managed to scrape up some cranberry sauce, red cabbage cranberry orange slaw (that we made), mashed potatoes, and a roll. We weren't thrilled, however, with the potatoes and the roll, because we assumed the potatoes had milk and butter, which we are trying to avoid, and the roll was entirely made from white flour (not whole wheat that we prefer). Never-the-less, we maintained a positive attitude and tried to make the most of the few hours we had with the family. For dinner, we had another feast with our Mom's family, and we were much more pleased with the food. We had sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, red cabbage slaw, and broccoli (and the cranberry sauce was the only item we didn't make ourselves). Anyhow, it's great to have these big get-togethers that you'll remember for years :)

Sweet Potato Puree with Rosemary and Onions
- We had tons of garnet yams (15-20 small to medium sized) from the local natural foods store, which were the best tasting yams/sweet potatoes ever! Everyone loved these!
- We just sauteed some diced onion and added the onion and dried rosemary to the mashed sweet potatoes

Broccoli with Pumpkin Vinaigrette
- followed EatN'Vegan's recipe but reduced the oil to 1-2 Tb and added some water.
- Everyone loved this - thanks aTxVegn!

Cashew Butter Puffs
- added cashew butter, honey, vanilla, and puffed wheat
- easy no-bake treat, but was slightly too sweet, so next time we'll reduce the sugar.

Soynog Almond Cookies
- followed a chocolate chip cookie recipe, didn't add the chocolate chips, and instead added some Silk Soynog and chopped almonds.
- turned out like a soft cake-like almond sugar cookie. The soynog flavor is subtle, and these are pretty good for a simple cookie, but it wasn't our favorite.

Maple Oatmeal Cookie Bites
(we mentioned these at the end of this blog)
- This time, we didn't use coconut, and we used canola oil and almond extract instead of margarine and vanilla extract.

1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour or spelt flour
1/2 c. white whole wheat flour
3 c. rolled oats or multigrain oats
1/2 c. shredded coconut
1 c. brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. maple syrup
6 Tb or more water
5 Tb margarine melted, or canola oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp or more cinnamon
optional: walnuts, almonds, raisins, chocolate, nutmeg, or allspice

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, oats, coconut, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. In a small bowl, combine maple syrup, water, butter, and vanilla. Add to the flour mixture. Add any optional ingredients, then mix until well blended.

Drop spoonfuls of dough 1-2 inches apart on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Flatten each cookie slightly. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Makes 20-22 cookies.



This week we also enjoyed stir fry with veggies and pineapple sauce, pita pockets stuffed with herbed mushrooms with white wine, and bread and lentil soup ready in the bread machine and crockpot.

Stir Fry:

Wheat Oatmeal Bread and Lentil Soup

So, back to school tomorrow, but only 3 weeks left! We'll be busy studying, but hopefully we can post weekly. Hope you all have a great week!


"Gratitude is miraculously infectious. The more you think about it the grander it becomes. The more you recognize the things you are thankful for the more thankful you become for the things you have." - Barbara Shanahan

Many blessings,
LK