Foodie Friday: Thanksgiving Recap

It's Foodie Friday! Foodie Friday is my weekly feature that gives you a window into my kitchen. I love to cook, I love to eat, I love to read cookbooks, and I love to inspire people to give vegan food a chance. Thus, Foodie Friday was whipped up and baked to perfection.

So it's Saturday. So what? We vegans have post-Thanksgiving food comas, too!

We started our Thanksgiving off with a steaming cup of the most decadent hot chocolate I have ever tasted. Thanks to Angela for passing on the recipe to me. The secret: coconut milk. It's so rich that a small mug goes a long way. Jason couldn't even finish his, and he loves chocolate even more than I do.

Jason prefers to have traditional Thanksgiving food, so I always make our tried-and-true favorites, like mashed potatoes and stuffing, and, of course, a Tofurky. For a vegetable side Jason wanted corn.

Even though I was making classics, I still wanted to try some new recipes. I picked corn fritters and fennel and garlic mashed potatoes from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. Everything tasted great, and I was especially pleasantly surprised by how my fritters turned out--perfect on the first try!


After stuffing ourselves with all of that, we didn't have room for dessert, so I made it yesterday instead. Since Jason had pumpkin pie for his birthday treat, he requested brownies for Thanksgiving. I was determined to make a seasonally-appropriate version, so I fired up the Googles and found this recipe for pumpkin brownies. I ditched the frosting, veganized the batter, and dumped in a whole bunch of chocolate chips. Verdict: delicious! The pumpkin keeps the brownies moist, and the chocolate chips give you a delicious little prize in every bite.

Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Brownies

1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup sugar
egg replacer equivalent to 2 eggs (I used Ener-G)
2/3 cup pumpkin
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/3 cup cocoa
1 cup flour
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 F. In a large bowl, cream shortening and sugar using a hand mixer. Add egg replacer and mix well. Mix in pumpkin. Stir in remaining ingredients. Grease an 8x8 inch pan with a dab of your shortening and spread in batter in an even layer. Bake for 40 minutes.

Tonight I made us a delicious mac and cheese to go with some of the Thanksgiving leftovers.