A belated Thanksgiving

It’s black friday, I haven’t even left the house, and yet, I’ve still managed to do my fare share of post Thanksgiving shopping. Isn’t the internet fabulous!? All those ya-hoo’s waiting in line at 4am, and yet, I’ve scored my fare share of deals without even having to leave the house… Or my pajama’s, for that matter

Any who, shopping aside, yesterday I drove home to have Thanksgiving dinner with the fam (all 7 of us – yes, that includes extended fam, ha), so I thought I’d share with you the dishes I made.

Keeping things nut-free, most dishes were super simple, partially cooked and traveled well. Since the following dishes are rather (or extremely) easy, the recipes aren’t exact, but rather, just general guidelines.

Mess ‘O Greens

Since I’m not a huge fan of raw onions and garlic (I know, gasp), I decided to keep the greens raw, but saute the onions and garlic, with a quick flash pickeling.

3 bunches of collard greens
.5 onion (chopped)
4 cloves of garlic (minced)
olive oil
red wine vinegar
sea salt

Coconut bacon (about 1/2 cup) Optional

Stem collard greens and roll lengthwise. Thinly slice collards on the horizontal and set aside. Saute onion and garlic in olive oil. Once golden in color, add a few tablespoons of red wine vinegar and saute for about 60 more seconds. Take off heat and pour over collards. Add an additional tablespoon or two of olive oil and red wine vinegar to collards. Massage vigorously with hands for about 5 minutes. Season with sea salt and top with coconut bacon.

Ferminted Holiday Sauerkraut

I’ll keep this extremely general, as explaining this process would be a post in itself. Don’t worry though, I plan on having a post up this week on fermented foods.

cranberries
green cabbage
thinly sliced onions
sea salt
Donna Gate’s starter

Follow basic fermentation process. Pack in jars and store for at least one week.

Cranberry Cherry Sauce

This recipe reminded me of two things: 1) how awesome food savers are! 2) how awesome it is to have a mom who juices expensive things such as cherries (and then foodsaves/freezes the juice for you). This didn’t end up as thick as my cranapple plum dressing, but it tasted out of this world! Then again, I just love cherries!

1 C of cherry juice
1 bag of cranberries
2 T of lemon juice
2-3 T non-gmo lecithin powder
1/4 C maple syrup
stevia
dash of sea salt

Combine all ingredient in a high-speed blender and blend until smooth. Pour in a glass jar and store in refrigerator. This morning for breakfast, I combined a few tablespoons of this with a few tablespoons of the holiday sauerkraut and topped it with fresh pear slices – it was delish.

Roasted Acorn Squash

Easy peasy!

2-3 acorn squash
olive oil
sea salt
cinnamon

Slice acorn in half and remove seeds. Cut acorn into .75″ strips on the horizontal. In a large plastic bag, combine all ingredients and shake well. Lay slices on a baking sheet and bake for about 20-30 minutes at 400 degrees.

Besides the above dishes, I also made my Tomatini Spaghetti Squash and a raw/vegan Chocolate Mint Tarte – which, I’m loving! It was supposed to be a persimmon cheesecake, but my persimmons weren’t ripe enough (they take forever), so I made a quick/last minute alteration. The tarte wasn’t ready in time to photograph, but I promise I’ll make it again, so I can put it up on the blog.

Moreover, my mom also made a raw slaw and a vegan succotash – both were awesome! I can’t wait to remake the slaw when I get home.

Hope everyone had a lovely holiday! Time to go partake in a bit more retail therapy

Tagged as: entree, fall, holiday, party, Raw, side dish, vegan