Vegetarian Thanksgiving dishes for incompetent cooks?
Asked by
nikipedia (
28072
)
November 25th, 2008
I have potlucks tonight and Thursday and am:
1. The token vegetarian
2. A disaster in the kitchen
Does anyone have any brilliant solutions to this?
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20 Answers
You can go to Whole Foods and buy a veggie meatloaf, warm it, serve with veggie gravy, and you’ll be the hit of the party.
The gravy itself is better than most meat gravies.
3 large sweet potatoes
1/2 c. crushed pineapple w/juice
1/4 c. brown sugar
3 tbs butter
peel & chunk potatoes, boil until tender but not mushy.
drain well
mix potatoes, pineapple, butter & brown sugar until incorporated well.
Turn all into a greased baking dish.
45 minutes at 350 until all liquid is absorbed.
Cold Pasta/Pesto(you can get the pre-maid sauce or mix) Salad is easy.
If you don’t mind eating everyone else’s side dishes, you can make cranberry sauce. It impresses folks to no end and is almost shamefully easy.
1 bag of cranberries (2 cups of berries, usually)
1 cup or OJ or water (use OJ!)
1/2 cup sugar
Boil cranberries in liquid until they pop. Stir in sugar and boil until thickened. Cool in fridge. Serve.
If you don’t want to worry about “when thickened” is, you can grab some gelatin and use one pack of it according to the directions on the box.
As the “Token Vegetarian”, it’s a good idea to not make anything “weird” like silken tofu, seitan, quinou, lentils, etc, because many carnivores seem to be really close mined to anything that doesn’t have meat, or that might seem like what they have typically preconceived as “weird vegetarian” food. Make something that they would not even realize is vegetarian. It’s always nice to show people that there are many great great “normal” options, and possibly open more minds to it.
Rinse and chop some white mushrooms and zucchini (use green and yellow zukes – colors add interest). I’d say half an average-sized zucchini is a serving for each person. Chop up a clove of garlic and sauté that in a frying pan with 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Too much oil and the veggies will go gloppy, not enough and they’re burnt, so if you’re going to add more oil, do it a teaspoon at at time.
When the oil looks to be hot (you’ll see the oil “rippling”) and you can smell the garlic, then gently stir in the mushrooms and zucchini, cover the pan and let cook ‘til just tender (sometimes I throw in a few hot pepper flakes during cooking). Make sure the pan you use can truly accommodate all the veggies. It’s about 10–15 minutes, depending on how much you’ve got in the pan. Check on them and give them a stir every couple of minutes.
Serve in a nice dish with salt and pepper nearby for people to season as they like.
5 cup salad
1 can chunk pineapple, drained
1 can mandarin oranges, drained
1 cup mini marshmallows
1 cup coconut
1 cup sour cream
Mix everything together, refrigerate for 1 hour.
Or
Pumpkin Mousse
1 large can pumpkin pie filling (not canned pumpkin; needs to say Pie Filling on the label)
1 carton cool whip
mix together pumpkin and coolwhip, serve with pepperidge farm gingerbread men
Get a package of egg drop soup. Boil the water, add the soup mix add some tofu and scallions and you are set. If you want to add the egg, great. If you are totally veg leave it out. Simple and wonderful. Find it in the Asian aisle at the grocery.
I totally forgot to include the fresh herbs in that recipe link. A good amount of minced fresh thyme is perfect.
I always make this veggie lasagna for my neices. It’s not difficult to make.
Four-Cheese Vegetable Lasagna
12 uncooked lasagna noodles
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
Cooking spray
2 cups chopped broccoli
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced carrot
1 cup sliced green onions
1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
3 garlic cloves—minced
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 cups 1% low-fat milk
1/2 cup grated fresh Parmesan cheese (2 ounces)—divided
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach—thawed, drained, and squeezed dry
1 1/2 cups 1% low-fat cottage cheese
1 cup shredded part-skim Mozzarella cheese (4
ounces)
1/2 cup shredded Swiss cheese (2 ounces)
Freshly ground pepper (optional)—freshly ground pepper
Cook lasagna noodles, omitting salt and fat. Drain; set aside.
Preheat oven to 375º.
Heat oil in a Dutch oven coated with cooking spray over medium heat until hot. Add broccoli and next 4 ingredients (broccoli through garlic), and sauté 7 minutes. Set aside.
Place flour in a medium saucepan. Gradually add milk, stirring with a whisk until blended. Bring to a boil over medium heat; cook 5 minutes or until thick, stirring constantly. Add 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; stir in spinach. Reserve 1/2 cup spinach mixture for top layer of casserole, and set aside.
Combine cottage cheese, Mozzarella, and Swiss cheese; stir well. Spread 1/2 cup spinach mixture in bottom of a 13 × 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Arrange 4 lasagna noodles over spinach mixture in dish; top with half of cottage cheese mixture, half of broccoli mixture, and half of remaining spinach mixture. Repeat layers, ending with noodles. Spread reserved 1/2 cup spinach mixture over noodles; sprinkle with 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Cover and bake at 375º for 35 min utes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. Sprinkle with pepper, if desired.
Take out! Or ask if you can bring dessert. (I don’t like to cook, either, so I frequently ask if I can bring drinks, paper supplies, or munchies like chips and such to parties.)
Let’s see in the past I’ve made my Candied Sweet Potatoes no butter. Tofurky, Rice pudding made with coconut milk and soy milk no dairy. Breakfast Strata with Gimme Lean Soy Sausage. (nephew did eat eggs) Tofu Loaf, honestly it was a compile of different recipes creating my own. Eggplant salad, kind of like Baba Ganoush, but made to my in laws specifications. He wanted it to be like his mothers, turned out really good. Butternut squash with garlic and Parmesan cheese when Herb (stepfather in law) was feeling vegetarian not vegan. Along with all the rest of the usual side dishes of peas, mashed potatoes, green salad, olives, hummus, chip and dip.
LOL! Good one! The Tofurky was brought by that vegetarian/Jewish step-father-in-law. He demanded I make is for him and he didn’t even bother to defrost it first. It was rock hard and he complained that it was the last item to be finished. gee, I wonder why? So that’s when I started playing with the tofu loaf idea. That way I was in control.
Quorn. If you go to whole foods, they have Quorn in the frozen section. My whole family has been vegetarian since I was 10. Every thanksgiving, we get fake turkey.
Oh oh! What is really delicious as a side dish is grilled potato wedges, served with melted rosemary butter! You grill the potato wedges in a little olive oil mixed with salt and ground pepper. Or, just cook your potatoes however you want, but serve it with the rosemary butter, it’s yum!
Oh yes, another delicious side dish is steamed butternut, and just before serving it, you sprinkle some cinnamon and butter over the butternut pieces, and grill them for a few mins, just to melt the butter and warm them up. Very good!
Mushroom Gravy
¾ cup white or button mushrooms, chopped
1 small yellow or white onion, minced
¼ cup vegan margarine
2½ cups vegetable broth
2 tbsp soy sauce
¼ cup flour
1 tbsp poultry seasoning (or ½ tsp each of sage, thyme and marjoram)
salt and pepper to taste
In a large skillet, melt the vegan margarine and add onion and mushrooms. Sautee for just a minute or two over high heat.
Reduce heat to medium and add vegetable broth and soy sauce. Slowly add flour, stirring well to combine and prevent lumps from forming. Bring to a simmer or a low boil, then reduce heat.
Add poultry seasoning, salt and pepper, stirring consistently. Allow to cook for 8–10 minutes, stirring regularly, until gravy thickens.
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