Fruits & Veggies Monday {Thanksgiving Meal}

Hey there everyone! Though I am judging this round of @lenasveganliving's #fruitsandveggiesmonday contest, I still wanted to finish off sharing my Thanksgiving menu with you all in a null entry this week! I already posted my Vegan Mac 'N Cheez recipe, so today's post covers the rest of the delicious meal. For some it may not epitomize the usual richness of a holiday meal, but it was exactly the veggie-packed, cruelty-free meal to keep me happy.

My whole family joins in on the cooking so that not just one person has to do it all. However for some reason everyone else has a hard time making Thanksgiving dishes totally vegan. I have learned from the past I just need to make sure to prepare a few dishes so I know I'll have plenty to make a meal out of. This holds especially true for dessert. Good thing I enjoy cooking, so it is no sweat for me to make some extra yummy stuff to share. Especially since I had my little blue friend from @barbara-orenya (who was the prize for Lena's special contest last year) to help me out. 😉

The butternut squash made an appearance in both my macaroni and my dessert. Before you start shaking your head at squash in dessert, just take a look at how yummy these Pecan Bars turned out. I hadn't made anything from the My Whole Food Life page in a while, but I usually really enjoy her recipes so knew this one should be good.

The recipe called for pumpkin, but I had already cooked the squash and figured it would be an easy swap. The only other thing I swapped was holding off on the pumpkin seeds. My little niece is a bit picky with eating right now, so I thought there might be a greater chance of her trying these if I didn't add the seeds. @dksart almost didn't let me take them with us to share! He doesn't normally eat a lot of sweets, but he really enjoyed these.

Of course I had to have some green stuff on my plate to brighten everything up. I threw together a super easy salad with finely chopped broccoli, Brussels sprouts and fresh spinach all from the farmers market. I topped it off with sunflower seeds and a blackberry dressing.

The dressing was just 3/4 cup blackberries (I thawed out my dwindling stash of frozen from our picking excursions) blended with 1/4 cup blackberry ginger balsamic vinegar, 2 teaspoons fresh minced ginger, 1 tablespoon of miso and a little water to thin it out. So bright and delicious!

I also do like to have something with a little bit of protein to fill me up, so I opted this year for a simple marinated and roasted tempeh. Nothing fancy, but I figured the rest of my dishes made up for its simplicity. For me Thanksgiving is all about the sides anyway. My mom did end up making some plain roasted sweet potatoes, too. Though for some reason it stumped her that you could cook them without butter. 🤷‍♀️

Like I said, I didn't miss anything in this meal! I really felt fantastic afterwards, too, which is rare as it is so easy to eat way to much rich food. No food hangover the next day, which was really good since we had second Thanksgiving with @dksart's family over the weekend. Lots of veggies and good stuff there, as well. It's nice to enjoy delicious food, but even nicer to spend enjoyable time with the ones you love! Now I can't wait to start planning what to make for Christmas dinner...

Banners by @jaynie, @woman-onthe-wing, @dksart and @bearone for @steemusa