Thanksgiving Feasting Recipes, Featuring: Lemon Ginger Cake, Mushroom Gravy, Mashed Potatoes, Roasted Squash, Braised Carrots, Quick-Pickled Cabbage, & More
NOTES:
- Season per taste ALWAYS! <3 This is my framework and if I want it spicier, I’ll add a little more ginger (or grated fresh ginger), or if it needs to be sweeter I’ll add maple. You may want more or less salt. Etc. Etc. Etc. :-D I’m the sort of soul who cooks by smell and taste, and I encourage you to find your own taste frequency.
- Don’t have all those flours (<—We just throw oats and flax meal in a blender to make ours)? You can use whatever flour you like best, but take note that nut flours (like almond and coconut) have a way of making things dryer than stretchy flours like oat/tapioca/wheat so add more water accordingly.
-You don’t need to make the lemon glaze. It tastes just as great without it and can be eaten with fruit or cashew cream.
NOTES:
You can use whole wheat flour if that’s your jam, I have a kiddo who was diagnosed intolerant to it (through we’re working toward seeing if that was just microbiome revolt via dysbiosis from all the antibiotics/dairy he’d been downing) so we tend to use whole oat flour or tapioca flour.
This makes a double batch of gravy (enough to use for the meal and have for lots of leftovers), so cut in half if you don’t need a lot.
I note with a weighted heart that folks get more riled at the idea of their meals changing, than they do about environmental collapse… yet they are directly connected and one is vastly more important than the other.
The idea of avoiding turkey is somehow shocking, but the tangential fact that animal products are nutritionally unnecessary (in fact, they are tied to disease), ruining the planet with various emissions (and pollution, and habitat loss, and species extinction) and cruel ( <—because you’re needlessly consuming the flesh/breastmilk/ovulation of an animal that more than likely suffered to give it to you) is somehow a-ok and mentioning otherwise makes you bristly or “nasty”.
How to reconcile the hypocrisy? How to wake the masses?
I eat with the passionate zeal of my kin, like the bulk of my brethren I learned how to cook so I could always feed myself something I love, I’m the sort of soul who both dances and sings about how scrumptious something tastes, and I’m beet-faced bashful about a feast of things but I am a dang good cook. I’m not going to eat it unless I love it, and I wouldn’t serve/recommend it if I wasn’t enjoying it myself.
So, with that in mind, I’m here to appeal to your better graces.
Ostensibly, y’all are having smaller, nuclear family gatherings this year, and given that shifting a Thanksgiving Plant-Based when it includes a whole family of cast and characters could be just the sort of hot mess you want no part of in 2020, wouldn’t this secluded year make a fantastic time to see how it tastes when you shift it kinder, healthier, and environmentally sustainable?
What a great example for your kin, plus a better/kinder way to give thanks to the planet that is providing for you, eh?
Continue for (Plant-Based, Almost Entirely Whole-Food): Lemon Ginger Cake, Mushroom Gravy, Mashed Potatoes, Roasted Squash, Braised Carrots, Quick-Pickled Cabbage, & More; cardiovascular and environmental imperatives; plus other examples of what this active plant-based family feasted on through a busy beginning of the week.
Live Kindly, Feast Kindly, Grow Forward.
Everything needed to start the ginger cake
I use my Pyrex to measure and hold the wet ingredients and then I keep it for use of the boiling water and the glaze.
Here seen, before and after mixing the dry and wet.
Use the same cup to add the 1/2 cup of water and microwave for a minute or until boiling. It uses up all the flavor still clinging to the cup and spares you a dish.
Stir boiling water into the mix until shiny and like a wet batter. (<—-the oatflour is going to dry this up, don’t worry.) Then pour into your desired pan.
You can keep it plain, or top it with your favorite omega seed. :-)
Note: this is a double batch.
Double Batch Glaze: Using the same cup from before, you can grate in the zest of one lemon, squeeze the juice from that lemon, and then add in the maple syrup. Pour over the cake as soon as it comes out of the oven and you get something like a soft pineapple upside-down cake, but with dark/rich/lemony/ginger greatness.
You could eat it plain like the banner picture or you could top it with your favorite fruits, berry sauces, nut butters, and seeds. :-)
Another new recipe for the week is long-loved mushroom gravy. We do this with fresh mushrooms and with frozen and both are delicious. If you start with frozen, you just need to factor in more time for them to release the water and then have it evaporate.
The traditional gravy made of rendered carcass is not beneficial to your microbiome, but mushrooms have a bounty of benefits:
Source of Vitamin D, Vitamin B, and Vitamin C.
Potassium which “can help regulate blood pressure, and this may decrease the risk of hypertension and cardiovascular disease.”
Packed with beneficial/essential fiber
And they are full of glutathione (<—powerful antioxidant that reduces oxidative stress, “Reduces cell damage in alcoholic and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease”, improves insulin resistance, increases mobility for people with periphery artery disease, reduces symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, and the list goes on!
On Sunday Song Day I’ll get back into mushrooms. I’m taking a 5 day workshop with the wonderfully informative Kiran Sidhu about pediatric nutrition, and it had some really helpful information about both mushrooms and ginger, but the day is getting so late it’ll be too much to cram into today’s post.
Items need to get started on Mushroom Gravy.
We like to throw in paprika too!
We used to buy them bulk at the grocery but have been too wary of that, and the wrapped fresh ones have too much packaging, so we’ve settled on frozen as our answer for now… if you’re getting ‘em fresh, you’re ahead of the game and won’t have to wait til they release all their water. :-)
When cooking this many mushrooms it helps to do half first (until browned), put them in a bowl, brown the remaining half, and then add them all to the pan and continue on with the recipe.
Balsamic and Aminos (or Soy Sauce if that is what you have) may sound odd, but I’ve been adding that to gravies for years. When you combine the two in a sauce you taste neither (ie not “Oh man, this tastes like gravy with balsamic! Gross!), they fall into the background but give it a deeper richer, more savory umami flavor that brings it to a whole other level.
Add in your water, puree, add your bay leaf, and let it bubble away until it has thickened a little more.
Tastes great over mashed potatoes, roasted squash, and roasted brussels and we’ll be replicating this meal with many more sides next week. :-)
Here are some other Thanksgiving feasting ideas. <3
Mashed Potato Recipe
What do Potatoes have going for them?
- Minerals and vitamins (Copper, Manganese, Potassium, B3, B6, Vitamin C, and more!)
- Antioxidants (<— Why would I want those? They are anti-inflammatory.)
Roasted Squash Recipe
Check out these stats for 1 cup of squash per your daily recommended values:
Vitamin A - 457% (<—HOLY MOLY! And that’s not a typo!!!)
Vitamin B6 - 13%
Vitamin C - 52%
Vitamin E - 13%
Vitamin K - 3%
Thiamin - 10%
Folate - 10%
Calcium - 8%
Iron - 7%
Manganese - 18%
Magnesium - 15%
Potassium - 17%
Squash are also flush with beta-carotene; and foods high in Beta-Carotene, Vitamin C, and Vitamin E make an immune boosting power trio. Why? Because Beta-carotene: is a powerful antioxidant that can reduce inflammation and boost immune function by increasing disease-fighting cells in the body. It’s even linked with preventing cancer.
Braised Carrots Recipe
Carrots are healthy wonders:
1 cup has 428% (<—that is NOT a typo!) of your Vitamin A, and carotenoids are linked with a lower risk of various cancers.
Lentil Loaf Recipe
Instead of the turkey, you could sub in any of the super-delicious plant-based meats: Like Beyond, Impossible, LiteLife, etc. Though they are not a “health food” ( <— neither is turkey, in fact it is worse), but they taste so much like meat it will astound you.
Or, you could go whole-foods plant-based and try making this lentil loaf. “Meatloaf was never one of my favorite dishes (it grossed me the heck out), but Ian LOVED it. Guess what he loves even more? This lentil loaf. It has all of the dark umami flavor of your standard soul loaf, but it is a compassionate choice, environmentally-kind, budget-friendly, and nutritionally dense.”
Our quick-pickled cabbage would be a great side.
Cabbage is the kind of food I would have balked at several years ago, and it has become one of my most beloved. It is incredibly good for you: “There are 20 different flavonoids and 15 different phenols in cabbage, all of which have demonstrated antioxidant activity. (These anthocyanins qualify not only as antioxidant nutrients, but as anti-inflammatory nutrients as well.)”
Throw in the added health benefits of raw garlic and apple cider vinegar, and you have yourself a prebiotic wallop that is bursting with minerals and vitamins, promotes gut health, and pops your plate with color.
Dessert Option: Black Bean Brownies
It tastes like a delicious, fudgy oreo cookie and is full of:
- nutrient-dense black beans
- heart-healthy fiber from the whole-oat flour and beans
- no refined sugars, just good old fashioned, whole-food fiber-filled fruit sugars (like dates —which are packed with minerals and vitamins— and bananas, which are full of health as well)
- plant-based proteins and fats, so you’re paying the earth back with kindness and not participating in animal agriculture that is dooming us all with its environmental impact.
Crust Bars with Fresh Fruit, Cashew Cream, and some Berry Sauce (I always reduce a bunch of frozen berries in a pan. You could do that or also use cranberry sauce :-) )
And if you whip up some of our 30-second chocolate sauce, you can drizzle it all over any of the above.
Sweet Cashew Cream goes well with all of the above.
Cashew Cream Cake (Could also add in some pumpkin puree and make this like pumpkin pie like we did below).
While some kiddos may be drawing happy turkeys at school, this cub is getting homeschooled and his view of the holiday is 360 degrees because his future is on the line all for the comfort of “Well, it’s how we’ve always done it.”
There’s a handy multi-source article on Wikipedia about the environmental impact of animal products.
And all that damage isn’t even good for you! This is what an animal product dense diet does to your cardiovascular system. (<— from Undo It by World-Renowned Cardiologist Dr Dean Ornish.)
Here are all the essays I’ve written pointing to books and podcasts with/by cardiologists.
I’ll also redirect you to this horrifying/illuminating video again (and again, and again <—it’s equally-renowned Dr Michael Greger showing how cardiovascular disease starts in children), and the following studies that show the same thing:
- Evidence of the Beginning of Atherosclerosis in Infancy and Adolescence”
- “Cardiovascular disease risk factors and atherosclerosis in children and adolescents
- “Atherosclerosis: a nutritional disease of childhood”
- “A Few Unpleasant Facts About Atherosclerotic Arterial Disease in the United States and the World”
Compelled?
If you have a kid and want to transition them to plant-based whole foods, first: start eating plant-based whole-foods yourself. Our children see what we do and will learn from it.
There’s a delicious path forward, and goes beyond Thanksgiving. Start making slow steps forward and you will increase your health, lessen your environmental impact, and spare a soul from suffering.
It’s a win-win-win all around.
I tend to make a batch of things on the weekend so that I don’t have to fuss too much in the week (<— like Board of Education meeting nights when we’re amidst a pandemic, and Instagram Live interviews with inspiring business centers re Your Kind Kitchen’s launch, all the while homeschooling Q.)
Here’s a bit of what we were eating this week:
Peanut Butter and Berry Sauce Sandwich made with our black bean brownies.
Homemade Whole-Grain Oat Rolls with peanut butter, berry sauce, and an apple.
Had “Breakfast for Dinner” with the ginger cake and covered it with various fruits and nut butters. .
Pumfu tostadas with cashew queso, greens, hot sauce, ruby kraut and olives.
Used leftover pumfu to make noodle bowls with all that is seen above plus sesame green beans, but it was all eaten and this was all that was left for photographs. :-)
(Those beets have been quick-pickled like we do the cabbage.
Veg array lunch: Furikake (source of omegas and iodine), braised bok choy, quick-pickled daikon, olives, and quick-pickled beets with quinoa and sugar-free peanut sauce.
The bok choy, beets, and daikon all came from our local CSA. :-)
When Q heard one of his all time favorite souls is now 3 months without meat and fake fainted in happiness. <3
What’s the most impactful thing you can do as an individual to help your kin, community, millions of species, and planet? Transition as plant-based as possible.🌎♥️
Why? Plant-Based foods are environmentally imperative 🌎. They also promote ideal health💪 (which takes stress off our overburdened health care system), are inexpensive🙌, delicious🤤, & compassionate. 💕
Why imperative, though? 🤔We’re approaching (& have crossed) climate tipping points that will doom our kin & millions of other species. 😱📣Reducing/eliminating animal products is the *most impactful thing an individual can do* to prevent worse. 🌎🔥
Why? Animal Agriculture creates more emissions than the entire transportation sector combined, it’s tied to water waste/loss/pollution (<-- freshwater is our most precious resource💧), land loss/deforestation (<-- exacerbates climate change by reducing our ability to sequester carbon🔥🌎), ocean acidification (<-- FYI 50-85% of earth’s oxygen originates from oceanic plankton🌊) & vast species loss/extinction/suffering💔📣🌎
Plus, consuming animal products is tied to increased risk of cardiovascular disease❤️🩹, diabetes👎, cancer👎, and chronic disease👎; whereas Plant-Based feasting is linked to preventing/reversing some of our most common diseases (<— like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer); plus it promotes ideal health & robust strength (ie Olympians, Weightlifters, Endurance Athletes are thriving via PBWFs too). 🎉🙌♥️
What organizations are promoting plant-based diets for best health and environmental stability? National Institutes of Health, Mayo Clinic, Yale, the United Nations, Harvard School of Health, American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, The American Academy of Pediatrics, National Kidney Foundation, even the Parkinson’s Foundation.
We’re all overwhelmed in one way or another, but for the sake of our kin (and the millions of species we share this planet with) we need to start pivoting forward. As someone who once rarely ate green things & used to eat animal products at every meal, I can assure you that is possible, affordable, enjoyable, & purposeful to pivot Plant-Based. In fact, our whole family is now healthier/stronger than ever. 🙌♥️
Anecdotally, our son had failure-to-thrive, was also plagued with perpetual ear-infections/sinus-infections, and had an omnipresent runny nose. What was he eating? Grass-fed milk, organic/antibiotic-free/grass-fed/local meats, eggs from organic-fed/well-loved chickens from a neighbor, every meal came with vegetables, and we limited junkfood. He was healed via a plant-based diet: he’s launched out of that diagnosis and the last time he had a sinus-infection (or was sick at all) was in 2019 when he had some cheese at a school Christmas party. Before shifting to PBWF’s he was sick every month, and how he’s a robust, vital, thriving kiddo. 🙌🎉♥️
If you think any of the above sounds over-reached/absurd/impossible, please go read the links above. I understand the inclination to hackle-raise (<—because I was once totally there) but the science is clear: any step we make forward is imperative (<—and again “STEPS” is the focus. Don’t leap, just start making steps!). It’s as simple as starting with one meal a week and growing from there.💕
We have the ability (deliciously, healthfully, kindly, inexpensively) to *preserve/protect* the planet we share with millions of species & our kin. How are we going to use that power today?✌️🤟🖖
