Thanksgiving 2012

After a one-year hiatus from Thanksgiving, I am elated to be back to celebrating my favorite holiday with my family, friends, and kitties.

Since most members of our family are pescatarians, mama and I made turkey the night before so we could celebrate in style.

For the past week or so, I’ve been churning ice cream here in Naples to get ready for the big day.

Freshly churned vegan pumpkin ice cream with my brother

Chocolate chip cookie dough

But today is when the festivities really began. Our family’s appetizers included olives, smoked salmon on cucumber slices, and miniature Daiya pizzas on English muffins.

I found boba tapioca pearls at the Asian market, and cooked them up for a boba tea drink. If you’ve never had them before, bobas are extremely gummy, soft, slightly mucilaginous, and extremely delicious.

They also happen to be part of my oldest brother’s favorite drink, which I made with country peach tea.

One of the traditional foods mama makes each year on Thanksgiving is spanikopitas. These are composed of phyllo dough stuffed with spinach and onions, folded into triangles of deliciousness. This year, I helped with the folding.

The finished spanikopitas can be seen in the below photo, along with mama’s mashed taters, stuffing, baked sweet potatoes and gravy.

Allison made vegan tater tot casserole – a full embodiment of the fact that just because something is organic and natural does not mean it has to be healthy. It was delicious nonetheless.

Mama marinated wild sockeye salmon in a mango chipotle sauce and coated with macadamia nuts before being pan seared.

Mama’s gravy this year was absolutely fantastic – with plenty of caramelized mushrooms, onions, and thyme.

My finished thanksgiving plate below.

Dessert included mama’s famous gluten-free jam filled thumbprint cookies – a childhood favorite of mine. The dough was made of toasted oats and almonds.

For my part of the dessert, I mixed together sliced bananas and mini dark chocolate chips with a little bit of vanilla.

I then put the mixture inside of wonton wrappers and crimped the edges shut.

And fried them to a golden brown.

The final dessert set-up with my ice creams from the previous week. On the left are apples cooked with cinnamon, and at the top are the pumpkin spice, chocolate chip cookie dough, and cantaloupe-basil non-dairy ice creams.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Special thank you to Mama for hosting such a fantastic Thanksgiving party for our family.

Even Moo Shoo got himself into a food coma this year!