I love me some roasted veggies. I am leaning towards this if I go the mushroom wellington route actually. I think it would be a good side and if I do roasted pots, I can dodge having to make mashed, so that makes things a bit easier. I think I am leaning towards the wellington if I can find vegan puff pasty.

Mushroom Wellington is excellent as a main and has many recipes online. Basically, savory mushroom filling wrapped in puff pastry.

My partner and I made some mushroom galletes before. We just used a simple olive oil crust, some oyster and shiitake mushrooms, and some onion gravy. You can take the idea of a vegan filled pastry and do quite a lot with it!

I'm def interested in that recipe for the roast. I wanna try to make seitan as a project this next year at some time because store bought us super expensive for not a lot. It would be an easy thing to toss into pasta or ramen when I'm not feeling beans.

Gonna look for the mushroom Wellington recipe too. That sounds good with my mashed potatoes I wanna make. And maybe some mixed veggies on the side or roasted fresh veggies?

My in-law family is alright. They don't make a big deal about what I can and can't eat like I think other families do. My wife's cousin was quizzing me on what I can and can't eat during thanksgiving but it was friendly small talk to questions. Nothing malicious. And when we go out to eat my in-laws make sure it's a place I can eat at. We have a few vegan friendly Americana style restaurants and the Thai places are pretty good at catering to vegans. So there are some safe places for sure. I just mostly want to take the initiative to make my own food so it doesn't cause conflict. And of course others are welcome to try what I make. No one wanted my vegan pumpkin pie tho, and aside from being slightly underdone, I thought it was bangin'.

Dang this sounds good. I made a similar salad back when I was doing Mediterranean that had feta in it. I could spurge on some vegan "feta" for some saltines. I also like your vinegarette suggestion. Thanks!

I'm planning on tackling seitan as a project next year sometime so it might make it to xmas 2024. I'm not sure anybody around me carried the Gardein Turk'y loaf but I did learn about those today and will keep an eye out. Gardein has bee pretty decent.

I've def seen a recipe similar to this with chickpeas that caught my eye. It was a sort of "shredded chicken" style thing. I think I need to finally acquire some vital wheat gluten.

Also, gonna look up this book lol, love the name!

I appreciate it! I am trying to avoid anything super complex since we have kids and holidays are generally chaos. But I'll def take any recipes you think are interesting too!

So I actually made a lentil based shepherd's pie for Thanksgiving. It turned out not great but I'd like to revisit it. The filling was underdone and the potatoes ended up really dry. I followed a recipe instead of my heart so that is probably why. The recipe called for just butter for the pots and I was like "these are gonna be dry af." lol

Something I could do is take your fake breaded removeden idea and get so me veggie friendly gravy mix and make that the main course, then do masked potatoes on the side with that Texas Caviar recipe that was suggested as my veggie side/alternate side dish for other if they want it, since it would be veggies and beans. Might go that route since it would be less stress. Make the bean dish ahead of time, make pots morning of, then do the chicken as they are getting dinner set up.