Oatmeal, Casserole, Peanut Butter Pie, and I Need a Run!

Happy Black Friday. So, who’s shopping today? Probably not me, unless I feel like a little crowd watching at the mall later today, we’ll see. I’m happy to get back to green smoothies and monster salads today after a day of splurging yesterday. This year’s Thanksgiving theme was enjoying vegan variations of cooked foods I wouldn’t normally have, a day to savor occasional treats since it was a quiet day at home with hubby, my mom, and lots of chihuahuas!

I started my treats early with slow-cooked cranberry steel cut oatmeal. I set up our little slow cooker with 8 cups of water, 2 cups of the steel cut outs, and about 1 cup of dried cranberries the night before to slow cook all night and have a steaming breakfast ready for me whenever I was.

By the morning, the contents looked interesting, but smelled wonderful.

Instead of plain hemp milk, I used another occasional splurge food in my bowl of oatmeal – Silk Pumpkin Spice soy milk.

And the Pumpkin Spice blended beautifully with the cranberry flavors for a Thanksgiving themed breakfast in front of the parade and fireplace.

Later my mom arrived for our quiet get-together and brought Miko a present – a new dog toy she picked up from Whole Foods, she took pity on him since he destroyed his other favorite toy.

It was a hit, he would not give it up!

Except to fight with my mom’s chihuahua for cuddle time with hubby.

Hubby, my mom, and I got busy in the kitchen preparing food and our normally large kitchen suddenly felt too small! I recreated Mama Pea’s vegan green bean casserole with chopped tempeh in place of the vegan sausage and using french fried onions this time.

While my mom created these gorgeous raw stuffed avocado salads with tomatoes, green onions, chopped oranges, and avocado simply seasoned with lime juice and Tabasco sauce.

And hubby worked on preparing traditional, non-vegan faves like mashed potatoes, dressing, and turkey breast.

My vegan Thanksgiving plate was perfect, a simple side of peas, hearty, tempeh-filled green bean casserole, and the raw avocado salad.

Filling, but still left enough room for dessert and thank goodness because my mom made the Funky Monkey Pie from Peas and Thank you.

And she sweetly brought vegan soy whipped topping for it, Soyatoo.

Which was Miko approved.

We got busy topping the pie with the soy cream, grated Trader Joe’s dark chocolate, and lightly salted peanuts.

Then anxiously plated the little slices of heaven.

It paired nicely with wine.

Who knew graham cracker crust, bananas, tofu, and peanut butter could make such a heavenly pie? There were actually two pies, a traditional, non-vegan pumpkin pie hubby picked up for himself since he’s obsessed with having pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. Both he and my mom had fun trying a small slice of the homemade vegan peanut butter pie and the store-bought pumpkin pie. But the peanut butter pie won for better texture and flavor, they both left a lot of the pumpkin pie behind, I think we found a new Thanksgiving tradition pie. :-)

If you’re a fan of peanut butter and bananas in a decadent pie, make this now.

After all the festivities, we tackled the dreaded job of kitchen cleaning and believe me we dirtied just about every pot and dish! Luckily we had a little helper.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going for a nice, long run.