Early Planning: What to Contribute to Your Holiday Meal

Every year my mom puts me in charge of making 3 dishes to contribute to our holiday meal: 1 side dish, 1 dessert, and 1 intended for my “main course.” For those that don’t know, I follow a vegan diet. As you can imagine, that would make any mother want to pull her hair out trying to accommodate for the holidays. My mother’s simple solution: have me make the dishes to add to our meal for all to try. Much less stress, much less screaming, and much more mother-daughter bonding time in the kitchen.

This year, I’ve been checking out recipes from one of my favorite food blogs, Oh She Glows. The author, Angela, has the most scrumptious recipes — I’ve been having trouble making my final picks! So far my top 4 picks are (drum roll please)…

  1. Green Bean Casserole
  2. Cinnamon Sweet Potato Chickpea Salad
  3. High-Protein Garlic Mashed Potatoes
  4. This Ain’t Grandma’s Sweet Potato Casserole

The best (and worst) part about Thanksgiving as a vegan is making sure that everyone else at the table will enjoy what you’ve made (and they are willing to actually try what you’ve made). For my family that means nothing explicitly labeled “vegan,” nothing with soy, nothing with nuts (for allergen purposes), nothing too foreign, nothing too spicy…nothing I would normally make myself. It’s more of a culinary quest for me to accommodate both my family and my own dietary needs.

What are you ladies and gents planning on making this Thanksgiving? Feel free to share all vegan and non-vegan recipes + links in your comments!

Just in case you’re curious or need a few more suggestions, these are a few other dishes that I’ve made in the past:

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