Friday, November 27, 2009

A Vegan Thanksgiving 2009

Last year I wrote about my vegan Thanksgiving and the reason I became vegan in the first place.

Here's the 2009 menu - healthy, light, and traditional. Since there is no grease, cleanup is easy. Since there is no tryptophan (no turkey), you do not fall into a stupor afterwards.

Tofurky - a tofu and grain-based roast available from Turtle Island Foods . I do not typically eat meat substitutes since I enjoy the inherent food qualities of tofu, tempeh and seitan, but a Tofurky is great for family holiday entertaining.

Harvest vegetable medley - carrots, parsnips, onions and fresh herbs from our garden roasted at 425F

Steamed Brussels sprouts from our local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm

Boiled fresh rutabegas from our garden

Mashed Kennebec potatoes (no butter or cream added, just a bit of soy milk) from our CSA

Mashed buttnernut squash from our CSA

Roasted Sweet Potatoes from our CSA

Pecan stuffing

Homemade cranberry sauce

Homemade sweet pickles

Wine: Louis Roederer Cristal 1999 (a gift)

Dessert: Vegan pumpkin pie, Sencha from Uji

I really look forward to those fresh Tofurky sandwiches after Thanksgiving!

5 comments:

  1. We all knew Dr. Halamka was the Rockstar of the Health IT world, but, since he drinks Cristal, I think he's now the Hip Hop King of the Health IT world!

    To keep with the organic theme, Vilmart Coeur de Cuvée is a wonderful organic Champagne.

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  2. i am so glad that a vegan can enjoy critsal

    all the best for the holiday john

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  3. Tofurky is great! Bought 4 of them each year for last two years (and would have the year before except Trader Joe's was sold out!). But I agree - not for every day use, much better to stick with less processed Tofu variations.

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  4. Hi Dr. Halamka. I had the pleasure of meeting Janet and Bill Atkinson at a Bed & Breakfast in Astoria, OR. They mentioned your name after talking about their friendship with your parents. The conversation stemmed from discussing my network engineering background, and describing biomedical informatics and the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) program in which I am a part-time Master's student. It would be great to connect with you at some point. Thanks, Tony.

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  5. Enjoyed your reflection on having a Vegan Thanksgiving and how you got there. Great role model to patients! This is personalized medicine at its best--working on behavioral changes prior to meds. Thanks for sharing.

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