Vegetarian Thanksgiving Ideas

[Juliebove]

Way back before I knew of my egg, dairy and other intolerances, I was a vegetarian.  Our family is non tradtional and we often dined out on Thanksgiving.  Often Mexican food!  But if we did go to my parent's house, the meal was pretty traditional.  She did start off with nuts in the shell, and a table with chips and dip.  Usually Fritos hot bean dip, Fritos and assorted raw veggies.  I would eat these things.  Then at meal time, I would just eat lots of vegetables.  Maybe some cranberry sauce, and if available, a piece of cheese or deviled eggs.  That was fine with me.

 

But now my daughter is a vegetarian and she mostly hates vegetables!  So it's annoying.  She will eat certain green salad, coleslaw, raw carrots, raw celery, green onion in small amounts, red pepper, cucumbers and canned green beans.  I may be missing a few things but I think that's basically it.  She does like a few kinds of beans, potatoes, occasionally sweet potatoes but getting rather burned out on those.

 

She likes the idea of faux meats but then after she tries to eat them, she decides they are no good.  She has found a few things that she likes but they are not really Thanksgiving type foods.  Such as taco meat.  I did try something called Celebration Roast.  I can't say that this is gluten-free and it's likely not but *knock wood* she is not having gluten issues at the moment.  She's not a celiac but we have IgG food intolerances.

 

In the past, I side stepped the whole issue of stuffing by making wild rice instead.  But she has gotten rather burned out on that.  She can't have quinoa, most nuts and some herbs.  I will probably have to cook three meals because I can't have eggs, dairy or even more herbs than her.

 

For my husband there will probably be turkey legs, gravy, mashed potatoes and canned green beans.  Perhaps a couple of other things.

 

I will have to make my own dairy free potatoes and my own gravy and will just use canned turkey since I am not a big turkey lover.

 

So...  She can have his potatoes and the green beans.  But what else to serve her?  I do have some faux chicken gravy and some mushrooom gravy.  Actually I could have that too since it is dairy free.  But she is not a big gravy lover.  But she also has pre-diabetes so...  I have to watch the amount of carbs that she eats.  I will probably buy a pumpkin pie or perhaps make a pumpkin custard with Splenda.  But what else?  I want something festive.  Maybe celery stuffed with soft cheese?  I need some protein ideas.  Carbs are easy to find.  Heh!