All vegetarians deserve a tasty Thanksgiving dinner
After being a vegetarian for three years I still get asked the haunting question by my friends, family, and even acquaintances: "What do you eat on Thanksgiving, if you don't eat meat?"
As the traditional American family sits at the dinner table for Thanksgiving, you'll find mashed potatoes, carrots, casserole, and pies, but the center piece of it all is the big old turkey.
However, in my family, alongside the giant, dead, stuffed turkey you'll find what my family calls a delicious personal vegetarian dish: microwaved lasagna.
MICROWAVED LASAGNA!
They shove it in the microwave for ten minutes, "Ding" goes the bell and then they throw it on a fancy plate and call it good! Happy thanksgiving to the only vegetarian in the family!
Even if parts of the lasagna are cold, and other parts scorching hot, with veggies that are so hard I feel like my teeth are going to break, I am thankful for the thoughtfulness and the effort they put in to trying to give me a warm Thanksgiving meal.
However I can't blame them since, really, what are my choices for a thanksgiving meal?
Tofurkey? Ten giant spoonfuls of mashed potatoes, topped with steamed vegetables?
Well, I thought I'd find my own recipes this year and found a great online site from the New York Times that has dishes for vegetarians, such as stir-fried ginger carrots, butternut squash cannoli, brown and wild rice and brown rice stuffing.
These are just a few options, and the surprising thing is that many of these ingredients are ingredients that most families use on Thanksgiving or have around the house.
For example, to make the stir-fried ginger carrots, all you need is one and a half pounds of carrots, sugar, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, minced ginger, canola oil, ground pepper, chives and salt. Together you can make a delicious meal for the vegetarian in your life, or something fun you can bring to grandma's house on Thanksgiving.
So even though we don't eat the stuffed turkey, or pour the gravy on our potatoes, we can still enjoy a meatless feast!
Jovana Quezada, Staff Writer
