Breaking Tradition with Tofurkey

My family has been dealing with some illness/hospital issues with my grandfather in Comox for the past couple of weeks, so it was no big surprise when my parents decided at the last minute to head over to Vancouver island late Friday night.

This meant that our traditional thanksgiving dinner on Sunday night was off. With our family spread out all over the place, (parents/grandparents/uncle on the island- sister in Australia- uncle/aunt and cousins in the states for the weekend)I still wanted to celebrate thanksgiving with the family in whatever way I could.

So Sunday afternoon I called up my vegetarian sister and her girlfriend, and we made plans for us to meet at our parent’s house where we would throw together a last- minute, slapdash version of thanksgiving dinner featuring…..(drumroll please)……TOFURKEY! After a stroll to Whole Foods and $8.99 later, it was game on!

Step 1: Thaw the frozen ball of fake meat

Step 2:Place in roasting pan with veg (onions, carrots, red pepper) seasoning (fresh rosemary, thyme) and basting juice (olive oil, soy sauce, minced garlic)- Cover and cook for 1 hour 30 min on 400 degrees

Step 3: Cover everything with more basting juice and cook for another 15-30 min

Step 4: Carve and enjoy……

My thoughts on my first experience with Tofurkey:

-it tasted pretty good and really absorbed the yummy flavours from the onions, thyme and rosemary

-for a meat eater like myself it doesn’t really replace real turkey

-it’s fun to say “tofurkey"

-the wild rice stuffing inside was really tasty- nice and light and fluffy

-next time I would cook it a little longer/ throw the oven on broil for an additional 15 minutes  to make the outside a bit crispier

Other stand-out dishes were:

Slow roasted yams- cooked at 400 for an hour and a half…..(nice work Jackie!)- I added a little mustard and hot sauce….mmmmm

Pumpkin Mousse

Crispy Garlic Brussel Sprouts- prepped with garlic, olive oil, salt broiled on cookie sheet for 20 minutes

Pumpkin Mousse: canned pumpkin mixed with “Dream Whip” low cal topping with graham cracker crumbs and cinnamon (again- props to Jackie!)