Our Thanksgiving dinner plans changed at 5:30 am.  We had planned to visit Marc’s sister and her husband, Jill and Chuck, but because of the weather we decided to stay home. Marc woke me up before dawn to show me travel maps on his iPad, and the roads did not look good.  We would be driving through a few hours of snow.  So, we stayed close to home and had dinner at my parents’  house instead.  We plan on getting out to Illinois to see Jill and Chuck and crew sometime in December.  They are always so gracious, open their home to us, and feed us well.  They even have a vegan restaurant nearby!

After Marc and I decided to stay home, I could not fall back asleep as I started planning what to make for our Thanksgiving meal.  Fortunately, our daughter stopped at Whole Foods in Ann Arbor before she came home for break.  She bought a vegan dinner tray which included a rice and quinoa loaf, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and green beans.  She also brought us a vegan pumpkin pie, whipped soy cream, and some other vegan desserts. Thank you Marissa!  We planned on taking all this to Jill’s house to heat up there because they are not vegan and we did not expect them to cook a plant based Thanksgiving spread for us.  Now we could take that to my parents’ house, but I felt that we needed more.  So,  I took stock of the cupboards and tried to figure out what I could make. I had not gone grocery shopping because I thought we were leaving, and I did not have much fresh food.  I ended up baking a lentil loaf, sweet potatoes, and fat free gravy. Our daughter went out to the grocery store and made a fresh veggie tray. Mark, our son, made sage stuffing. Our sister-in-law, Kelly, prepared a crunchy Waldorf salad with a creamy tofu dressing.  My mom also prepared a lot of delicious food, including sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole and beef stew. We had something for everyone- meat eaters and vegans- and we had a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner.

Here is my plate. I finished the whole thing–so yummy!

We even went around the table and stated what we were thankful for before we started eating.  There were a lot of teary eyes and laughs.  Our four-year-old nephew said he was thankful for his sister and brother.  What a sweetheart! We are truly blessed.  We sincerely hope you all had a wonderful, healthy Thanksgiving!  We are grateful for you- thank you for your support and visiting our site.