Our Vegan Thanksgiving
The big day is coming right up!!! We just finished making our massive grocery list for Thanksgiving dinner. We’ve already purchased this: I’m also going to marinate and cook some tofu, in case we don’t like the roast- we have a history of trying these vegan roasts and not loving them. We’ll also have mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls, salad, cranberry sauce, gravy, and I’m making this recipe for cauliflower stuffing that I read about on Suzanne’s blog! We’ll also be having three pies, one pecan and two pumpkin. One of the pumpkin pies is only for me, because I make it with no sugar, The rest of the family has a “normal” pumpkin pie, and my husband and son make the pecan pie. Now, wait a minute! (you might be thinking.) Thanksgiving without turkey? Pie without sugar??? I promise you- it’s all delicious. Here’s our schedule for the week: Tuesday: I work while everyone else lounges at home in their pajamas. After work, grocery shopping. After shopping, I’ll be making the pie crusts. I will not be cooking dinner this night! I’ll let the family sort that out. Wednesday: No work! We’ll get our Christmas tree and set it up (but not decorate it.) Day of cooking- we’ll make all three pies, the mashed potatoes and the stuffing. My husband and son do their fair share of cooking. THURSDAY!: Cook everything else! Eat! Friday: Grr. I’ll be going to work while once again, the rest of the family lounges at home in their pajamas. But my Black Friday tradition is to go to work, and as soon as I get home, eat a piece of pumpkin pie. Then we’ll decorate the Christmas tree! Obviously no cooking tonight. I think this is my favorite week of the year. The whole family is here, the kids don’t have school (and neither does my husband.) We have so much good food, and then the Christmas season begins!!! If you celebrate Thanksgiving, how is this week for you? Do you love it? If you don’t live in the US, I apologize for the Thanksgiving frenzy. But I hope you have an awesome week! Header photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
The Most Epic Week
My son came home Saturday afternoon- he goes to college in Texas, so we haven’t seen him since early August. As always, it was a jubilant homecoming, and when he went to bed that night he said “I’ll be up around 9:00 tomorrow to start the MOST EPIC THANKSGIVING WEEK EVER!” Can you see why I love having him home so much? Everything is so much fun when he’s here! We’ve started this epic week with lots of epic food. For Saturday night’s dinner, I made the Pumpkin Baked Ziti from Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s Veganomicon cookbook. I love this meal so much- you make a cashew ricotta, which is mixed with pumpkin puree, spices, caramelized onions and the cooked ziti. Then you bake it with breadcrumbs on top. SO. GOOD. For dessert I made these Salted Caramel Apple Bars from Nora Cooks. I didn’t actually eat these but they looked and smelled delicious. Sunday morning- I was up and out early for a 10 mile run, and when I came home I had the last pumpkin waffles of the season. A couple people asked about my “recipe.” I put 2 cups of rolled oats, two scoops of protein powder, two cups of water, a banana, salt and spices in the blender and blend it all up. That’s the recipe! I should really call these “pumpkin spice” waffles, because while I used pumpkin pie spices, there’s no actual pumpkin in them. I tried making them with pumpkin puree instead of the banana but they weren’t as good, so now I just stick to the banana. For the rest of the family, I made “normal” waffles- again, a recipe from Nora Cooks for “Best Ever Vegan Waffles.” Here’s my son’s plate: As he was eating breakfast he said “I can see why I always gain weight when I come home.” Luckily, that’s a good thing! He’s always trying to gain weight. For lunch, I had planned to make a charcuterie board with fancy-schmancy vegan cheese I ordered from SriMu, but my husband also had gotten really good bagels. So we ended up just spreading the cheese on bagels. So delicious. THEN, my daughter had a friend come over and I ended up making chocolate chip cookies. I wouldn’t have made them on this day, but the girls wanted to bake something and I also didn’t want them digging into the caramel apple bars. ONCE AGAIN, I used a recipe from Nora Cooks (where would we be without Nora?) Perfect Vegan Chocolate Chip cookies, and I think this is my new go-to recipe. They were easy, straightforward, didn’t require chilling the dough, and they came out great. Dinner was leftover baked ziti, and I have to say not having to cook dinner completely changed up my Sunday vibe. I was much more relaxed all afternoon, and I think this may be a new thing. Cook Saturday night instead of Sunday! I’m going to try it from now on. Now I feel like we’ve all carb-loaded and should be ready to run a marathon. I’ll be getting up tomorrow and heading to the gym and then work, but since my daughter doesn’t have school I can sleep an hour later. Yet another way this week is going to be epic! (If you think that’s a lot of food, just wait till you see what we have for Thanksgiving…) Whether you’re celebrating Thanksgiving or not, I hope everyone has an epic week! Header photo by Kerstin Wrba on Unsplash
Weekly Rundown- Sore Legs and a Mini-Monsoon?
Hello! Welcome once again as I join Kim and Deborah for the Weekly Rundown. It was a weird week with heat, rain, wind, and lots of sore muscles. Let’s just see how it all played out… Sunday Well, best long run ever!!! I was scared, because when I started it was 72 degrees with 93% humidity- and the temperature climbed steadily through this run. But I felt AWESOME. 18 AWESOME MILES! I’m not sure exactly what to attribute it to, but I will say a truck should be arriving any day now with my lifetime supply of Tailwind. I used the raspberry flavor on this run, which contains caffeine. I strongly suspect that it was the Tailwind that made me feel incredible. Yes, I know it’s a little hard to drink- you get sick of it. But it’s worth it. Monday I was sore today, but got out for a one mile walk and then 3 miles of running. Once I got started it wasn’t too bad. Tuesday Gym day! My legs were STILL sore, so I didn’t want to do squats or deadlifts. I started off pushing and pulling the sled: … and then focused on upper body. I did bench press (which I’ve been neglecting lately) and overhead shoulder press with dumbbells. I followed everything up with some work on the ab machines. Wednesday Now my legs are feeling better, but my arms and chest are super sore from the bench press. 4 mile run… …followed by dead bugs, where I could barely extend my arms above my head because they were so sore! Sigh. This was also the day our “mini monsoon” started. It was windy and rainy all day, and into the next day. The county next to us actually canceled school, but luckily our schools stayed open. It felt like a mild version of a tropical storm- weird. Thursday Leg day at the gym! Sled pushes and pulls, squats, deadlifts… And then I made my way over to the machines. My right knee has been troublesome lately. Nothing terrible- sometimes I’ll feel it when I’m walking, and then in the first couple steps of my runs I’ll feel a jolt of pain. I don’t feel it for the rest of the time I’m running, but I don’t like jolts of pain. I figured the muscles around the knee needed some extra attention, so I did the leg curl and leg extension machines. While I was there I admired this guy’s t-shirt: Friday Oof. Following the laws of working out, since I did something different at the gym, today I was super sore. 4 mile run with heavy, tired legs. Sheesh! I need a day off. Saturday Oh, guess what it is- a day off! I was able to sleep in a little before work. And then in the afternoon, my son arrived home from college!!! Hooray! Best day ever. Sunday On tap for today- 10 mile run. Now that my long runs are entering the “actual long” category, I’m not going to do them every single week. This week is a “short” long run. I’m excited to run without sore muscles screaming at me for a change. How was your week? Are you ready for Thanksgiving? Do you have extra time off this week? – I’ll have Wednesday and Thursday off, but have to work on Black Friday. My daughter is off of school all week so that feels like a little vacation to me!
Blogger Inspiration
One of the things I love about NaBloPoMo is all the ideas I get from other bloggers. I mean, I read blogs year-round but there’s a wealth of blog posts this month! A few of my recent favorites… Elisabeth just posted about her Year of Rest Notebook. She plans to record the ways in which she’s making 2024 the Year of Rest, and I love the idea. Every year I start off great with a theme, and halfway through the year I can’t even remember what it was. Having a notebook specifically dedicated to my yearly theme (haven’t picked one for 2024 yet!) would help me stay focused. And speaking of yearly themes, SHU shared her word for 2024 and I love it so much. It fits in with my own ideas this month of really paying attention and getting the most from each day. I’m going to have to find something similar for my own 2024 word. And finally, Sarah posted about the incredible holiday bedding sale at Macy’s. Well, you knew I’d be all over that! I scooted right over there and ordered sheets for my daughter’s bed (she already has a Christmas-y blanket) and a comforter set for our bed. I didn’t check with my husband first- I’ll let it be a surprise. Don’t worry- I already have an entire holiday bedding set for my son’s room. I wouldn’t let him be left out! And speaking of my son… This is a shorter post because my son comes home tomorrow! I haven’t seen him since early August and I miss him so much! I’ve spent the evening getting his room ready because, well… you might remember from the big closet cleanout post that storage space is limited in our house, and his room seems to have accumulated quite a bit of stuff over the past few months. I had to do a little work to transform it back into his bedroom again (as opposed to my home gym/gigantic storage closet.) Don’t even ask where all that stuff went… let’s just say my closet isn’t quite as clean as it was on Wednesday (sigh.) Do you pick a theme or word for the year? Have you picked one for 2024 yet? Header photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash