Wordless Wednesday: Tampa ThanksVegan 2012

Heaps of Thanksvegan Recipes!

ACK! It's almost Thanksgiving! Hopefully you know what the heck you're gonna make/eat/serve, but if not, here's a quick round-up of vegan noms, from simple to elegant to downright sexy. I look forward to reading about everyone's Tofurky Day! (And yes, I will also be sharing my feast!)

Scroll down on this link for some classic Thanksgiving flavors with a raw vegan twist.

Listen, I've been vegan for most of my life now, but I was never a big fan of salads. It's hard to get excited about a bowl of leafy raw veggies when there are so many other awesome foods to eat! HOWEVER, these salads would give me a case of the good wiggles.

Forks and Beans always has such cutie patootie things on her blog. Check out her kid-friendly Thanksgiving recipes here. (It's totally not just for kids, though.)

Angela from Oh She Glows is such a classy dame. Check out her round-up of GORGEOUS holiday recipes, as well as some tips on having a stress-free holiday amongst meat-eaters.

The fine folk at Catskill Animal Sanctuary offer these lovely holiday recipes.

Thanks, Vegetarian Times! How to Tackle a Squash. My preferred method? Get someone else to do it.

STOP EVERYTHING and someone please cook one of EVERYTHING off this round-up and send it my way! (Then ya best believe I'll be givin' thanks!)

Okay, food aside (just for a moment!), vegan warrior, Jenny Brown shares some tips on surviving Thanksgiving as a lone vegan.

Check out this new site from Mercy for Animals, Pardon A Turkey. Learn fun facts about turkeys, grab some yummy vegan recipes, and pledge to "pardon a turkey," and be entered to win some goodies from Tofurky, Field Roast, or gardein!

What are you serving up for Thanksgiving? Got some rockin' recipes? Share them in the comments!

Tampa ThanksVegan 2011

This year's Tampa ThanksVegan Dinner was the 6th annual, but only my second. This event will always have a special place in my heart, as it was my first big vegan event when I moved to Florida last November, and I met so many special people at that event, people that have become such beautiful friends.

[You can read about last year's ThanksVegan HERE.]

This year I was much more involved in planning the event. I helped keep the Facebook page active, I helped with volunteer coordinating the day of, which was difficult to juggle along with the task of being the photographer again. The day went by so much faster than last year, and this year was much more hectic, but I still had a great time. One of my friends said it perfectly when she said that as busy and crazy as the day can be, we're still hanging out with our friends, anyway.

Volunteers were in the kitchen by 9am, prepping Tofurkies and Field Roasts and stuffed gardein turk'ys.

We had a great water filter set-up for reusable bottles, and we also collected the food scraps for the piggies at Darlynn's Darlin's pig sanctuary.

So Delicious and Earth Balance both donated dairy-free nogs.

Java Planet donated lots of fair-trade coffee, too.

Sami's Bakery provided DELICIOUS dinner rolls at a discount.

And what goes better with soft rolls than Earth Balance buttery spread? EB donated tubs of each variety!

Now let's talk Tofurky, and then some! Tofurky roasts, Field Roast Celebration Roasts, and gardein stuffed turk'ys were all generously donated by the companies.

There was a vast variety of potluck dishes to choose from.

Here's my Thanksgiving 2011 plate.

Here are some other plates. We were all amused by how different they all looked. A vegan diet is most DEFINITELY a varied diet!

And of course, there was dessert. My buddy Dean makes KILLER cheesecakes. I'm not joking -- I was floating on a cloud of pure contentedness after relishing slices of banana-nut, pumpkin spice, and classic NY-style. (I only got to taste gingerbread last year, so I passed over that one.)

So Delicious and Whole Foods Tampa donated lots of sweet treats that went fast!

And here's a classic case of Being in the Right Place at the Right Time: toward the end of the event, a guest came bearing an amazing gift - a tray of vegan cannoli!

I had a double chocolate one, which had a little spicy kick to it, courtesy of cinnamon and cayenne. What a treat! That was also the first cannoli I've ever had in my life! My friends and I were tickled and ended up having a silly photoshoot with our cannoli, but I won't be posting anything from that series here. ;) It was a very sweet ending to a crazy, awesome, busy, loving whirlwind-of-a-Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving 2011

It's Thanksgiving time again, which is my favorite of the big holidays. Giving thanks and gratitude and showing love and appreciation: we just don't do that often enough.

Elsewhere on the interwebs, not affiliated with this blog, I had been posting almost daily, up until Thanksgiving Day, what I was thankful for. Some of the posts were silly things, and some were more personal. I don't get very personal on this blog, but now that the big day is here, I want to share my final gratitude for the holiday with you here.

I am thankful for myself. I am thankful for the strength I have and the bravery I continue to find within me. I am thankful for the moments I speak up, even when my voice shakes. I am thankful for my silliness, for my goofy personality, for my heart (both the one that beats and keeps me alive and the one that reaches out to others). I am thankful for my health, which is actually pretty darn good, all things considered. I am thankful for my body, every square inch of it, and I am thankful that I finally stopped hating it this past year. I am thankful for my adaptability, my resourcefulness, and my "won't-take-no-for-an-answer"-ness. I am thankful for my creativity and talents, even though they often seem quite hidden. I am thankful for my dreams that keep me going and my constant burning desire to make them a reality. I am thankful that I finally learned to not settle for anything less than I am worth.

I have so much to be thankful for, every single day.

What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving 2010

What an awesome Thanksgiving I had! I attended the Tampa ThanksVegan Feast and met some really wonderful people. Honestly, this event was, for me, more about the people than the food. Above, you can see my plate, which held some pretty yummy foods, but I can barely remember it. I was just having so much fun chatting with so many new people.

(But I know you want to know what's what on that plate, so starting at 12:00, you're looking at: mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, a dollop of shepherd's pie, broccoli "quiche," baked mac & "cheese," roasted veggies (mostly beets), wheat berry "Waldorf" salad, tabouleh salad, curry tempeh salad, a little chunk of Tofurky, a little chunk of Celebration Roast, and a little dollop of cinnamon-cranberry sauce.)

In fact, let's just do a quick roll call on some of the potluck dishes.

To start, there was a Sheese and crackers spread.




It was very popular.

Now on to the dishes.



















Lots of chatting and picture taking caused me to miss out on most of the dessert table. I was able to nab two little pieces of "cheese"cake, one NY style and the other gingerbread, and I added a little strip of Rice Whip, just for funsies. (NY style was my favorite of the two.)


There were a lot of other interesting desserts included in the spread.


What's a vegan potluck without a chocolate tofu pie, amirite?!






There were also piles of So Delicious Neopolitan ice cream sandwiches, chocolate-almond ice cream bars, and cotton candy!
Though this ThanksVegan feast was much larger than last week's potluck, I paced myself very well and didn't overindulge. (However, between this event and the next day's event, I definitely ate more wheat than I ever normally would, so I'm feeling a little out of whack and am ready to get back on my mostly-wheat-free diet.) Since I became the designated picture taker for the day, I was kept busy, trying to make sure I took pictures of as many people as possible (and usually, my focus is on the food, so this was a fun little challenge). I believe the grand total of attendees was 206.

Even a news camera man showed up!


So many great people came together and volunteered their time and talents and made this a really fun event. I can see why it's so popular - this was their 5th annual ThanksVegan!