Happy Vegeversary to Me!

Today makes 14 years vegetarian and 4 years vegan! Back in 1994 (when I was 14), I made the choice to give up poultry and fish on the day after Thanksgiving. I'd given up beef and pork a few months earlier and after a day of gorging on turkey, I decided to become a vegetarian.

On the day after Thanksgiving in 2004, to celebrate my ten year vegeversary, I went a step further by entering a vegan trial run — I vowed to eat no cheese or dairy for one whole month. After a month went by, I realized that I didn't really miss dairy products and I loved vegan cheese substitutes. So I made the trial run a permanent thing and never looked back. (Technically, the anniversary date is probably not today since Thanksgiving moves around date-wise, but I find it easier to keep track of this way).

This morning, my mom and I celebrated my vegan-ness with a Black Friday shopping brunch at Brother Juniper's, an awesome breakfast joint with lots of veggie options. Here I am eating the Veggie Sausage Tofu Scramble with Home Fries and Whole Wheat Toast:

The scramble had veggie sausage chunks, spinach, and roasted red pepper. And I spread that toast liberally with Brother Juniper's special blueberry spreadable fruit (the BEST stuff!) instead of that nasty whipped butter on my plate. My omni mom even ate a tofu scramble and declared it the "best breakfast ever."

For dinner tonight, I had a plate of Thanksgiving leftovers, which I have a TON of hanging out in my fridge. Here's my plate from yesterday:

There's a yeast roll, mama's vegan cornbread dressin', homemade cranberry sauce, 2 slices of Field Roast Celebration Roast, Granny's Southwestern corn salad, vegan cole slaw, green beans, baked kabocha squash, vegan hash brown casserole, and vegan broccoli & cheeze casserole.

My mom and I always get up early on Thanksgiving Day and we cook all day long. She makes the best vegan cornbread dressin' in the whole world ever! And all the sides are veganized so I can eat them too.

Here I am stirring some apples with cinnamon, sugar, and pecans:

You can't see it here, but my shirt says "Save a Turkey, Eat Tofu." Clever, huh?

And here's what the apples went into — the Apple Streudel from The Joy of Vegan Baking:

OMG! This stuff was amazing! Apple pie-style filling rolled up in buttery sheets of crispy phyllo and topped with toasted cinnamon pecans and vanilla icing.

Granny even veganized her Coconut Cake recipe:

This is my dad's favorite cake, and even though coconut isn't a traditional Thanksgiving ingredient, it went over really, really well. No one could even tell it was vegan. And since it sits in the fridge for three days and gets all moist and yummy, it really melts in your mouth. Granny also tried to veganize her pecan pie, but it flopped. So she made one the regular way instead. She gets bonus points for trying though ... I doubt I would have had enough room in my belly for pie anyway!

Hope ya'll had a fabulous Thanksgiving and Black Friday!