Vegtastic Voyage

This is the saddest-looking cat in the world. This is also the only photo that turned out from Thanksgiving at my friend Yoko’s house.

Out of the five of us there, only one was an allergy-free omnivore. Three were vegan, one was allergic to gluten, and one was allergic to nuts. We decided to all bring things that everyone could eat, so it was a nut-free, gluten-free, vegan feast. What’s left, you ask? A whole hell of a lot, it turns out. Here’s what we stuffed ourselves with:

Polenta with pesto and marinara
A big ol’ pan of roasted vegetables
Mashed potatoes with kale
Cabbage rolls stuffed with brown rice and pintos
Rice-pasta eggplant lasagna
Carrot-tofu casserole
Brownies
Chocolate-bottom macaroons

It was the first time I thought about gluten, and in my recipe search for macaroons I read about all the extra little ingredients to watch out for, like malt and modified starch, and worried that I would have to work with a bunch of new foods, but really the only packaged items I used were Earth Balance and chocolate chips, both of which specifially said “gluten free.” Easy.

It was pretty cool having so many special-needs eaters gathered around a table fully confident that they could chow down on anything that looked interesting. No cobbling together a meal out of cranberry sauce, dry corn, and bread for us, thank you very much.