Happy Vegan Thanksgiving!

This year it was just my girlfriend and me at home on Thanksgiving, so I got to enjoy a quiet, simple-yet-festive all-vegan, salt-free, sugar-free meal.

First I made Cabbage Rolls, a recipe from my second cookbook that I still come back to over and over when I'm looking for a hearty holiday main dish. The rolls are filled with a vegan loaf made from walnuts, brown rice, and garbanzo beans.

Our side dishes were baked sweet potatoes and Green Beans with Walnuts and Pomegranate Seeds.  This was a recipe I saved from an old Martha Stewart Living magazine, sorry I can't find it online; the dressing is made from champagne vinegar, mustard, and shallot and a drizzle of walnut oil (my only non-nutritarian concession to the holiday).

For dessert I made sugar-, salt-, and fat-free Pear Ginger Cookies (sorry, not pictured), a recipe I picked up during our recent stay at TrueNorth Health Center.

So that was it -- no dead turkey, no sugar, no salt, no temptations to deal with. Best of all, no food coma afterwards! This was my favorite Thanksgiving ever!

Mango & Grape Tomato Salad

When you eat like a nutritarian "salad is the main dish".  I eat salad at least once or twice every day, and I  have to keep coming up with new salad recipes, or I get bored! Here's another healthy, nutritarian-style salad I've been enjoying lately: Mango & Grape Tomato Salad.

The flavors here are bright and sweet, and the recipe is simple. For the dressing, whisk together 1/2 cup mango juice (I used a mango-peach blend with no added sugar, but I bet you could easily put chopped mango into a blender with water and strain to make your own mango juice), 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice, 2 tablespoons minced fresh mint, a pinch of clove and a pinch of coriander.

For the salad, cut a pint of grape tomatoes in half, dice two ripe mangoes (I like Ataulfo mangoes, they're so creamy), slice or dice 1/4 of a small red onion, and toss with the dressing. Serve on a bed of lettuce with black beans and diced avocado.

For my lunch I wrapped my avocado on the side to dice at lunchtime, so it stayed fresh.

Lentil Beet Orange Salad

This was a great salad! I was looking for something fun to do with leftover cooked lentils when I came up with the idea for a Lentil Beet Orange Salad.

I baked whole beets the night before: scrub whole beets without peeling, wrap them in foil, and bake at 400F for about 45 minutes, until easily pierced with a knife. After they cool down the skins slip off easily when rubbed with the back of a paring knife.

In the morning I tossed diced beets, orange segments, and lentils on a bed of lettuce and packed the salad with Orange Sesame Cashew Dressing. The combination of sweet beets, earthy lentils, and bright citrus was amazing!