A Very Nice Thanksgiv - vegan

We had a quiet, uneventful day yesterday, for which I'm grateful, and everything I cooked turned out just fine. My son is a vegan, and so for the first time I had to come up with tried-and-true Mix Family Thanksgiving dishes without cream, eggs, butter or any other animal products. The turkey was a given -- please smack me if I ever decide to go the Tofurkey route -- but the vegan version of mashed potatoes, dressing, and various casseroles was a bit of a challenge.

But my son is as committed to being a nice young man as he is to being a vegan, so the dinner was served with a lot of sincere "Thanks, Mom!" The sauteed green beans with olive oil and rosemary, the soy milk-infused garlic mashed potatoes, the apple-sweet potato-cinnamon-brown sugar casserole, and the vegan pumpkin pie were all a hit -- no globs of cream of mushroom soup with the beans, no heavy cream and butter for the mashed potatoes, no evaporated milk and eggs with the pumpkin, and no marshmallows encrusting the sweet potatoes. (Why no marshmallows? Because the gelatin used in making them is, like all other gelatin, made from collagen and stuff from cows, which I don't really want to think about when I'm eating strawberry Jello, thanks, but which is true nonetheless). My son's new diet has proved to be a great benefit to his dad and me, even though we still eat some animal products. I have to say that a feast without the benefit of animal cruelty or exploitation was, indeed, a delight to partake of. There's nothing austere or spare in a table loaded with freshly-cooked vegetables and light, dairy-free casseroles and desserts, and I suspect that this time next year, I'll remember the joys of not feeling over-stuffed and sluggish from a feast laden with the bounty of the earth, not the takings of an animal.