Vegan Is Not Just Salad: Vegan Turkey for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is tomorrow. I am vegan and my mom is vegetarian. What exactly are we supposed to do? We decided to have a barbecue for the husbands, but what about us ladies? If my mom makes food, unfortunately I cannot eat it (she loves her cheese and sour cream) but if I make food, we both can eat. Soooooo.....I decided to look into a vegan turkey. Well nothing really exists except tofu, and I don't eat soy. I remember once someone gave me a recipe for a Henrietta Ham (Vegan) but I never ate ham and really wanted to make something more turkey like. I read the recipe and it turned on some light bulbs in my head. I snuck a taste of this guy already, and it's delicious! I only cooked the "turkey" for 3 hours last night so that way on Thanksgiving we can heat him up for another couple hours. I think this should feed about 4-6 people (since it's all nuts). If you have a large family, I don't know what will happen if you make a giant one, perhaps try several small ones? Happy Thanksgiving! Save the turkeys!!!!!!

Vegan Turkey

1 cup Almonds

1 cup Pecans

3/4 cup Cashew Halves

1/4 cup Sunflower Seeds

2 small White Onion (or 1 medium)

3 cloves Garlic

1 Celery Stalk

2 teaspoons Lemon Juice

1 teaspoon Herb Stop's Cumin Powder

1/2 teaspoon Herb Stop's Rosemary Powder

1/2 teaspoon Herb Stop's Italian Seasoning Powder

1/2 teaspoon Herb Stop's Poultry Rub

3 Tablespoons Herb Stop's Brown Flax Seeds (grind into a powder right before making this dish)

1 teaspoon Herb Stop's Himalayan Salt

1/4 teaspoon Herb Stop's Turmeric Powder

1 Tablespoon Maple Syrup

2 Tablespoon Pineapple Juice

a few tablespoons pineapple pieces

Soak almonds, pecans, cashews and sunflower seeds for 3 hours.

Preheat oven to 250. Drain and add to food processor (I used a Vita Mix but this took lots of work) with onion and garlic. Mix until creamy and pureed. This should not be chunky, it should be fairly smooth. Add celery, lemon juice, cumin, rosemary, Italian seasoning, poultry rub, ground flax seeds, salt and turmeric to the nut mixture. Mix by hand until very well mixed. Using about 2/3 of this mixture create the body of the turkey. Divide the other 1/3 into 4 pieces. Shape the drumsticks and wings. The drumstick will be oval, but most of the mixture will be towards the bottom. For the wings, I rolled them in my hands into a log and folded part of the top over and pinched the top. When putting these parts on the body make sure you pinch it all together. One of my drumsticks fell off while it was cooking, but it was pretty easy to put right back on. Place turkey onto a slipmat (silicone baking sheet) and into a jelly roll-ish pan.

Sprinkle some pineapple pieces on top and around the bottom of the turkey. Mix maple syrup and pineapple juice together. Baste the turkey with this combination. It makes the turkey a little sweet and adds some brown color. Bake at 250 for 3 hours if making ahead of time. When you take this out of the oven, trim away the bottom of pineapple pieces and dried out syrup. On the final day, bake for 2-4 hours or until fairly dehydrated, but still moist.

Since I haven't put the turkey back in the oven for a second time, I'm not really sure what the time is yet. Once it's done tomorrow, I'll amend this post :)