Pinterest Thanksgiving

I should have posted this a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't.  I pulled a lot of ideas from Pinterest for Thanksgiving this year, as I tried to make my favorite dishes in a way that I could eat them. Some went well, others not so much.

The Turkey - yeah, I cooked it to death. Usually, my turkeys are awesome, it would figure that this year being the one year that I needed to stick to the turkey I made rather than risking what someone else made that my turkey would turn out like jerky.

The dressing - I started with this recipe I found on Pinterest. Except that instead of using their recipe for Southern Cornbread. I used Bob's Red Mill cornbread mix.... which I later learned is Northern Cornbread (sweet).  Had it not been for that one change, this would have been really good cornbread stuffing. Instead, I had to load it down with salt to cut the sweetness.

Mashed Potatoes - Seriously, if all I had for Thanksgiving were these three items and gravy. I'd be a happy camper...  For the potatoes, I used this recipe (but with red potatoes). Luckily, these actually turned out very good. I didn't miss having dairy in them at all, they were so good and creamy.

Next was dessert. I went with one already tested recipe, the Vegan Raw Pumpkin "Cheesecake". It got mixed reviews. I think I liked it more than most. One of my cousins said it tasted more like sweet potatoes than Pumpkin (perhaps it needed more spice).  Given that this was one of about 4 different Pumpkin pies... I was happy if anyone even tried it.  In addition to the Pumpkin "cheesecake". I also made two different chocolate coconut recipes.

Chocolate Macaroons - OMG! These were so good, although I may have been the only one who thought so. These are the cooked ones, I melted a little chocolate over the top and they were so yummy. Others seemed to prefer the raw chocolate coconut pumpkin macaroons. Honestly, they were both really good.  One of my aunts thought the Chocolate Macaroons were the No-bake oatmeal cookies my mom used to make... only to find out they were coconut (something she's evidently slightly allergic to), after she'd eaten 2 of them.  Both of these recipes were so easy to make that you could make them any time you have a chocolate craving then keep the leftovers in the freezer for later.