A Turkeyless Thanksgiving -- Orange Cranberry Loaf

Happy Thanksgiving!! I hope that everyone spends that day enjoying everything that they're thankful for, I'll be spending the day with my family and hopefully with J. a little later tonight.

Here's the final post in the "Turkeyless Thanksgiving", what some would argue is the best part of the meal. This orange cranberry loaf isn't your typical dessert although it's a little sweet, it's pretty tart. This pairs really well with the appetizer, drink and side dish. The sweetness of the loaf pairs nicely with the pumpkin puree in the main dish.

A Turkeyless Thanksgiving:
Appetizer: Roasted Grape and Blue Cheese Bites
Main Dish: Pumpkin Sage Pasta

Cocktail: Skinny Vanilla Cranberry
Side Dish: Cranberry Sauce
Dessert: Orange Cranberry Loaf

Ingredients:
-2 3/4 Cup of all-purpose
-2 Teaspoon of baking powder
-1/4 Teaspoon of baking soda
-1/2 Teaspoon of salt
-1 3/4 Cup of white sugar
-1/2 Cup of butter, melted
-1 Cup of mandarin orange segments, drained (or navel oranges)
-2 Cup of fresh cranberries
-2 large eggs
-3/4 Cup of milk
-3/4 Cup of sour cream
-1 Teaspoon of vanilla extract

This recipe makes 2 loaves! I cut it in half to make one loaf.

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar.
Stir in melted butter until the mix is crumbly. 

Fold in the cranberries and oranges.

In a separate bowl mix together eggs, milk, sour cream and vanilla extract.

Mix the egg mixture into the dough.

Mix carefully. 

Pour into a greased loaf pan.

Enjoy! 

A Turkeyless Thanksgiving -- Skinny Vanilla Cranberry Cocktail

In an attempt to stay within our theme today is our "Turkeyless Thanksgiving" cocktail. The skinny vanilla cranberry is a little bit sweet and a little bit tangy pairing perfectly with the appetizer and main dish. The bonus? It's a skinny cocktail so it's much healthier than a normal cocktail, this one is sugar free! So feel free to take another appetizer or to load your plate up because your cocktail drinking just got a little more guilt free.

This cocktail recipe comes from The Fromagette.

A Turkeyless Thanksgiving:
Appetizer: Roasted Grape and Blue Cheese Bites
Main Dish: Pumpkin Sage Pasta

Cocktail: Skinny Vanilla Cranberry

Ingredients:
-juice + zest of 3 large navel oranges
-2 12oz bags fresh cranberries, rinsed and picked over
-1/2 cup Truvia
-2 cups water
-3 cups vanilla vodka
-1 large bottle sparkling water

Blend together cranberries, orange zest, water.

Strain the puree into a pitcher. 

Press down on the puree to extract the liquid. 

Vodka!

Add the vodka to the pitcher.

Pour into a glass and top with sparkling water.

Garnish with cranberry and orange. 

I'd be lying if I told you that you couldn't tell that this was a skinny drink, however, it's still pretty tasty.

A Turkeyless Thanksgiving -- Pumpkin Sage Pasta

This is the second "Turkeyless Thanksgiving" post. Today is a guest post from Becky and this recipe is the main dish. I know pasta isn't a traditional Thanksgiving dish, but working with Tofurkey weirds me out so for the main dish we decided to take a non-traditional approach. The sage and the pumpkin are flavors which are very reminiscent of fall.

The sweetness of the pumpkin puree pairs nicely with the sweetness of the grapes/honey in the appetizer, but the creaminess of the pasta sauce is a nice pairing with the creaminess of the blue cheese in the appetizer.

A Turkeyless Thanksgiving:
Appetizer: Roasted Grape and Blue Cheese Bites
Main Dish: Pumpkin Sage Pasta

This recipe comes from Country Living and you can find it here.

Ingredients:

-1 cup heavy cream
-1/2 cup pumpkin puree
-1/4 cup Parmesan
-16 fresh sage leaves (about a tsp dried)

-pasta

This made 3-4 servings of sauce.

Add the pumpkin and the cream

Add the cheese and sage

Simmer for 10-12 minutes

I liked that this had a fall/Thanksgiving flavor. It was good for a vegetarian main dish that could be used on Thanksgiving. It was sort of an odd combination, pumpkin and pasta, but the sage and pumpkin went together well.

Check back tomorrow for the next post in the series.

A Turkeyless Thanksgiving -- Roasted Grape and Blue Cheese Bites

Happy Thanksgiving week!!

Starting today and going  through Thursday the daily blog post will be "A Turkeyless Thanksgiving" post. Those five blogs all together will form a holiday meal. Keep checking back daily to find out another course of the meal. Becky is home for Thanksgiving break so we'll be making most of these recipes together so you'll see some posts from me and some guest pots from Becky.

What about Soup Wednesday?!? There will be two blog posts on Wednesday, the typical Soup Wednesday post and "A Turkeyless Thanksgiving" post.

Starting off "A Turkeyless Thanksgiving" week is this appetizer which I found on Pinterest from the blog Feast on the Cheap.

Ingredients:
-Phyllo cups/shells, thawed and baked according to package instructions
-2 cups red seedless grapes
-Pinch of sea salt
-1 teaspoon olive oil
-4 ounces of blue cheese
-1 Tablespoon honey

The above recipe makes 24 bites, I only had 15 phyllo cups so I reduced the recipe slightly.

Bake the phyllo shells according to package directions.

Coat the grapes in oil and salt.
Roast in the oven at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Top each phyllo pastry with blue cheese. 

Remove the grapes from the oven and place several grapes on top of the  blue cheese. 

Drizzle with honey and serve warm. 

This appetizer was delicious! The tartness of the blue cheese paired with the sweetness of the honey and roasted grapes was amazing. These were also a perfect appetizer because the pastry shells were so small the roasted grape and blue cheese bites could just be popped into your mouth. Nothing messy, just good finger food.

I will say that although I loved this appetizer, not everyone did. We made these a J.'s apartment and 3/4 of us enjoyed this appetizer. I personally like blue cheese so I think that most likely contributed to me liking this dish. However, this appetizer is the perfect start to "A Turkeyless Thanksgiving" week and will go nicely with everything else that's currently planned.

Check back tomorrow!