Thanksgiving is coming up and whether you're vegan or hosting someone who is,
it can be stressful to plan something delicious and meat free for the holiday.
Well, recently I was joined by Tony Okamoto,
who's also known as the Blogger plant based on a
budget for some healthy options for your Thanksgiving table.
Take a
look,
Tony. It's great to have you. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to show you.
I know we have some delicious dishes up here. I can smell them already.
My sweet too is kicking in,
but let's start with the cranberries right here.
This is a vegan option for the holidays. What can you tell us about this?
Well, there's nothing like a homemade cranberry sauce
and don't get me wrong. I am not knocking the canned version. However,
when I shimmy it out of the can and it stays in that can shape. I get a little bit
queasy.
I really like making my own from scratch because it's so simple. And
cranberries are in season.
I even stock up to add this cranberry sauce throughout the
year to things like a lentil loaf or something like that.
And
all we're doing is
so simple.
We're taking the either frozen or fresh cranberries,
putting them in a pot and you can either use water or orange juice
or apple juice for a little bit of flavor. Some cinnamon.
Um Sometimes I like to, if I'm being really fancy, what is some grated citrus
and some sugar and mix it all together
and it'll turn into this very beautiful delicious
cranberry sauce.
It looks really good. How would you recommend saving this?
We know leftovers are obviously very popular during the holidays.
Is this something easy to say? Absolutely.
You can either store in an airtight container
and put it in the refrigerator for a month
or what I've been loving
is using those freezer molds
and putting it in there
and you can freeze it for three to
I would even do it for six.
Yeah.
If you want to stay on the very fresh side three months and then all you do is
top um toss that into a pot and simmer it down until it looks like that again.
Ok. It smells amazing. Um I like that.
We've got this incredibly delicious pumpkin bread over here. What is this?
And how can we make it? The pumpkin bread is so delicious and fall festive.
So I make this
all season long and basically we're going to start with
some flour and ask you to mix you got it.
This is just simple all purpose flour
shake this around here. Then this is a pumpkin puree.
You can just buy the one from the store in a can
and make sure you're not going to be
using any pumpkin pie filling because that's different.
That's
yes,
that give us a little.
Thank you. That
love
has. Ok. The spices involved. Ok, great. Then we're gonna add some apple sauce
and when I use the apple sauce for is a binder, you know, we're not using eggs, right?
So this is gonna help find everything.
That's clever. You've got vanilla extract
some sugar
and
this is a mixture of cinnamon salt and baking powder. Let's get it in there.
And I love baking cinnamon. It makes the whole house smell fragrant
and this is a mixture of chopped walnuts and
um semisweet. Yes, chocolate chips.
And you can use dried cranberries or raisins, really, whatever you have in hand,
it will go very nicely in there.
And we're going to turn that into a nice dough,
put it in
uh
loaf pan.
This will go a lot easier if you have a hand mixer at home.
Um
it'll take a little bit effort. Give you some muscles. I like that. I need
to.
Yes.
And uh and then you're gonna bake it and it's gonna turn like this.
I'm actually gonna serve you one. OK? It looks delicious.
Um
And you know, yeah, go ahead.
So I it even kind of has that festive color, you know what I mean? Yes. Ok.
So, should we Cheers. Cheers. I love it.
Mm. Mhm.
Very good.
So,
walnuts are a common vegan ingredient. Right.
Yes.
Nuts in general. Nuts and seeds.
The one thing that I like about them is I think it's a great source of protein
has a lot of texture to it.
And brain food. Yes. And it's good for Omega threes.
So, now I'm not vegan, but I like to cook vegan a lot.
Actually, I like to eat vegan as well.
The holidays are a time where sometimes you feel like you're out of control. Right.
It doesn't matter if you're preparing it because you're
so busy or even coming as a guest,
you gotta feed and be with a lot of people. Why is vegan a good option?
Especially around the holidays?
Even if you don't adhere to a strict vegan diet, it's really, really nice as a,
a vegetarian as a vegan to have something to eat.
I usually do bring something.
So even if someone is watching and the vegan to bring this loaf of bread to share,
that means they'll get something to eat for dessert.
So that's one thing that I like as to begin.
But as a host,
I like to make sure that my guests
will have something no matter their dietary preferences.
So I try to keep something gluten free on hand and something vegan on hand just in case
to make sure that everyone is enjoying their meal
and I also feel like, you know, you're just kind of lighter,
like you can enjoy more of the holiday when you're able to eat.
At least some vegan options. Absolutely.
I also have a lot of, uh,
veggie dishes on hand so that it counters the mashed potatoes
and the scalloped potatoes and all of this heavier beige food.
Absolutely. Ok. So people can find your book. Um, great Vegan Tips
inside of here. I'm seeing ice cream comes burritos and pizzas, but still all vegan.
Yes, vegan and healthier.
I make those that ice cream out of frozen bananas and
it tastes just like soft serve if I'm not even joking.
Ok. I love it. Tony Okamoto joining us here on set.
We're going to dig into the cranberries after
the segment and enjoy our pumpkin bread.
Thank you. Thank you. Happy holidays.
That was a lot of fun. I get our thanks to Tony Okamoto for filming that with me.
Always good to have some plant based options on hand.