Vegetarian Thanksgiving

Born and brought up in India, I hadn't really heard of Thanksgiving until I landed in the US in '98 as a student. And I remember that year, my Professor from the University invited a bunch of new students over to his house for the Thanksgiving feast and that's when I first found about about the different thanksgiving ingredients and how they are cooked. Of course, being a vegetarian I didn't sample the Turkey, but I really enjoyed a lot of the side dishes. Mashed potatoes, cranberry relish, green bean casserole, yummy butternut squash soup, not to mention a nice big serving of Pumpkin pie topped with some  homemade whipped cream! So this year, I've decided to cook an All-Vegetarian Thanksgiving feast for my family. I am not sure what I'll be making yet, but I know all the different ingredients I am going to work with. Plus, I saw this wonderful article from Food Network/Healthy Eats about how to cook up a vegetarian Thanksgiving feast. So with that as the inspiration, I am looking at coming up with my own recipes using these ingredients:

> Butternut squash

> Green beans

> Potatoes (I am thinking add Indian touches. How does Masala Mashed potatoes sound?)

>Cranberries (Cranberry Chutney?? Yum!)

> Pumpkin Puree (I am thinking Pie or Pumpkin bread French-toast-style, topped with some cinnamon sugar and whipped cream)

I am not sure what the main dish would be...the Vegetarian Chili recipe from the above link from Healthy Eats sounds fabulous. Or I might just make a rice or a couscous based dish, with lots of veggies and some Indian spices.

I'll post the recipes here over the weekend, if they turn out good of course.

Hope you have fun planning and executing your Thanksgiving meal too!