At first, I was at a loss for the main dish. The "Entrees" chapter has a seemingly endless list of veggie loaves that sound bland, heavy, and nearly identical except for minor variations in ingredients. I didn't know how I would choose, but luckily, they picked for me:
I'm not sure what makes this the Thanksgiving roast. My guess is the sage, a half teaspoon of which is surely plenty to season cups of boiled lentils, bread crumbs, and nuts. I don't really see olives in many of the other loaves either, so maybe those are supposed to make this extra festive.
The loaf is to be served with brown gravy, perhaps to help makeit seem more festive and less like a pile of bland mush.
I'm not convinced this will help much, especially since I've never liked the sweet and savory combination. That's okay, since our goal is not to have to host again. We don't want the "vegetable liquid" and "vegetable flakes" thickened with flour and margarine and sweetened with brown sugar to work too many wonders.
Most Thanksgiving tables also include some kind of stuffing. We want to seem hospitable enough that guests won't suspect our less charitable notions, so let's find some stuffing.
I really have no idea what makes this stuffing! Baking canned soybeans with diced celery and eggs sounds like it could be another loaf? Or maybe stew-ish? I'm not sure what the texture of this might be, but I don't know how this fits the legal definition of stuffing.
Oh, right. There is no standard of identity for stuffing. That must be how this one slipped through.
If all of this isn't enough to make sure Thanksgiving is at Uncle Joe's house next year, dessert should do the trick:
If you feel like being nice, go with the "Very Mild" formulation. If subtlety is lost on your family, "Not So Mild" is probably your best bet.
And hope dessert doesn't kick in until they're on the way home!
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