No Thanks

This is my third holiday season as a vegan and I can't wait for it be over. I can't stand the holidays anyway, but attending family dinners and such makes them even more annoying. Last Thanksgiving, I ate Chinese food in Iceland. The one before that, I was at a friends and I was left hungry. I'm not saying that everybody should modify their eating habits to include vegans in their annual feasts, but I just get sick of sitting around watching everybody stuff their face while I nibble on bread. Also, there's a reason people only eat turkey on the holidays: because they think they have to. Nobody really likes it or knows how to cook it. Why bother killing something that you don't even enjoy?

This Thanksgiving I was actually home sick. I ate two bananas and an avocado all day. I did end up cooking a meal at my parents house on Saturday though. I found a recipe for a "Cajun cornbread casserole" that I modified because I rarely follow recipes. I also hate celery, so I left that out. Celery is pretty much the only vegan food I won't eat. A gallon of peanut butter would not make it more appetizing to me.

Anyway, here is a nasty messy picture of my casserole's sloppy goodness:



To make this, I soaked a cup each of dried kidney beans and chickpeas overnight, and then boiled them the next day. I then sauteed two red bell peppers, a large yellow onion, and a buttload of garlic. I added the juice from a can of diced tomatoes and a couple of heaping spoonfuls of Cajun seasoning and let that cook and thicken up. I chopped the canned tomatoes up before adding them, and then I stirred in the beans. For the cornbread topping, I mixed 2 cups of corn meal, a tablespoon of baking powder, 1.5 cups of soy milk, and half a cup of applesauce.

This meal was around 80% organic and cost me $4 to make a huge pan of it. That includes $2 spent on bell peppers. This once again proves that you can eat healthy, well-rounded organic vegan meals very cheaply. There was at least 8 hearty servings in this dish also. I will definitely be making it again, especially if I see bell peppers on sale.