My Thanksliving meal consisted of: Marinated Mushrooms, Ani Phyo’s Walnut Cranberry Squash “Rice” and Brussel Sprouts.

The mushrooms tasted savory, and my brother at one point told me it looked like steak. If you were to cut the gills of the mushroom off and peel the tops it would probably end up looking like turkey. But I’m personally a fan of the gills, I love the texture. The Walnut Cranberry Squash Rice is sweet, festive, filling and overall it’s beautiful both in taste and looks. I am now obsessed with this Brussel Sprout recipe I came up with, it was relatively cheap since I already had the dressing materials I just had to buy the brussels sprouts (they were roughly a dollar a pound).

Below are the recipes for these three dishes. I had also tried a cranberry relish recipe from a raw book I have but I ended up not liking it at all 😡

Marinated Mushrooms

Level: Easy

Equipment: Dehydrator

Time: 10 minutes to prepare mushrooms and 2 hours in the dehydrator (you can do it for less if you like, the longer they are in there the more “meat” like they get)

Recipe:

1 Portobello Mushroom, washed and cut into thin strips (I peeled half of the Portobello and left the other half alone, I like the taste of the peel and leaving some on for looks)

Thyme, Sage, Rosemary, Salt & Pepper according to taste

1 1/2 your preferred oil (I used olive oil, flax doesn’t taste that great here…I’ve tried it before)

1 small garlic clove minced

When pouring your oil in make sure you mix the mushrooms around so one mushroom doesn’t get all the oil and completely turn the color of your oil. Massage the herbs and spices onto the mushrooms. Then spread the mushrooms out on a dehydrator tray.

Dehydrating the mushrooms is completely optional! It helps absorb the herbs and oil, and mostly helps this dish in the looks department 😉 Here’s what they look like NOT dehydrated.

Ani Phyo’s Walnut Cranberry Squash “Rice”

Level: Easy

Time: 20-25 minutes

Equipment: Food Processor

I changed a few things with this recipe to work more with my taste buds, but above is the link for her original recipe. There are a few other raw recipes of Ani’s on this site!

This dish is so sweet and the flavors are warming. I am sure I will be making this dish in the future. My mother use to be a private chef specializing in French cuisine is hard to please with raw vegan food and I even caught her taking several heaping spoonfuls of this dish!

Recipe:

16 ounces peel & diced Butternut Squash, blended alone in the food processor

1/2 small yellow onion thinly sliced

1 tablespoon cumin seeds

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom (I used cardamom instead of coriander, I like how it tastes with the sweetness of the dried fruits and butternut squash)

1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves chopped

1/2 cup dried cranberries (Instead of one cup cranberries I mixed cranberries and raisins, dried cranberries can be too sweet after a while)

1/2 cup raisins

Two handfuls of walnuts crushed (the recipe calls for one cup, seems like a lot of walnuts. I just wanted a little bit of them there for texture/crunch)

Salt according to taste

Mix well! I used a measuring cup to make my “rice” into a neat pile.

It’s safe to say I am obsessed with this Brussel Sprouts Recipe. It’s sweet, savory, crunchy, and insanely simple. The Brussel Sprouts taste sautéed; if I had put a little less oil it would probably taste baked if that’s more of your thing.

Brussel Sprouts

Level: Easy

Equipment: Dehydrator

Time: 1-2 hours in dehydrator depending how much oil you would like on them still. Only 10-15 minutes to prepare brussels sprouts.

Recipe:

Roughly 5 cups Brussel Sprouts cleaned, stemmed and sliced. I peeled off a few pieces so the whole dish wouldn’t be crunchy.

1 tablespoon hemp oil (olive oil, avocado oil, or a nut oil would probably taste fantastic too)

1 teaspoon coconut nectar (this makes the dish look sauteed and slightly glazed)

1/2 small pearl onion sliced

Dash of salt

That’s all folks! Very simple dish, if you do not have a dehydrator the taste isn’t too different. It’s definitely better dehydrated, the texture of the raw brussels sprouts is much softer and the flavor really comes alive.

Here is an image of the brussels sprouts not dehydrated.

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