No-Kill Thanksgiving: TheFeast

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Thanksgiving ought be a day of spending time with friends and family—not holed-up in the kitchen prepping and cooking (unless you want to, which we have wanted in the past).

After a year-and-a-half of quarantining (and vaccinated up the wazoo), this year we wanted to share Thanksgiving in-person, not in-Zoom, and definitely not stuck in the kitchen.

And so, we turned to frozen, delivered dishes, that allowed us to “cook” for an hour whilst keeping the house absolutely rife with delicious Thanksgiving aromas—and all without killing a single creature!

And that’s not a bonus, that’s an intention.

The Preparation

To cut prep time to an absolute minimum while (hopefully) not giving up anything on taste or quality of ingredients, we went with three sides from Mosaic Foods and the Stuffed Beast from the Very Good Butchers.

Mosaic Foods

Our Thanksgiving three-some from Mosaic were:

• Broccoli Cheddar Mac
• Veggie Pot Pie
• Sweet Potato Chili Bake

Prepping the Mosaic Food items consisted of:

1. taking them out of the freezer,
2. removing their plastic wraps, and  
3. putting them into the pre-heated oven.

A total of 10 minutes prep-time, and most of that was waiting for the oven to heat up.

Very Good Butchers (VGB)

• Stuffed Beast

Prepping the Stuffed Beast was more involved (by four minutes, we reckon), but also quick and simple. We defrosted the Stuffed Beast the night before so it was ready to go right from the fridge.

The Stuffed Beast came tied with twine and wrapped in cheesecloth, both of which had to be removed before cooking. VGB also recommended basting the Beast every 15 minutes with an herb-vegan butter mixture to keep it juicy and give it a nice brown outer shell.

The total prep time was about 15 minute (5 minutes to unwrap, 10 minutes to make the basting mixture).

The Cooking

We started the oven around 12:30 and all cooking was done by 3PM. The total elapsed time from the start of cooking to when everything came out of the oven was about 2 1/2 hours:

• Mosaic entrees: 400°F, uncovered for 60 minutes, then 10 additional minutes to finish at 350ºF
• Stuffed Beast: 350ºF for 45 minutes (basted 3 times), then 10 additional minutes (and a final baste) to finish at 350ºF

We cooked all the Mosaic items at the same time first, took them out of the oven, then cooked the Stuffed Beast, and then put everything back into the oven for another 10 minutes right before we were ready to serve.

The approach worked perfectly as all of the entrees were at the perfect serving temperature when we were ready to eat.

We checked the internal temperature and made sure each item had reached an internal temperature of at least 165ºF before the final 10 minutes in the oven. 

NOTE: if you need a vegan, gluten-free, quick-to-make gravy, this is the one we went with, and it was excellent.

The Feasting

As this is Thanksgiving, we made about three times the amount of food we needed for six people…because leftovers.  And as everybody knows, leftovers are one of the best things about about holiday feasts 🙂  

The “No-Work Sides” came out beautifully. The crusts were all attractively browned, they smelled great, and they looked very appetizing. We should note that even though we served up the Mosaic Food dishes (Broccoli Cheddar Mac, Veggie Pot Pie, Sweet Potato Chili Bake) as sides, each of them can stand on their own as an entree. 

The Stuffed Beast came out great! The “skin” was a rich dark color, was easy to cut, and the slices—which included stuffing—held together well.

Each slice was kind of large, so we opted to sliced them in half before serving. The package indicated the roast would serve 5-7, but with all the sides, we think it could easily serve 10!

Everyone sampled all of the dishes. The general consensus was that the Stuffed Beast was DELICIOUS, very moist, and was an excellent no-kill alternative for a Holiday-or-otherwise main course. One thing which would have made the Stuffed Beast even better is if the texture of the “meat” part was less smooth and a bit more crumbly.

As for the the sides, judging by the amount left/not left in the pans, the Broccoli Cheddar Mac was clearly the favorite. The Veggie Pot Pie and Sweet Potato Chili Bake tied for second. If we were to do this again, we would opt for a different side than the Sweet Potato Chili Bake, only because its flavor profile (chili) was not a good fit for the rest of the more Thanksgiving-flavored items. We all agreed, however, that it was really delicious.

We also want to give a shout-out to Solera: A Shrine to Wine in Roslindale for their excellent pairing recommendations. This specialy wine store is one of the hidden gems of Boston and our go-to stop for all wines and bubblies for our RainyDayEvents!

The Crew

We are not sure what the feasting plans are for the coming December holiday, but we’ll try to have something special to wrap up the year.

Happy Holidays everyone!