Stuff yourself with Thanksgiving alternatives

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A Thanksgiving-inspired salad for those who wish to continue their healthy diet during the holiday season.

Finally November has come, and Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Many regard Thanksgiving as the favorite part of the celebration.

We all know that there are many different ways people celebrate Thanksgiving, and more particularly, prepare food.

There is always the classic Thanksgiving dinner that we all think of when we hear “Thanksgiving.” The main dish is typically turkey with stuffing. It is often accompanied by squash soup, velvety mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce and/or cast-iron skillet cornbread to add variety to the main dish. Finally, for dessert there is pumpkin pie. This traditional meal is a classic and is favored by people.

“Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday, and one of the reasons for that is every Thanksgiving is essentially the same and we eat the same food, with the same group of people,” foreign language teacher John Conant said.

There is also the more unique, turkey-less Thanksgiving meal. This meal is best for one who wants to try something different this Thanksgiving. This meal consists of mushroom turnovers, greens with roasted corn and pepper salad, sautéed duck and cherry pistachio salad, blue cornbread dressing, roasted asparagus with balsamic-shallot butter and mincemeat charlottes (a type is dessert). Also for dessert there would be molasses cake with lemon cream cheese frosting.

Just because some are vegetarian, does not mean they should skip Thanksgiving. There are also meals for vegetarians. They consist of braised shallots and fall vegetables with sauce, Belgian endive-and-apple salad, lentils with carrots, braised celeriac and drop biscuits. Vegetarian meals often also have tofu turkeys. Finally, for dessert there would be sweet potato pie with hazelnut streusel.

Finally, there is a southwestern-inspired Thanksgiving meal, which may be prepared by those who love southwestern food. It consists of a guajillo-tamarind turkey for the main dish. Spicy pecans, cornbread-chorizo dressing, roasted potato gravy, chipotle-corn mashed potatoes, cauliflower gratin with queso cotija, garlic green beans with machengo and chili-spiced sweet potato tamales all accompany the main turkey. Finally for dessert, this meal offers ancho chile pumpkin pie.

All of these recipe ideas and many more can be found on myrecipes.com.

There are many different ways families prepare their unique or classic Thanksgiving meals. Maybe you might try something new this Thanksgiving, too!