Lesson #20: How to Prepare a Vegetarian (or Vegan) Holiday Meal in China
Tim and I just celebrated Thanksgiving for the second year in China. On the morning of November 22, I woke up with so much to be thankful for! The sun was brightly shining, which it had not been the days prior to Thanksgiving. Plus, I was so grateful that both Tim and I had the day off, and I felt well enough to prepare a Thanksgiving meal for us! Now that I had experience shopping for groceries in China, I had a better idea of what foods I could buy to prepare a tasty vegetarian dinner. For Americans who don't eat a vegetarian or vegan diet, many Western restaurants in China serve traditional Thanksgiving meals; even though the Chinese don't celebrate Thanksgiving (obviously). Unfortunately, there are no places for me in Wuxi that serve vegetarian Thanksgiving meals, so my only choice was to prepare my own Thanksgiving dinner.
One of my favorite places to shop at in China is Ikea. The little grocery section there has a lot of tasty Western foods that are seemingly impossible to find anywhere else. On a recent shopping trip to Ikea, I bought fried onions, vegetable balls, and a holiday mulled fruit drink (they sell alcoholic and non-alcoholic). Ikea is also one of the few places that I have ever found gravy mix packets. I also did a lot of online shopping through two amazing online supermarkets: Fields China and Epermaket. Plus, I'm very lucky because Carrefour (what I consider to be the best foreign supermarket in Wuxi) is right across the street from where I teach. It was at Carrefour that I was able to find whipped cream for our pumpkin pie!
Obviously, I didn't prepare a turkey. In fact, this year I chose the Ikea vegetable balls as our "turkey substitute." The Ikea vegetable balls go perfectly with all the other typical Thanksgiving side dishes. The veggie balls are truly wonderful because they are also vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free, and GMO-free.
For our side dishes, I chose to prepare my favorite Thanksgiving sides- green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, and mashed potatoes.
The vegetables to make these side dishes are pretty easy to find in supermarkets in China. In fact, sweet potatoes are sold everywhere this time of the year! It's actually a popular street food. It's the added ingredients that can be tricky to find. The ingredients for my sweet potato casserole included sweet potatoes, pecans, oatmeal, maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla. Fields and Epermarket carried all these ingredients. Otherwise, spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla are seemingly impossible to find in supermarkets in China. I try to buy my maple syrup from Baopals because it's outrageously expensive from the online supermarkets. I don't know why. My maple syrup was actually imported from the US.
The green bean casserole was one of the dishes that wasn't considered vegan. That's because I used the canned cream of mushroom soup to make the casserole. Epermarket actually sold the canned cream of mushroom soup, but they sold out. So, I ended up ordering the soup from Baopals the week before Thanksgiving. It was risky because the online 11-11 holiday (it's like the US Black Friday) in China had just passed and shipping was being delayed due to the high volume of sales. However, I was extremely thankful that the cream of mushroom soup arrived just in time to make dinner! I picked up my package from the front office right around 5:00 PM. It felt like a Thanksgiving miracle! As I mentioned earlier, I was able to buy the fried onions for the casserole from Ikea.
The mashed potatoes were pretty simple to make. I just used potatoes, some vegetable broth seasoning, rosemary, black pepper, salt, and plant-based milk. For the gravy, I could've used Ikea's gravy mix (which is vegetarian), but I had a vegan package of gravy mix that I had brought from the US and saved especially for Thanksgiving. Fields currently sells a gluten free and vegan gravy mix that I will probably purchase for the next time I make mashed potatoes and gravy! I was able to purchase all the seasonings I mentioned from Fields.
We rounded out our holiday meal with some tasty crescent rolls from the Fields bakery and the delicious holiday mulled fruit drink from Ikea. To finish off our vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner, we cooked the pumpkin pie that we had purchased from Fields. We also added the whipped cream from Carrefour! The pumpkin pie wasn't vegan or gluten free. However, Fields does sell some gluten-free breads and rolls if that is a dietary issue for you. Additionally, Fields and Epermarket both sell canned pumpkin to make vegan and/or gluten-free pumpkin pie at home.
After dinner, Tim and I put up our awesome "pop-up" Christmas tree from Ikea. I was really sad not having any Christmas decorations last year, so this year I decided that I would buy a tree. I think it fits perfectly in our little apartment.
It's difficult for me to be away from most of my family during the holidays, but doing things like making a Thanksgiving dinner, decorating for Christmas, and watching holiday movies online help me to not feel too sad this time of the year.
One of my favorite places to shop at in China is Ikea. The little grocery section there has a lot of tasty Western foods that are seemingly impossible to find anywhere else. On a recent shopping trip to Ikea, I bought fried onions, vegetable balls, and a holiday mulled fruit drink (they sell alcoholic and non-alcoholic). Ikea is also one of the few places that I have ever found gravy mix packets. I also did a lot of online shopping through two amazing online supermarkets: Fields China and Epermaket. Plus, I'm very lucky because Carrefour (what I consider to be the best foreign supermarket in Wuxi) is right across the street from where I teach. It was at Carrefour that I was able to find whipped cream for our pumpkin pie!
Obviously, I didn't prepare a turkey. In fact, this year I chose the Ikea vegetable balls as our "turkey substitute." The Ikea vegetable balls go perfectly with all the other typical Thanksgiving side dishes. The veggie balls are truly wonderful because they are also vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free, and GMO-free.
For our side dishes, I chose to prepare my favorite Thanksgiving sides- green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, and mashed potatoes.
The vegetables to make these side dishes are pretty easy to find in supermarkets in China. In fact, sweet potatoes are sold everywhere this time of the year! It's actually a popular street food. It's the added ingredients that can be tricky to find. The ingredients for my sweet potato casserole included sweet potatoes, pecans, oatmeal, maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla. Fields and Epermarket carried all these ingredients. Otherwise, spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla are seemingly impossible to find in supermarkets in China. I try to buy my maple syrup from Baopals because it's outrageously expensive from the online supermarkets. I don't know why. My maple syrup was actually imported from the US. 
The green bean casserole was one of the dishes that wasn't considered vegan. That's because I used the canned cream of mushroom soup to make the casserole. Epermarket actually sold the canned cream of mushroom soup, but they sold out. So, I ended up ordering the soup from Baopals the week before Thanksgiving. It was risky because the online 11-11 holiday (it's like the US Black Friday) in China had just passed and shipping was being delayed due to the high volume of sales. However, I was extremely thankful that the cream of mushroom soup arrived just in time to make dinner! I picked up my package from the front office right around 5:00 PM. It felt like a Thanksgiving miracle! As I mentioned earlier, I was able to buy the fried onions for the casserole from Ikea.
The mashed potatoes were pretty simple to make. I just used potatoes, some vegetable broth seasoning, rosemary, black pepper, salt, and plant-based milk. For the gravy, I could've used Ikea's gravy mix (which is vegetarian), but I had a vegan package of gravy mix that I had brought from the US and saved especially for Thanksgiving. Fields currently sells a gluten free and vegan gravy mix that I will probably purchase for the next time I make mashed potatoes and gravy! I was able to purchase all the seasonings I mentioned from Fields.
We rounded out our holiday meal with some tasty crescent rolls from the Fields bakery and the delicious holiday mulled fruit drink from Ikea. To finish off our vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner, we cooked the pumpkin pie that we had purchased from Fields. We also added the whipped cream from Carrefour! The pumpkin pie wasn't vegan or gluten free. However, Fields does sell some gluten-free breads and rolls if that is a dietary issue for you. Additionally, Fields and Epermarket both sell canned pumpkin to make vegan and/or gluten-free pumpkin pie at home.
It's difficult for me to be away from most of my family during the holidays, but doing things like making a Thanksgiving dinner, decorating for Christmas, and watching holiday movies online help me to not feel too sad this time of the year.
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