Vegetarian Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! Thanks for hanging out with me all year long!
Spurred by my yoga teacher Denise's repeated entreaties that we not engage in animal sacrifice for the holiday, I decided that since my parents were gone, and it was at most, just the three of us, I would make something different and untraditional--at least, not part of MY traditions. I took out my gigantic Deborah Madison Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone cookbook, and paged through it. It is a beautiful book, and comes highly recommended. Many times, sitting at yoga waiting for class to start, I looked through it. Finally I just decided to check out Amazon and see if there was a used copy I could buy.
Today I made three dishes: pearl onions and Portobello mushrooms in cabernet sauce; buttermilk skillet cornbread; and red bean gumbo. The onions were rather ugly (what I have seen called a "twilight" dish, like black beans), darkened by the wine glaze and the blackness of the mushrooms, but they tasted great--a bit crisp to the bite, and sweet. The cornbread was wonderful, particularly since I used coarse ground cornmeal, not that stuff out of the box that has been degerminated. The gumbo was very impressive looking, with red and yellow bell peppers, assorted shreds of greens, and red red kidney beans. It took forever for the roux to darken, and I think I should have waited some more. It might have had more taste. The pot I cooked it in, the enamel coated cast iron pot I bought last year, cooks everything way too slowly. My back hurt too much to stand there stirring any longer, so I quit. I shouldn't have. The wild and white rice pilaf I made to mix in it helped a little, but it wasn't as good as regular gumbo. It was a disappointment. At least it was warm. Seems like the right sort of day for that.
The real estate guy was here today. He told us that the agent who was handling the house down the street finally told him there have been multiple bids on it. I don't think we will get it, but one never knows. I am just hoping that we will get SOMETHING and not be bid out of everything in our price range in this town. Still, I am feeling excited about the future, anticipating having my own home to have Thanksgiving dinner in next year, if all goes well.
Hope you are all enjoying your families and your dinners, whatever they may be.