Thanksgiving plans.

It gives me great pleasure to obsessively plan my menu every year, but the trouble comes when we have to execute it. Not that it turns out awful, just a lot of work and there's the occasionally disappointing result.

In past years, we've had a Mediterranean menu, Japanese, and Indian. This year, I wanted to go super-duper simple, fresh, local -- and, of course, very vegetarian. I feel like we sometimes get sucked in to recipes that sound divine but end up being overly complex to prepare and underwhelming in flavor. I'm hoping this year's choices will remedy the problems of the past but still satisfy everyone's desires: for taste, for the joy of cooking, for an easy family holiday.

• Chilled pumpkin soup (my sister's offering)
  
• Roasted beet and arugula or cress salad
  
• Stuffed delicata squash with apple, walnut, and shallots (got sweet dumpling squash, which are similar to delicata but rounder)
  
• Cranberry beans (substitute cannellini or others if I can't find them at the market) Update: I got some of these.
  
• Roasted cauliflower with fennel, onion, and marjoram
  
• Kale with panfried walnuts
  
• Dijon roasted potatoes, because what's Thanksgiving without potatoes?
  
• Bread - maybe Margot's veganized challah, sculpted into the shape of a turkey?
  
  
• Sweet potato pie with three-nut topping (from Vegan with a Vengeance)
  
• Apple cobbler or crisp with vanilla soy ice cream (from Kevin's mom)
  
  
• Pilgrim's Pride - cranberry-ginger-sparkling apple juice drink, just to be festive.

The recipes are simple but should taste nice. Very veggie-heavy and healthy, but veggies we are like. It's not a big group -- though if you're in the Bay Area and want to join us, shoot me a line -- but we all like cooking and eating healthy.

I also have in mind to incorporate one of Kevin's wishes: a walk in the park, though not the kind he'd prefer (Pt. Lobos -- too far). Hopefully the meal prep itself won't be so taxing that I can't make it, like last year. I'm also thinking of getting Up from Netflix since it seems like the kind of thing we all might enjoy while lingering over a well-deserved dessert overdose.