You already have your Thanksgiving groceries in your fridge

There are lots of good reasons to skip the grocery store on Thanksgiving. With covid-19 On the upside, avoiding unnecessary errands is a good idea, as is abstaining from large family gatherings. One way or another, even in the midst of the pandemic, the grocery lines are also very long.

I’m not happy with it. I miss the gatherings, and I miss the store. Some people find the shopping boring or overwhelming, but I love it, even on Thanksgiving. I love making lists of everything I need and knowing that I will pick up some things that I don’t need if they’re on sale. I love choosing the juiciest apples for pies, the crispest kale, and sometimes even the google reviews of all the types of Parmesan cheese available.

Here’s the thing, though: I only cook for the few immediate family members I’m in quarantine with, and my parents are vegans, which rules out turkey and buttered mashed potatoes anyway. I also already have food at home. It might not be exactly the price of Thanksgiving, but I don’t want it to be wasted.

In the United States, some 40% of the food that product is wasted, and that rate goes up during the holidays. Each year, some 200 million pounds (90.7 million kilograms) of Turkey to be thrown, for example. Most of this food waste ends up in incinerators and landfills, which contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. All of this is largely due to a capitalist system of production driven by the need for economic profit over sustainability, and not by our individual behavior. But that still doesn’t help throw things away.

With that in mind, I have a shit of purple, yellow and orange carrots wilting in the fridge drawer. They’re past their prime – I wouldn’t put them in a salad – but they’ll be perfectly fine when roasted. I’m going to slice them along the way and put them in the oven, and I’m going to drizzle them with a tasty miso tahini dressing. ATradical Approaching Thanksgiving? Maybe not. But they vegetables that usually appear in one form or another on Thanksgiving, so I think it will work.

I also have an acorn squash, two delicata squash, and a little butternut that I’ve probably had for a month. I’ll chop them all up and put them on a baking sheet, then put them in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (177 degrees Celsius) or. I’ll probably take the delicata pieces out first, as they cook the fastest. Usually I’ll probably stick with one type of squash for this. But this year, I just can’t be bothered, and I also refuse to leave these veggies unused.

I apply the same principle to the stuffing, which is the best food vacation has to offer. I have a small piece of semi-stale challah and most of a loaf of sourdough, and there is honey wheat in the freezer. It’ll probably be the weirdest prank ever, but it’s okay. If you put celery, onion, thyme, and nutmeg in just about anything, it tastes like a party, right? I also have some apples and pears which I’m going to crumble, using my giant Costco bag of Quaker oats and dairy-free butter (that one, to be precise).

The only thing I bought specifically for this day were cranberries because I make cranberry chutney with my aunt’s recipe which includes curry leaves and mustard seeds and absolutely slaps. I can also have cashew milk ice cream, which I guess isn’t Thanksgiving food, but I don’t care. I will spend tomorrow cooking, and in the evening, I am going to eat a feast and drink the wine I already have around. The food may not look exactly like it usually does, but everything is off this year anyway.