thanksgiving tray

they say "don't experiment on thanksgivng," but for me, it would be completely boring to make a bunch of dishes i've already made before. i used recipes from my favorite authors, so i knew there was a low chance of things going wrong. and if they did? who cares, thanksgiving is not my favorite holiday anyway. i drew everything out when i was bored on a night shift. here's what i made:

-molly yeh bacon mac and cheese - this was the one hold over from last year and might be an ongoing tradition. it's a bit of work because i make the bacon version for jared and a vegetarian one for me. what makes it so good is the smoked gouda cheese. the one we get from trader joe's is processed, so you get that smoothness of american cheese but with much better flavor.

-vegan soul kitchen cumin mashed potatoes with caramelized onions - these were good, but jared said "aren't these just regular mashed potatoes?" aka good, but nothing spectacular

-ottolenghi sweet potatoes with maple and pecan - tasty, healthy, vegan. very ottolenghi

-superiority burger stewed collard greens with hot sauce and honey - j is the collard greens fan and insisted i make some. the flavor was good on these but it definitely didn't need the extra hot sauce on top in my opinion

-sababa pomegrante slaw - i love me a good slaw. this one was tasty, only disappointment is that it oddly didn't hold up super well in the fridge.

bonus: i don't care for pumpkin or sweet potato pie or most of those sweet autumnal flavors, so i went for something completely off kilter but still seasonal: momofuku milk bar grapefruit passion fruit pie with ritz cracker crust. now this was up my alley.