I LOVE this time of year. The cooler weather has arrived and a nice break from work to spend time with family and to focus completely on being thankful. This year has been one of so much heartache, so it was nice to focus on what I am thankful for in my life. How easy it is to lose track of the good and spend to much energy focusing on the negative. Although it has been a tough year, so many great things have also happened. As this year wraps up, I will make a committment to focus 2012 on positive, even in the storms. I will work to let go of my crazy type-A personality and let my hair down to enjoy the simple day to day things God has blessed me with. My quick one minute brainstorm of current things I am grateful for:
My family, Sadie home for more than a few hours, Sadie will be a blessing to the people of Tanzania this summer, the farm, my mom's heart procedure was successful, JR didn't suffer long with Lou Gehrigs (although my heart misses him deeply), I have a job, Jim doesn't work for a cut-throat company anymore, I am healthy... Short list, but one minute does go fast and this is a cooking blog, so let's get to it~
I am so thankful my gluten-free cooking has actually gotten better. This year our entire thanksgiving meal came from the best magazine ever, Living Without, the Nov/Dec issue. If you live gluten/dairy free this magazine is for you and you can get a copy at Barnes and Noble. So for copyright reasons, I can't share those recipes here, but I will tell you it was my BEST meal ever. It was a pear based meal. Here was our menu:
Butter/Lemon rub Turkey
Fresh Herb & Pear Gravy
Sausage/Pear Stuffing
Cranberry/Pear dish
Herb Popovers
and of course the traditional (not from magazine, but can't have a Thanksgiving without)
Green Bean Casserole - made GF with Pacific GF Cream of Mushroom and homemade french fried onions
Sweet Potato Casserole
As I have blogged before, I cannot master the pie crust :(
But my family loves Pumpkin pie, so I just bought a frozen pie for them. I really need to master the pie crust though so I can enjoy pies. I do love them!
One of the things I am never a huge fan of for the Thanksgiving meal, but is a must is stuffing. Well the Sausage/Pear stuffing I made was amazing! I made it the day before so the pear flavors could soak in and then I baked it for 2 hours on low heat. WOW ~ so good and so moist. I cut the recipe in half because the one in the magazine served 14, well there are only 3 of us in the family so full amount seemed extreme. But I wish I had made the full amount. It was the first leftover that was completely gone the next day.
Green Bean Casserole - I buy the Pacific Brand GF cream of mushroom soup at Target. They also have Cream of Chicken GF. Thank you Pacific Brand! I use the traditional recipe, but I don't buy the can of french fried onions. If you cut up onions in thin slices, coat them in brown rice flower by shaking them in a ziplock, and fry them over low heat until golden brown and crispy, they taste great. I use Coconut Oil, which is pretty much all I use to cook with. It is a solid oil at room temp, but will liquidfy when heated.
Sweet Potato Casserole - The recipe I use was given to me by our neighbor when we lived in Hawaii - Thank you Kristen Tidwell! It is like eating candy and so good. Here is the recipe:
2 large cans of yams, drained
1 Cup sugar, I use rapunzel pure cane. You can even do 1/2 cup pure cane and 1/2 cup stevia
1 stick butter
1/4 Cup Flour, I use my homemade flour blend (brown rice flour, tapioca starch, potato starch)
1 T nutmeg
3 eggs
1 can Pet milk
GF marshmallows
Put potatoes in mixer and add all ingredients. Mix well. Pour into a greased casserole dish and back uncovered at 375 degrees for 1 hour or until firm. Remove from oven andpour marshmallows on top. Return to oven just to melt - only takes a few minutes.
Well enjoy the pictures of our Thanksgiving food. If you are on a gluten free adventure I hope you had a great Thanksgiving meal too. As 2011 wraps up, I am looking ahead to 2012 and what I can do to advance my healthful eating. I feel very comfortable with the no wheat and gluten diet and do pretty good cutting sugar, but can do much better here -- I LOVE chocolate. But feel my new focus will be to work on cutting cow dairy. I occasionally have stomach issues and when I trace back what I have eaten, it is usually dairy that I can link it too.
Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Baking! Time to start planning Christmas and New Year's meals.
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| Green Bean Casserole - Gluten Free Style |
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| Sweet Potato Casserole |
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| Sausage/Pear Stuffing |
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| Herb/Pear Gravy |
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| Cranberry/Pear Dish |
