Thanksgiving!

I cooked an entirely gluten-free, soy-free, processed-food free, and nearly refined-sugar- and dairy-free Thanksgiving dinner. It was a blast. We spent the day together as a family, relaxed, no chores, no errands, just watching the Macy's parade, cooking and enjoying each other.

Our Menu

GF Roasted Butterball Turkey, rubbed with poultry seasoning blend and roasted in a Reynold's roasting bag with a tablespoon of rice flour
(Next year we're going to go for a local farm raised turkey and do the brine thing, but we appreciated this because it was free!)

GF Turkey Gravy - made from GF cornstarch and the turkey drippings

GF Wild rice dressing with celery, onion, poultry seasoning, veggie broth and pepper,

GF quinoa dressing with celery, onion, poultry seasoning, veggie broth and pepper

GF Sauteed French cut green beans with walnuts sauteed in GF EVOO, S & P

GF Slow roasted garnet yams cooked in the Crock Pot all day with a splash of water, and a sprinkle of GF mini marshmallows melted before serving

GF Roasted Brussels sprouts with bacon and walnuts recipe from Food Network Kitchens - Hubs says this is a MUST REPEAT EVERY NIGHT dish :)

GF Cranberry Pear sauce recipe from The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen - Brilliant because the pears sweeten the sauce you need almost no added sugar! I doubled it and added an organic Gala apple, and a cup of sucanat instead of coconut sugar

GF Mashed Potatoes (from GF instant potato flakes, to save time and because we had some to use up). Hubs made them with chicken stock, Silk refrigerated plain coconut milk, butter and Kosher salt. With the delicious GF turkey gravy topping them, you could hardly tell they were instant.

To drink:
Knudsen's Organic Sparkling Apple Juice and Martinelli's Sparkling Apple Cider

For dessert:
GF CrockPot Pumpkin Cheesecake, recipe from A Year of Slow Cooking. I substituted sucanat for the white sugar in the filling, and brown sugar for the crust.
No Picture because whenever it's out of the fridge it's being eaten - no time for photos! :)

This afternoon, Hubs and I are enjoying some of the last pieces of the cheesecake, along with decaf Rice Dream Rice Nog lattes. Don't you love autumn and Christmas season flavors?

There's Nothing Wrong with "Meat and Potatoes"

I'm so thankful for my husband's interest in cooking. This week I have been entirely too worn out to do much (although last night I did finally bake up my favorite Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies!), and it was such a blessing that when Hubs got home from class tonight, he jumped right into defrosting some chicken and steaming broccoli.
I just wanted to make a quick post tonight about simple meals, particularly dinners, for those of us with food intolerances. Anyone that knows me knows that I am a foodie, if someone with as many allergies as me can still be a foodie. But I find that keeping it simple for day to day meals makes the special, multi course meals for holidays and dinner parties that much more special. Eating to live, not living to eat, is a goal I am going to try and keep in mind in this new year. If you know anything about the Paleo/Caveman Diet, you know that basic whole foods, real foods, closer to what our pre-industrialized ancestors ate, are much better for us than all the processed insta-foods of today. Eating a basic meal like a piece of meat with a vegetable and little or no complex carbs like brown rice or quinoa on the side, creates minimal dishes, requires minimal ingredients, and is very satisfying and filling.
Some of my favorite go-to simple dinners are:

• Grilled chicken breast with  EVOO, sea salt, pepper, and lemon juice, with steamed broccoli and a little bit of brown rice
• A slice of Pot roast (beef slow roasted in the crock pot all day) with roasted potatoes and carrots
• Grilled steak with steamed brussel sprouts and a baked potato with seasoning salt
• Quick chicken stir-fry (I made a great one the other night with a sauce of tamari [wheat-free soy sauce] and peanut butter): saute bite-sized pieces of chicken thigh in EVOO until no longer pink, add one bag of frozen stir-fry vegetables, and in five minutes add the sauce. Cook until it thickens, add peanuts, and serve with quinoa.
• Vegetarian option with more carbs: Spanish Rice. Saute onion, garlic, and peppers until tender. Add rice, water/broth, and diced tomatoes along with chili powder and hot sauce. Simmer, covered, until rice has absorbed liquid. Stir in one drained, rinsed can of black beans (protein!) and serve with a handful of tortilla chips.

This post was a bit random and thought up on the fly, but these are all meals that are tried and true in my house and no one complains about the basic "meat and potatoes" feel of them. Sometimes this is what we need to remember with food allergies; simple, basic, uncomplicated. I hope you'll give this concept a try! Happy cooking this week :)

Thanksgiving... at HOME?

We are completely iced-in right now. The alley behind our home, which is the only access to our driveway and parking area, is on a fairly steep hill to begin with. It's full of potholes and wide, shallow trenches. These have filled with snow, freezing rain, and the output of all the French drains above, and all that moisture froze to a surface slicker than a skating rink when the temperatures dropped below 15 last night. (This is NOT average Thanksgiving weather for the Northwest!)

We plan to visit Hubs' parents' home for brunch tomorrow, and my parents' home for dinner. But today I'm stuck at home and beginning to wonder what we'll eat if we are still stuck at home and can't join the ranks for morning ham and evening turkey. At least we can have the dishes we'd be bringing to the brunch and dinner - our new favorite treat, Pumpkin Glory Loaf from the Flying Apron Bakery cookbook, and something like this Quinoa Pilaf or Herbed Brown Rice with Mushrooms - all GFCF egg-free and soy-free, of course! I planned to get to the store for butternut squash and apples to make more of my new favorite casserole, but I don't think that's gonna happen!

This year I wrote off just about all the "classic" Thanksgiving sides including the side dish everyone loves to count as a "vegetable": Green Bean Casserole. I've passed cans of Cream of Mushroom soup and French Friend Onions in the grocery store for several weeks now, rolling my eyes, knowing I was above such processed and sodium-filled semi-edible substances. My mom makes traditional Green Bean Casserole almost every year, and I've never missed it when it didn't make it on the menu. But I think in a manifestation of Murphy's law (as all of us food-allergy-plagued know too well), when I truly realize I cannot have something... I WANT IT NOW! I Googled "GFCF green bean casserole," and found THIS tasty-lookin' thing at Gluten Free Mommy...

I'm sitting here drooling over this recipe, knowing I need it to be GFCF egg-free and soy-free (Campbell's, I'm looking at you - join the 21st century and make some allergy-friendly soups! OK, rant over.).  If I rally the courage and can find the ingredients and appropriate substitutions tomorrow in my cupboards, I will post a recap!
Make it a Happy Thanksgiving, full of true gratitude of recognition of real blessings, no matter where you are and what you're doing!