Thanksgiving 2010: 1st Gluten Free Thanksgiving

Posted onAuthorCeltic Celiac2 Comments

Well, the first official gluten free holiday is now neatly tucked under my ‘Domestic Diva’ cooking apron. It went pretty well, and I was barely stressed about the situation (with the exception of family stress of course). My Thanksgiving for the past 5 years has been split into two parts, pat one which is with the family and part two on Friday with friends. This was also the first holiday that I got to use this:
 
My very NEW electric stove.
 I don’t have a before photo but let me say that the older stove was essentially from 1970.
PART ONE: Anyway, onto family thanksgiving. The night before I took care of several things including gluten free stuffing, dessert and dough for crescent rolls. I set up a nice little recipe station:

 The stuffing was courtesy of Gluten Free Girl’s Stuffing Recipe and I am so happy to have come across it. Mike purchased me 2 loaves of Millet bread to use, which had a bit unusual texture and probably took away from some of the taste. I would not make this recipe again with this bread, but would try another brand and flavor or even try my own bread which I am sure would make it out of this world. I found the initial recipe not flavorful enough for me after cooking so I personally  had to double the recipe, with the exception of the bread, and add the stuff at the end to have the stuffing as tasty as I wanted. The final product was great and re-heated well the day after so it was served warm. I would also cut the bread smaller if I was to make this again.

Mixing

The dessert was courtesy of Jules Gluten Free, I choose to make the Apple Cider Cake and sour cream icing from her E-Book. Mike had purchased me Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Flour, which did not live up to my standards. The cake was good, although dry and with an odd after taste due to the flour. I would love to make this again with a better flour, most likely Jules’ four which I forgot to purchase in time. The icing was not thick enough, however after cooking on friday I know now to us Xanthan Gum to thicken the icing. The final product was not pretty, but I was happy with my first gluten free cake since going gluten free and think this recipe is quick and easy to make.

The last thing I made that night was the dough for GF crescent rolls, a tradition for my family. I looked over various different recipes across the internet and to be honest do not remember the final one I settled on. For this recipe I used different flour as I was not happy with the Bob’s red mill. I was delighted with them, but most of my family is not used to eating gf and thought they were too dry. I disagree and loved them! The final product looked great:
Now onto thanksgiving day itself. I woke up early and prepared a green bean casserole, again courtesy of  Jules Gluten free, as well as corn with parsley, brown sugar and honey glazed carrots and my Creamy Curried Pumpkin soup. I made the modifications I suggested by adding more cream cheese and it definitely improved the consistency of the soup by making it thicker. The next day the remainder of the soup paired great as a dip with Food Should Taste Good’s Sweet Potato Chips. The mix of the sweet and spicy flavors of both sweet potato and pumpkin made for a great holiday snack that my friends loved.  
You may have asked: So what about your turkey? Luckily, my brother Tom took care of the turkey which he seasoned with gluten free seasoning and stuffed with citrus fruit. YUM! He also took care of the yummy mashed potatoes!
To start dinner we set the table,: 
carved the turkey: 

And settled in and ate our little hearts out with a completely gluten free meal. I was thrilled to not feel sick for the first Thanksgiving in years.
As has been tradition for the past 3 years Mike’s family came over for dessert. They brought with them GF crust-less cheesecake as well as apple pie to go with my apple cider cake! You can never go wrong with dessert. 

Note my not to wonderful looking, although tasty, cake in the background 
Definitely a great night to a great thanksgiving:

Plate full of delicious! 
PART TWO:  Friend’s thanksgiving, also know as Faux Thanksgiving, has taken place for the past few years at a friends house. His mother goes all out cooking for us and each of us typically also bring a dish. This year I brought a gluten free desert and assumed I would have just that to eat, however his mother had made me gluten free rice stuffing with mushrooms, risotto with green beans and made sure that there was gluten free turkey and gravy. Boy do I have something to be thankful for! I brought with me what was originally supposed to be gluten free brownies with peanut butter icing made with this mix:

The mix seemed to dry to me so I added some milk, which unfortunately left the brownies a little softer than expected. They would not stay together so I improvised and rolled the cooked mix into brownie balls. I then topped them with the peanut butter topping that I had to thicken with xantan gum:

They were a hit at the party!
 All in all, this was a great Thanksgiving. I am so thankful for my improving cooking skills that allow me to improvise and be creative. I am also thankful for the bloggers who share and post their recipes and for my family and friends who make a large effort to make me feel loved and cared about. Without them I would not me the healthy and happy gluten free women that I am today. Thanks to all!

Hope everyone had a good thanksgiving and enjoyed my story! Now onto the next holiday and gluten free experience! 
Celtic Celiac @ http://celtic-celiac.blogspot.com/

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