Turkey Day update

The big dessert decisions have been made, kinda. My dear husband said he didn't want to buy a pie, and that he'd make one. Which is OK, except that I don't want flour flying around the kitchen while my little celiac is around or while I am preparing other Thanksgiving goodies. SO, I made several pie crusts today while my son was at school and stuck them in the freezer. (I rarely bake with regular flour anymore.) Then I spent a good chunk of time decontaminating the kitchen! I'll let my husband do the rest of the work later. He's still pondering what kind of filling he wants.

I, on the other hand, have decided that since I don't like pie crust, and I was totally grossed out by the amount of butter and shortening I put in the pie dough today, that I'm going to try making a pumpkin custard or a crustless pumpkin pie (it'll be gluten-free, so I'll see if I can convert my boys to pumpkin).

My sweet little diabetic celiac said he wants a banana pie with a Mi-Del gingersnap crust, so my plan is to make him a sugar-free banana pudding pie. (Although, I think I'm going to look around for some GF graham crackers or something instead of the gingersnaps.)

While I was doing my grocery shopping in Wal-Mart, I checked out their turkey selection. Most turkey should be gluten-free (but you never know!) and you can always call the company to check, but I like to support companies who do label so I checked for gluten-free labels. Anyway, they had Jennie-O and Butterball frozen turkeys, neither of which were labeled, and a Honeysuckle White, which didn't say gluten-free, but did say "No added MSG or Gluten," so I'll keep it in mind.

Gluten-Free Thanksgiving, Version 2.0

Last year was our first gluten-free Thanksgiving. It was just us, at our house, no guests. My husband (he's the best!) and I tag-teamed it and cooked it all. It was crazy! So after the holiday was over, I sat down and wrote myself a plan for this year. It took me awhile to figure out where I saved it, but I pulled it out today and I'm ready to do it again. Hopefully, with a little less craziness!

This year I am going to invite my husband's parents to join us. We'll have two diabetics at the table and one celiac. And everybody needs to feel like they got a Thanksgiving dinner that fit their idea of Thanksgiving dinner.

So here's my working Menu, all tentative and adjustable.

Appetizers to pick at while we cook and wait: Crudite (I love that word!), dip, pickles, olives, nuts, cheese and crackers.

The Main Event:
Turkey with cranberry sauce
Mashed potatoes and turkey gravy
Stuffing
Sweet potatoes with maple syrup and roasted pecans
Green beans
Rolls
Drinks (we don't drink alcohol, so it will probably be diet soda or punch, or maybe just ice water with lemon slices)

Dessert: Pie and pie-ish sort of things

And here's my timeline

Early November: Buy the Thanksgiving Game Every year we get a new board game to play together after the big meal. Last year I forgot to buy it until the day before and I had a hard time finding the one I wanted.
Decide what to do about dessert! I have several considerations here. First, the non-celiacs are going to want "real" pie; last year I ordered it from the bakery around the corner, and I will probably do the same thing again. Second, what kind of pies? Third, what kind of pie does the celiac want and can I convince him to let me make him a dessert that has fewer carbs than an actual pie? (He's one of the diabetics.) Fourth, am I really the only person who likes pumpkin pie? Dang it! And should I get a whole pumpkin pie for myself or should I make pumpkin custard (I'm really not a fan of pie crust) or should I just settle and eat the cherry?
Make the dough for my husband's favorite non-GF rolls, roll them out and freeze them. I want to get this done while my little celiac is at school, so I have plenty of time to decontaminate the kitchen. It's too stressful to do it the day of, and most bread dough's freeze great. I'll just let them thaw and rise and bake them on the big day. It's too stressful to have flour flying around the kitchen on the big day.

Two weeks out: Make a grocery list. Start shopping for shelf-stable items.
Buy a gluten-free turkey: Last year I bought a Norbest turkey from Smith's. It was labeled gluten free. I was also given a turkey by my sweet neighbors, who won two turkeys gambling at a local casino (I live in Las Vegas, if you haven't already guessed). It was not a brand I recognized, it was not labeled gluten-free, and it was treated with broth, so I got on the Internet and did a search for the name of the farm, and found out that they were owned by a large company that I did recognize (I think it was Foster Farms, but I could be wrong). So I called up the large company, asked if the smaller company's turkey was gluten free and found out it was! Yeah, two turkeys! Now, some people just buy as much turkey as they need, but I figure if you are going to the trouble of doing a turkey, you should do a big turkey and freeze your leftovers.

One week out: Make bread for the stuffing, dry it in the oven and freeze it. Last year I waited until the week of Thanksgiving and it just made life hectic, so I'm going to try and make it earlier and freeze it. I use the stuffing recipe from Annalise Roberts' "Gluten-Free Baking Classics." Last year I made cornbread stuffing, but I think I might make regular stuffing this year.
If possible, make gluten-free dessert, and freeze it!
Roast and mash sweet potatoes. The rest of the year, I use the microwave, but for Thanksgiving, I like my sweet potatoes roasted in the oven. I think it kind of carmelizes the sugars and makes them even yummier. I've never frozen it before, but the Internet says you can freeze sweet potatoes, so I'm going to roast, mash and assemble my casserole and freeze it. I'll thaw it in the fridge overnight and then just heat it and top it on Thanksgiving.

Saturday night or Sunday morning: Start thawing the turkey in the fridge. You need 24 hours for every 4 pounds. I like to give myself a little extra time, because nothing is worse than trying to hack the frozen gizzards out of your bird on Thanksgiving morning! Been there, done that!

Monday: Make cranberry sauce. I really like homemade cranberry sauce, and it is easy to make, and it keeps well in the fridge. But if life gets hectic, I'll just use canned sauce. Last time I checked Ocean Spray was gluten free.

Tuesday: Finish grocery shopping.

Wednesday: Prep the turkey.
Make broth from the giblets.
Toast pecans for sweet potatoes.
Saute celery, onions, mushrooms for stuffing.
Make crudite, dip, assemble snack trays.
Make pumpkin custard? Maybe.
Pick up the pies.
Make sure I have ice cubes.
Straighten up the house before heading to bed.

Thanksgiving Day: Roast the bird.
Assemble and bake stuffing (not a big fan of stuffing the bird....)
Reheat sweet potatoes, top with maple syrup and nuts.
Make gravy.
Make mashed potatoes.
Cook the grean beans. I just really feel like you have to have something green, and carb-free, and my kids really like those frozen haricots verde (? the long, skinny green beans). I'll just throw these in the microwave. If my in-laws come and I get ambitious I might make a green salad, too.
Bake GF rolls. (Takes 40 minutes to rise, 20 minutes to bake)
Bake non-GF rolls. My notes say it takes 3 hours for them to thaw and rise, about 20 minutes to bake.

Carve turkey, set table!
Whew! And it will all be gone in 30 minutes or less!

So that's my plan, more or less, I'll fill you in on how it goes, as it goes. And I'm planning on posting my recipes, or links to my recipes, during the next few weeks.

Simple Sweet and Sour Pork

Simple Sweet and Sour Pork

1-1.5 lbs. boneless pork loin, sliced thin
1 T. canola oil
1 small onion, chopped into narrow wedges
1/2 bag frozen red, green, and yellow bell peppers
20 oz. can of pineapple chunks, drained, juice reserved

Sauce:
1 T. brown sugar
3 T. Splenda
2/3 c. pineapple juice
2 T. cornstarch
2 T. soy sauce
1/4 c. rice vinegar

Combine sauce ingredients in a bowl and whisk. Heat oil in pan and stir fry pork in batches. Keep warm. Meanwhile use pan spray on a microwave safe bowl and microwave the onion on high for 1 minute, then add the frozen peppers and cook for two more minutes or until heated through. In the same pan you cooked the pork in, heat your sauce over medium heat, until it bubbles and starts to thicken. Add about a 1/4 c. of sauce to peppers and onions in the bowl, toss to coat. Add pork and pineapple to the pan, and cook just until heated through. Serve over hot sticky rice. Makes 4 servings, although if everyone likes vegetables at your house, you might need the whole bag of peppers and a larger onion.

Make sure you use GF ingredients, especially your soy sauce. ( I have been using La Choy lately, because the Great Value Soy Sauce was reformulated recently and now has wheat in it. Stinkers.) I was going to call this a stir fry, but it's really not. You could use fresh peppers, and stir fry your vegetables and meat, but then it wouldn't be quite so simple, would it! You could also just add your vegetables to the pan with the pineapple and peppers, but certain people at my house do not like onions and peppers, and I find that this makes it easy to humor them. And leaves more vegetables for me. To make sticky rice: Buy a good bag of short-grained Asian-style rice, follow the directions on the bag. It's not that hard. Generally it is 3 parts rice to 4 parts water. Bring it to a boil, turn the heat down to simmer and put a lid on it. Cook for 20 minutes.

Gluten-Free "Fast and Friendly" Meatballs

"Fast and Friendly" Gluten-Free Meatballs

2 T. olive oil
20 oz. lean ground turkey, not turkey breast
1 egg
1/3 c. gluten-free bread crumbs
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. salt
2 T. Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 glass pan with olive oil and put in the oven while it is preheating. Mix rest of ingredients in a large bowl until well combined. (Use your hands.) Roll tablespoons of the meat mixture into balls. Transfer to pan and bake for 15 minutes. Turn the meatballs over and then bake for another 10 minutes.

I adapted this recipe from a recipe called Fast and Friendly Meatballs that I found on Allrecipes.com. I save the crusts from my GF bread, or any gluten-free bread that has gone stale in a bag in a the freezer. Then when I need bread crumbs, I just break the bread slices into the blender and blend them up. If you want a more authentic meatball, you could use ground beef or meatloaf mix. This recipe makes between 25-30 walnut-sized meatballs. I quadruple the recipe and cook the meatballs on two large baking sheets (I got 117 meatballs this time). Then after the meatballs cool, I freeze them. This makes enough meatballs for about 5 meals. They are great with spaghetti sauce, just thaw and reheat them in the sauce. They are also delicious as an appetizer; cook them on low in a crockpot for about 3 hours with your favorite barbecue sauce.

A pan of meatballs ready to be baked.

Meatballs ready for the freezer.

Gluten-free spaghetti and meatballs is a definite crowd-pleaser at my house.

Making Your Own GF Mixes

Some of the mixes we took on vacation to Grandma's house: Two bread mixes, a pizza crust mix, a pancake mix, and a Chocolate Chip Cookie mix.


I make a lot of GF mixes to save time and make my baking simpler. I usually mix up a big batch of the Bread Flour Mix A from Annalise Roberts "Gluten Free Baking Classics" and then make a half dozen or so bread mixes that I can keep on hand. I just line up a half dozen containers with lids, and then measure each dry ingredient (except for the yeast) into my containers assembly-line style. (I use powdered milk in my baking so I actually measure in the dry equivalent of the milk, and then just add warm water instead of milk when I mix it up. In my case 3 T. of milk powder equals 3/4 c. of milk.) When you have all your ingredients in put the lids on tight and shake it up. If you don't shake it well and mix all your dry ingredients up, you get dry powdery lumps (probably from the sugar or gelatin). One of the nice things about her bread recipe is that she uses the same dry ingredients for sandwich bread, hamburgerand hot dog buns and dinner rolls, so I can use my bread mixes to make several different baked goods.

My strategy for other baked goods is this: Whenever I bake something that I don't already have a mix on hand for I have made a habit of making a couple of mixes along side my recipe. That way the next couple of times I bake that recipe, I won't have to bother mixing up the dry ingredients. You can make any mix, by combining your dry ingredients (except for yeast) in a container that can be sealed airtight, or a zipper-style plastic bag. Make sure you shake it up well, and label it.

My Mama's Enchiladas (naturally gluten free)

My mom always made these enchiladas growing up and I love them! My recipe probably doesn't match hers exactly, but it is pretty close. I was pretty happy when I realized that they were easy to make gluten free, and even happier when I made them and my boys gobbled them up! My mom made them with ground beef when I was a kid, but I use ground turkey.


My Mama's Enchiladas

1 medium onion, diced fine
1 pound of lean ground turkey (not turkey breast!) or ground beef
1 15 oz. can of GF enchilada sauce (I usually use Rosarita, a ConAgra brand)
1 15 oz. can of refried beans (Rosarita again, usually green chile and lime, but any flavor will do)
1 small can of sliced black olives
about 12 GF corn tortillas (I usually use Great Value or Mission)
shredded cheddar cheese
pan spray
sour cream for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8x8 Pyrex casserole dish or similar pan. Brown the ground meat with the onion until the meat is no longer pink and the onion is soft. Drain the meat if necessary. In a mixing bowl combine the meat, refried beans, olives, 1/3 c. of enchilada sauce. Stir to combine. Lightly (!) spray each tortilla and pile them up on a plate, cover with a damp microwave safe paper towel, and cook on high in the microwave for 30-60 seconds until pile is warmed through. (This helps keep the tortillas from cracking.) Pour about 1/2 cup of enchilada sauce in the bottom of your pan and spread it around. Let tortillas cool until you can handle them and then fill with about a 1/3 -1/2 cup of filling. Roll up the tortillas and fill the pan. (I usually do a row of 8 or so across, 2 along the side and a funny little square one in the corner.) Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce over the top of the enchiladas. Cover with tinfoil and heat in the oven until warm and bubbly. Remove tinfoil and top with cheese. Return to oven long enough to melt the cheese. Serve with sour cream.

You can also cook these in the microwave. If I'm in a hurry or if I don't want to heat up the house by turning on the oven I often do. The only difference that I can tell is that the edges get a little crunchy in the oven, but not in the microwave. Skip the tinfoil, cover with a microwave-proof paper towel, heat through until bubbly, top with cheese and heat through just long enough to melt the cheese.

It should be fairly easy to find gluten free ingredients for this recipe. I've listed a few of the brands that I use above, check the labels before you use them. I called ConAgra and they told me they label for gluten and the beans and enchilada sauce are gluten free.

Gluten-Free Sandwich Bread

I thought this was a pretty loaf of gluten-free sandwich bread. I used the recipe from Annalise Roberts' Gluten-Free Baking Classics. This loaf is actually a couple of days old, but it is still nice and soft.

I get so many requests for the recipe, I thought I would come back and post a link to the recipe at Annalise Robert's web site, where you can find a recipe for a slightly larger loaf of sandwich bread than the one in her book, and many other recipes.

Here's a link to the bread pans I use, I find these Chicago Metallic pans don't overbrown the bread like my old non-stick or glass pans did.