Wednesday, November 27, 2013

An Allergy-Free Thanksgiving

Due to some ongoing medical issues, I am currently eating a top-8-allergen-free diet.  This means no dairy, no eggs, no soy, no wheat, no peanuts, no tree nuts, no fish, and no shellfish.  At times, trying to figure out what I am going to eat can be challenging as many of my old favorites included at least one of these items.  Today, I am challenging myself to make allergen-free versions of our traditional Thanksgiving fare.  Because of the way I cook (dump a little here, add a little there), I'm not going to include recipes, but I will include an ingredient list for each dish.   If you are faced with the same allergy-free challenges and still want to serve "traditional" Thanksgiving fare, I hope some of these ideas will help you out!

"Turkey": I have stomach issues with traditionally processed poultry and will be cooking myself some minimally processed Smart Chicken chicken breasts.

Dressing: Homemade gluten-free/vegan bread (from this cookbook), Jimmy Dean Hot Pork Sausage, WildTree Butter Flavor Grapeseed Oil, onion, celery, mushrooms, sage, parsley, pepper

Mashed Potatoes: boiled potatoes, water(saved from boiling potatoes), roasted garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper

Chicken & Mushroom Gravy:   WildTree Butter Flavor Grapeseed Oil, gluten-free flour blend, chicken pan drippings (liquid left from cooking a whole chicken in the crockpot), dried mushrooms rehydrated in boiling water, salt & pepper.  This was honestly going to be just a chicken gravy, but I made too much roux and needed more liquid.  Adding plain water would have just made a bland gravy.  Dried mushrooms added great flavor to this gravy!

Green Bean Hotdish: green beans, homemade mushroom gravy (dried mushrooms rehydrated in boiling water, gluten-free flour blend, WildTree Butter Flavor Grapeseed Oil, salt & pepper, poultry seasoning), homemade fried onions (onion, gluten-free flour blend, canola oil)

Pumpkin Chai Mousse:  Coconut cream, pumpkin puree, chai tea bags, vanilla, honey, Enjoy Life Snickerdoodle cookies (chopped into small pieces and sprinkled on top) Edit:  The tea bags didn't give it enough spice for me so I added extra cinnamon, ground cloves, ginger, and cardamom.

I'll come back and post pics and results of all my experiments after tomorrow! 

No comments:

Post a Comment