Lessons from a Gluten-Free Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has come and gone, but the gluten-free recipes I tried will definitely be staying with me for years to come. As promised, I had my mom and husband snapping away when they weren't sous chefs in the kitchen.

First up, the gluten-free spicy dressing--not stuffing like I originally suggested. I quickly learned that dressing is the side dish, versus stuffing that is, like its name, stuffed in the turkey. Below is a photo breakdown of the steps that coincide with last week's post.

Ingredients included(clockwise from left): Trader Joe's chicken sausage with sundried tomato and basil, Kitchen Basics unsalted chicken stock, Whole Foods gluten free cornbread, and Trader Joe's toasted pine nuts (pignolias).

Other ingredients can be found here. Adapted from Martha Stewart's recipe, I encountered grocery challenges after I blogged about the recipe. I'm not sure if Pamela's cornbread recipe was super popular on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, but my local Whole Foods didn't have it in stock. The cornbread mixes they had were glutenous, but, fortunately, I found Whole Foods brand gluten-free corn bread in their freezer section. This was a first time buy for me, but after nibbling a slice at home, I knew I made the right choice. SensiHusband didn't notice a difference in taste so we were cleared to move forward!

To begin, I cubed and toasted the cornbread for 20 minutes in the oven, making sure to toss occasionally so it was evenly browned.

While the cornbread was being toasted, SensiHusband helped chop the celery and saute the onions until they turned transparent.

While he did that, I prepped the sausage in the food processor. It only took a few pulses to processs, as they would shrink down during cooking.

After prepping the sausage, we combined with the remaining mixture's ingredients, then mixed with the cornbread.

The final step included binding with the Earth Balance.

After folding together, I placed the dressing in a casserole dish and baked for another 10 minutes.

For being my first attempt, I was really happy with the way this came out. Family members who tried said they liked the flavors, and SensiHusband devoured the leftover dressing the next day. This was definitely recipe I would try again!

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the gluten-free gravy that I made, as I quickly became involved in a turkey gravy throw down!  It was completely unplanned, but so much fun to include a bit of healthy competition. Helped work up an appetite just before dinner :)

The gluten-free and gluten gravy were closely mirrored to each other, except that I  used corn starch instead of flour, as well as water to break down some of the thickness instead of chicken stock. The turkey drippings had enough sodium, so I wanted to dilute that a bit. The consistency was thick enough, without being lumpy, and the color was a bit darker than my gluten gravy counterpart.

Both gravies sat side-by-side, and we let our family members decide. I actually heard my brother-in-law say, "Oh this is darker, so it must be the unhealthy one." He went for mine, and loved it! Afterwards, we filled him in that he'd had the g-free one. What a fun surprise!

Once dinner was over, I finished the night with my special cupcake treat from Sweet Avenue Bake Shop. I've had their vanilla gluten-free cupcakes, but this time they had my favorite flavor, red velvet! I shared one with SensiHusband, but the other three were eaten by the end of the weekend. I highly recommend stopping in if you're ever in Rutherford, NJ. I had already dug in before remembering to take a picture, but here's a shot of the two that I saved for later!

I'm so thankful that all of my additions turned out so yummy. If I felt overly full, it wasn't from the contents of the food, but out of pure overindulgence :) Now onto the Christmas menu!

Until next week,

SensiGirl