Thanksgiving Dinner (Complete with gluten free stuffing of course!)

This post is a little late, as Thanksgiving was last month, but better late than never, right?!

For Thanksgiving my family cooked the traditional feast; turkey, mashed potatoes, yams, stuffing, etc…as well as my favourite addition to turkey dinner-rosemary glazed carrots! I came across this recipe about a year back, and tried it out at both Thanksgiving and Christmas last year. I can’t remember where I found the recipe, but I remember wanting to try it out because it sounded really good, as well as relatively simple to try. The recipe uses only four ingredients, and is almost impossible to mess up.

Start with a bunch of carrots (to feed about 9 people I think I used about 10 carrots, and we had some leftovers). Peel the carrots and chop off the ends, then cut the carrots on the bias (diagonally). I cut them about a 1/4 cm in thickness. Saute the carrots in butter (or margarine if dairy is an issue, it works just as well). Add a few tablespoons of brown sugar and about a tablespoon of rosemary (the only rosemary I had this time was dried, powdered rosemary, which worked well, but previously I have used regular dried rosemary, not powered). Let the carrots cook until the sugar is dissolved, the flavours have blended and the carrots are tender-crisp. Taste and adjust seasonings to taste. Salt and pepper can also be added if desired. Serve warm!

These carrots are a good addition to Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, but would also be good as a side dish for many other meals.

Thanksgiving Dinner (Gluten Free of course)

Hi all.  As this is my first post I thought I would start with a major cooking event to write about; last nights Thanksgiving dinner. This was the second year my boyfriend and I had hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house. Last years Thanksgiving was our first major family meal at our place and it was a huge success. So after that, this years turkey dinner had to live up to last years. My boyfriend decided to make this an easy thing for me to do by buying a 25 lb turkey. That’s no small bird! To add to the massive bird, I also had to create a gluten free meal that I could enjoy without feeling like I was missing anything, but at the same time make everything taste as good as it could so that gluten full eaters also didn’t feel like they were missing out.

Adapting my mothers stuffing was the most important part. After having to avoid the stuffing my first Thanksgiving as a Celiac (my mom hadn’t figured out how to make it gluten free), I was determined this year (and last) to make the stuffing as good as possible to make up for the year I was stuffing deprived. And I succeeded! (Recipe below) Simply replacing the bread crumbs with torn up pieces of gluten free rice and almond bread did the trick.

After I figured out the hardest part of the meal the rest was smooth sailing (except of course, fitting 11 family members into our small basement suite!).

I always hear about people who majorly overwhelmed by cooking a turkey, and I have a few pieces of advice; wake up early enough to put the bird in the oven, don’t get a turkey that is going to need to cook for more than 10 hours(!), and relax; cooking a turkey isn’t much different than popping a roast in the oven and making some side dishes.

Stuffing Recipe (Courtesy of Ashley’s Mom and Grandma)

-diced celery

-diced onions

-bread crumbs

-sage seasoning

-poultry seasoning

-butter/margarine

-Dice up equal parts of celery and onion. I used about 4 cups of each, but it all depends on how much stuffing you need to make.

-Soften the onions and celery with the butter or margarine.

-Once the vegetables are softened add the bread crumbs (I used gluten free rice and almond bread pieces, torn up). Use approximately an equal amount of bread crumbs to each the celery and onions. Stir all together.

-Add sage and poultry seasoning to taste.  Stuffing can be served at this point, or stuffed into the turkey and baked with the bird.

I hope you all enjoy this recipe, it is amazing stuffing!

Happy Turkey Day!