Countdown to our Gluten-Free Thanksgiving 2010

Preparing a gluten-free Thanksgiving feast takes a bit of planning and reconnaissance in the kitchen, but adding in other dietary considerations (some of my family members are vegetarians) adds another layer of thinking about recipes.

Since receiving the celiac diagnosis five years ago, I've been planning and cooking meals that are mostly gluten-free and mostly pescatarian or vegetarian, including our family's Thanksgiving meal, but this year I'm making things easier on myself by making it all gluten-free.

Not that I'm telling my holiday family and guests, mind you.

I will let the vegetarians know that aside from a roast turkey and accompanying gravy, they are free to roam the Thanksgiving table without fear of ingesting meat. And I will whisper in my husband's ear that he may do the same without being glutened. My Thanksgiving gift to him. And not incidentally, to me, as the Chief and Crispiest of Cooks.

I still plan a lavish spread (because I love to cook, I love to eat, I love to have leftovers during a busy retail season at our bookstore, because I have teenagers) but I will not be making gluten-free AND Gluteny kinds of stuffings, two kinds of desserts, etc. etc. as I have in the past. I think I have just gotten to a different mindset about cooking in my kitchen as we have tried to transition from our previous cooking/eating ways to a gluten-free lifestyle.


Whereas right after the G-bomb hit with my husband's diagnosis I was overwhelmed with the enormity of having to retool the kitchen, rethink my repertoire of recipes and cooking methods, and relearn how to bake (fuhgeddaboutit!), I am now more at ease with shopping and cooking gluten-free than not. Weird.

I'm certainly planning to be less mentally CRISPY a cook when I am putting the finishing touches on my Thanksgiving spread and calling everyone to the table. If anyone asks about whether things are gluten-free before the feasting is over, I plan to get a distracted look and hurry off to say "I forgot to put out the salt and pepper", or "I forgot to turn off the stove". I will only let slip that the entire deliciousness is gluten-free after the fact, when they are lulled into a post-prandial daze.

At least, that's my devious plan. Keep your fingers crossed for me on my secretive gluten-free guerrilla assault on my otherwise GF-wary diners.

Here's my game plan for a totally Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Feast:

Nibbles:

Magical Muhammara (a fantastic Middle Eastern dip courtesy of author Diana Abu-Jaber, I sub in GF bread crumbs)
Grandma's Stuffed Celery
Cream Cheese Glazed with Garlic-Rosemary Jelly (recipe to follow in another post this week)
GF Crackers (Sesame-Rosemary Crackers if I'm extra-ambitious, but more likely a couple of packages of store-bought Nut Thins)



Main Event:

Roast Turkey with Pan Gravy (for the omnivores)
Roast Portabellas with Rice Stuffing and Mushroom Gravy (for the vegetarians)

Mashed Potatoes
Copper Pennies Salad
Sweet Potato Pudding
Cole Slaw
Green Bean Casserole with Crunchy Fried Onions (courtesy of Jill of Hey, That Tastes Good!)
Apple Chutney (with dried cranberries thrown in to macerate for a couple of days)
Cornbread Dressing
Brussels Sprouts with Lemon Balm Vinaigrette
Relish Tray (olives, carrot sticks and Dilly Beans)
GF Parker House Rolls (courtesy of Art of Gluten-Free Baking)



Sweet Finale:

Apple Sour Cream Pie
Impossible Vegan Pumpkin Pie (courtesy of the Fat Free Vegan)
Chocolate Dipped Strawberries


My daughter and I made a batch of these Chocolate Dipped Strawberries during the summer, to serve as an elegant ending for our wedding anniversary dinner and I was amazed at how ridiculously easy they were. They look so beautiful that I had always assumed they were difficult to assemble, but after perusing some cookbooks and Internet recipes I came up with this breezy way to make these simple little show stoppers.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

1 lb. fresh strawberries, hulls left on, rinsed and patted dry

1 (8 oz.) pkg. gluten-free milk chocolate chips

1-2 Tbsp. vegetable shortening

Melt chocolate chips in double boiler over low heat. Stir often. When chips are fully melted, add in shortening as needed to achieve a runny, liquid texture.

Line a cookie sheet with waxed paper.

Holding strawberries by hulls, dip in melted chocolate to coat on all sides except hull. Place gently on waxed paper to cool.

That's it! Chill when cooled. You can also get fancier with these dessert treats by swirling on lines of melted white chocolate or dipping their little bottoms in crushed nuts while they are still warm.

I'm sending this Thanksgiving 2010 post over to Shirley at Gluten-Free Easily, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in person recently. She is a lovely, supersmart lady who shares her gluten-free recipes, entertaining ideas, health information and so much more on her wonderful blog. Shirley's hosting week 2 of a Gluten-Free Holiday series sponsored by Amy of Simply Sugar and Gluten Free and Shirley's theme this week is Thanksgiving Favorites.

Hop on over to Gluten-Free Easily to see what other bloggers are planning for their Turkey Day. I just visited and see that my tentative feast menu may be subject to change based on some droolworthy options over there. You can also leave comments there to enter to win some wonderful cookbooks.

Happy Holidays to All

May everyone enjoy as restful and happy a holiday season as my sweet dog Martha. Peace out.

Thyme for Mirepoix

Thanksgiving logistics hinged on lots of aromatic and flavorful magic from sauteed carrots, celery and onion, infused with fresh leaves from my still verdant thyme plant in the garden. Making two different stuffings (bread for the kids, rice for me and Dan) and two different gravies (turkey drippings-based for the meat lovers and mushroom-based for the vegetarians) was made a whole lot easier by chopping up a whole bunch of celery (leaves and all), 6 big, scraped carrots and 3 onions, sauteeing the lot in a stick of butter and then seasoning with salt, pepper and a handful of thyme leaves stripped from their stems.

In classical French cuisine, this fragrant mix is called mirepoix (pronounced meer-pwah) and it forms the basis for many soups, stews and braised dishes. I made up a whole mess of mirepoix and then divided it into fourths to make my vegetarian vs. carnivore, kid vs. adult, celiac vs. non-celiac menu dance a little easier. The Crispy Cook didn't need to get any crispier during Thanksgiving meal prep.



For a traditional bread stuffing for the kids, I took the 1/4 of my master Mirepoix mess and mixed it in with an assortment of torn up stale bread, frozen waffles they refused to eat and subsequently lounged about for months, leftover hot dog rolls from a Labor Day cookout and a few other stale oddments of bread that I had cleverly stashed in the freezer. I then added enough vegetable broth (a la crockpot) to moisten, threw in a beaten egg and then tamped the lot into a greased baking dish and baked it 30 minutes.

Another quarter of my Mirepoix was then added to 3 cups of cooked brown rice and augmented with 10 oz. fresh mushrooms, cleaned and sliced and sauteed in butter. More veggie broth moistened it and I threw in about 2/3 cup grated Asiago cheese and that was an awesome mushroomy rice stuffing for Dan's Thanksgiving portabellas, with much more rice stuffing baked up on the side.

The rest of the Mirepoix was divided in half and each portion formed the basis for gravy. Dan's gravy was started with 2 cups of vegetable broth and a quarter of the Mirepoix in a small saucepan. I had some of those sauteed mushrooms reserved from the rice stuffing above to throw in and then I used some of the hot broth mixed with cornstarch to make a paste which I then whisked back into the boiling broth. When it was thickened, about 10 minutes later, I turned off the heat and I was done. I added a further bit of richness to his gravy by adding some wheat-free soy sauce.

The final quarter of the Master Mirepoix was mixed in with drippings from our roast turkey and the same cornstarch paste technique was applied to thicken it up. Dan's gravy had sliced mushrooms floating in it, so it was readily identifiable.

The thyme was the perfect seasoning for all of the four gravies and stuffings above: it was nicely herbal without being too overpowering or musty, like sage can be and having the fresh herbs was a treat now that the garden has largely gone into hibernation. And the Mirepoix certainly kept me delightfully sane in the Crispy kitchen when I was juggling all my family's food requirements and holiday requests. Thank you, Mirepoix!

I am submitting these tips for using thyme and mirepoix to this week's round of Weekend Herb Blogging (WHB), a food blog event that celebrates the use of herbs and unusual plant ingredients now maintained by Haalo of Cook (Almost) Anything Once. Our host for WHB #161 is Scott the Real Epicurean, a U.K. blogger who likes to focus on wild and seasonal food and sustainable foods. Be sure to check out Scott's blog, especially after November 30th, to see an always-intriguing, always-educational roundup of recipes.

Gluten-Free Steve is celebrating his second year of gluten-free living by declaring this Sunday, April 13th, "Gluten-Freedom Day". To participate in this wonderful new holiday, people are asked to do something special for someone who is gluten-free. Now, I just baked two loaves of sandwich bread for Dan-O, but he's been jonesing for another Pavlova ever since I whipped one up a few months ago, so maybe I'll surprise him then with this airy confection.

What are you going to do to celebrate Gluten-Freedom Day?

Pavlova for Your Sweetheart

Our two daughters have been chosen to serve as Student Ambassadors in the People to People Program, which sends kids overseas to represent America in a positive light and interact with other students and adults during the summer months. Our oldest daughter is going to check out various parts of Europe, while the youngest is going to visit eastern Australia and New Zealand. Part of the preparation for the Student Ambassador program is to learn about the culture, government and history of your destination, so as chief cook in our household I researched some Aussie and Kiwi foodstuffs and found a naturally gluten-free dessert which produced an appropriately Pavlovian response (we all drooled), the Pavlova.

According to Wikipedia, this luscious dessert is alternately claimed to have been created by chefs in both countries down under in honor of the 1920s visits by renowned ballerina, Anna Pavlova. It consists of a meringue shell topped with whipped cream and fruit. It is traditionally eaten on Christmas, but with a red fruit topping, I think it would also be a perfect Valentine's Day treat.

Pavlovas can be covered with sliced kiwis, pomegranate seeds, berries of all kinds, and even candies, but I made a Pavlova with our family fruit favorite, strawberries. This is a rich and delicate dessert best eaten immediately after making, as the meringue outer shell only stays crispy for a little while before absorbing the moisture from the cream and fruit. There was a lot of washing up to do after making this, but the results were well worth it.

Look for some more Australian and New Zealand recipes in the future as we all prepare for this traveling opportunity. The kids are also doing some fundraising for all the expenses of these trips, and we are helping them with a special sale at our Internet book site, Old Saratoga Books. We have lots of cookbooks, history titles and books in 82 different categories listed there and if you are interested in any, you can enter the coupon code PTP to get 25% off any book order.

Onto the deliciousness of the Pavlova:

I turned to the Joy of Baking website for the basic recipe. Everything turned out well, except that I found that the meringue base stuck to the parchment paper quite effectively after baking and cooling. I had to juggle two spatulas to transfer it onto a platter for cream and fruit assemblage and it ended up in several pieces. I wonder if you should grease the parchment paper or just cut a circle out of it and serve the Pavlova with the paper stuck to it for diners to remove? In any event, the breakage was not noticeable once I slathered it with whipped cream and fruit, but if anyone has any Pavlova experience, please let me know.

The Joy of Baking recipe calls for sliced fresh fruit, but I used most of a 16 oz. container of thawed sliced, sweetened strawberries, and this worked beautifully.

G'day and Happy Baking!

Rudolph's Noses - Our favorite Gluten Free Christmas Cookie

Every family has its holiday traditions, and in our household it just would not be Christmastime if we didn't decorate the Christmas tree while listening to my eldest's punk rock holiday tunes, snip out paper snowflakes to tape onto the windows and pierce oranges with cloves to hopefully mummify into spicy sachets. If I also don't make a batch of Rudolph's Nose cookies and stain my hands from the red sugar they are rolled in, there will be Decemberish whining.

Originally I made this recipe, passed onto me by my friend Hope with the more elegant monniker of "Chocolate Cherry Bites", with a box of vanilla wafers, but now I use whatever kind of gluten-free shortbread or vanilla cookie is available on the grocery shelves.

HoHoHoping you will enjoy this Jagareski family tradition...

Rudolph's Nose Cookies

1 (9-12 oz.) box gluten-free vanilla cookies, smashed into crumbs
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
1-1/2 cups finely chopped walnuts
3 Tbsp. baking cocoa
3/4 cups chopped maraschino cherries (most of a 16 oz. jar)
3 Tbsp. light corn syrup
Red sugar crystals (at least one 2.25 oz. jar, but buy a second jar because depending on your level of encrustation, more sugar crystals may be required)

The easiest thing is to use a food processor to smash the vanilla cookies, and chop the nuts and cherries. Otherwise, chop and smash using your favorite alternate method and mix everything except sugar crystals into a large mixing bowl.

Mix together until you can shape the cookies into little 1/2 inch balls. If you need to add more moisture, a dab of leftover maraschino cherry juice will do.

Roll cookies in red sugar crystals. You can also do a mix of red and green sugar crystals, but red is the smartest and most fashionable color of sugar crystal to accompany a chocolate brown cookie, so you gotta go with that.

Makes about 40 Rudolph Noses, more than enough to light the way for Santa's sleigh.

These keep about 2-3 weeks in a covered tin. After that the sugar leaches out the moisture from the cookie and they become unpleasantly sticky.

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For lots of other gluten-free Christmas cookie recipes, check out these other links:

Aboutcom's List

Cookies in Motion website

Gluten-Free Mommy


And Carrie over at the Ginger Lemon girl blog promises a Gluten-Free Cookie Recipe Roundup later this month, so check out some other scrumptious options there.

The Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Menu

At our house we are planning a day of relaxing with some festive foods sandwiched between busy days at the bookstore. We usually have holiday shoppers and regular customers who stop in to see us once or twice a year when they are visiting folks, so we don't travel anywhere for Thanksgiving as we only take Thursday off. While there no line outside of the shop when we open, we have a respectable Black Friday and strong Thanksgiving weekend sales at our Old Saratoga Books, our used and rare bookstore. To fortify ourselves for the holiday shopping season, I have planned the following menu for our Thanksgiving Feast. An asterisk after the item indicates that a recipe is already shared here on this blog :


Spicy Toasted Nuts*
Grandma's Stuffed Celery*
Relish Tray

Creamed Onions
Gluten-Free Bread Stuffing
Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Turkey and Gravy (for the carnivores)
Roast Porta Bella Mushrooms and Gravy (for the vegetarians)
Sweet Potato Pudding

Salad
Cranberry Sauce (Dan insists on the quivering jellied mass from the can)
Mashed Turnips
Twice Baked Potatoes
Pumpkin Pie*

Now to find time to make all of this!

A Delicious Pumpkin Pie

Susan over at the Fat-Free Vegan Kitchen posted a great recipe for a gluten-free pumpkin pie that you whirl up in the blender and pour into some greased pie shells. Pop them in the oven and you've got a pumpkin pie that makes its own sort-of crust. The cornstarch and rice flour work a little alchemy to make the pie have a moist base that you can even pick up in your hand and snack on. This pie was a hit with the family, although I did find that it improved with a little pure maple syrup drizzled on top.

There are loads of other wheat-free, meat-free recipes over at the Fat-Free Vegan Blog and I am looking forward to making my way through some of them. There are a couple of chickpea and sesame flour cracker recipes which sound and look fantastic. And her food photographic skills are of a much higher caliber.

Here's Susan's recipe for:

Impossible Vegan Pumpkin Pie

1 1/2 cups soymilk
1 tbsp. Ener-G egg replacer*
1/4 cup water*
1 tbsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups pureed or mashed cooked pumpkin (or cushaw or winter squash)
1/2 cup rice flour (or flour of your choice)
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. ginger powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a 9-inch deep dish pie pan with cooking spray. (I used a Pyrex pan, and it came out with no sticking.) A deep dish is recommended because this pie will rise a lot during cooking but will fall back down as it cools.

Put the first five ingredients in the blender, and blend well. Add the pumpkin, and puree. Add the remaining ingredients and blend on high for 2 minutes, stopping to scrape the sides a couple of times to make sure everything is thoroughly blended. Pour into a pie pan and bake for about 60 minutes. The top and edges should be brown, but the edges should not be over-done. (Since this is a custardy pie, using the standard toothpick or knife test does not work; it will remain somewhat moist in the center, but it shouldn't be uncooked.)

Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the counter. For best results, refrigerate until chilled before eating.

*If you don't have Ener-G egg replacer, you can omit it and the 1/4 cup water and use any other replacement for two eggs. Of course, if you're not vegan, you could use two eggs, but why not give the vegan version a chance?

Makes 8 servings, each containing 153 Calories (kcal); 1g Total Fat; (7% calories from fat); 3g Protein; 34g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 264mg Sodium; 3g Fiber.Untitled

Copyright 2006 Susan Voisin and Fatfree Vegan Kitchen
All rights reserved.