Delicious Fran: Gluten Free Thanksgiving

Happy Canadian ThanksGiving :)

First off, I want to Thank my amazing husband for all his help and in basically doing almost everything with my direction and instructions and my recipes. He really helped make thanksgiving dinner amazing.

this years thanksgiving was a bit of a challenge, firstly because we had to make it gluten free, secondly because I was not healthy enough to do much, but my husband stepped up to the challenge and did the whole thing. except i helped with getting the turkey ready.

To make our life easy, I basically took my regular recipes and made some changes to make them gluten free, i switched out regular bread for gluten free bread, flour for cornstarch and added some extra flavourings and read a lot of the ingredients on things ensure they were gluten free.

Lets start with the appetizers... :) I tried to make these very simple as the meal itself was a lot of work, and anyone who has ever cooked a holiday dinner knows that simple is best when it comes to certain elements :)

I served Gluten Free Organic Tortilla Chips and Organic farm fresh Salsa that we bought at our local farm..this was simple and required 0 cooking.. most busy peoples favourite thing.

Add chips to serving bowl with salsa on the side.

I also served my favorite Smoked Salmon with Capers and Lemon

this was also quiet easy, we only had a few people but you can serve as much as you like. I used the following

1 pkg Alaskan Smoked Salmon

10-20 capers

1 lemon quartered.

Simply arrange the salmon nicely, top with capers and add lemon wedges on the side :) People can then add as much lemon as they would like to their salmon.

Gluten Free cheese and keilbasa plate... we used Cracker Barrel Mild Cheese, local Farm - apple wood smoked cheddar and Farmstead cheddar cheese. With Pillars gluten free Keilbasa. Cut these up any way you like and arrange on a plate and serve :)

Now for the fun appetizer.. This recipe idea came from my Aunt Laurie who is an amazing cook, she brought these to a Christmas party and I took it from there, I did ask her for the recipe and she wasn't clear on what was in the sauce so i came up with that on my own.. This is 100% gluten free.. :)

make this based on size of crowd we only had 4 people..so I only made a small batch.

Bacon Wrapped Chestnuts.

1 can whole water chestnuts

1 pound maple bacon

tooth picks

for the sauce

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 tbsp ketchup

1/2 tbsp gluten free Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp gluten free soya sauce

Directions

Cut pound of bacon in half, drain chestnuts and put in bowl.

take a piece of bacon and wrap it around the chestnut and secure with a tooth pick, place in baking pan.

This can be done night before and left in fridge to save time.

For the sauce, I find the easiest way to make sauce is to put it in an small mason jar with a lid.. Add all ingredients to a bowl or mason jar and mix well.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, place chestnuts in oven and cook for 30-40 mins until bacon is cooked through. Add sauce over the bacon wrapped chestnuts and cook for a further 10mins.

Remove and place on platter serve warm...careful these are HOT and go really fast.. I can never seem to make enough.

Now for the meal..

I am going to start with one of the flavour components that I added .. and that is roasted Garlic

This is very simple.. preheat your oven to 450 degrees..

take as many whole cloves of garlic as you want.. cut the tops off, place in foil and pour a little bit of olive oil on top of them, I used around 2 table spoons each. Roast in oven for an hour .. you will know when they are done, as they will smell sweet and fragrant.. warning** during roasting time, they do have a really pungent funky smell ..ignore it..it goes away and changes to a very nice yummy smell.

Once done, you can use them hot, or wait for them to cool.. to remove them just squish the uncut end and the cloves should come right out, or you can use a fork- I tortured my husband by making him squeeze them ;) Love it when men follow directions exactly and dont ask questions..MUAHAHAHAA!!

So lets start now with the Stuffing and the TURKEY!!!! ..as that is usually the first thing to go in the oven.

Stuffing.....

I started my stuffing 2 days ahead as I used gluten free bread.

Choose any gluten free bread you like..always use your favourite as that way you know what it tastes like. If you got frozen bread defrost it.

I used 2 loafs gluten free Umbi bread.

Take the bread and cut it into cubes, place on baking sheet and light toast in oven for 20 mins until they are almost dry, remove and add to large bowl once cool, cover with plastic wrap and leave to finish drying. I let the bread dry for the 2 days before adding any other ingredients. This did really help with changing the texture and flavour of the gluten free bread.

Making the stuffing

Add..

2 tbsp of poultry seasoning

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp italian seasoning

3 stalks of celery chopped

1 large onion diced

1 1/2 apple diced and cored - of your choice I used red delicious

1 bag of dried cranberries

4-6 cups of water or chicken stock if it is gluten free... this is dependent on how moist you want your stuffing or if it is going in the turkey or a casserole dish.

Mix all ingredients with the dried bread cubes and stuff into turkey if thats the way you do your stuffing, other wise put in casserole dish and cover.

TURKEY TIME!!!!

preheat oven to 325 degrees

this is a pretty simple preparation- I bought a butterball turkey as it is gluten free. No barely, wheat or malt used in their brines. and a pound of low salt maple leaf bacon.

My turkey took 4.5 days to defrost in the fridge..

take you turkey and remove packaging from turkey, place in clean sink, remove the giblets and neck.. Rinse turkey inside and out with cold water.

Place turkey on rack of roasting pan and pat dry with paper towels.

Seasoning turkey with salt and pepper, stuff the turkey with the your bread stuffing and them cover in bacon, there is no rhyme or reason to the way you put on the bacon, just cover the turkey in bacon- My family has been doing this since I could remember, helps keep the turkey moist while cooking.

cook the turkey based on its size , ours took 5 hours and the turkey is cooked when the thickest part of the thigh reached 180 degrees F. Tip- when the turkey is 2//3 the way cooked, cover the breast and stuffing with foil to ensure you don't dry out the breast.

When turkey is done cooking, remove from oven and let rest for 30-40 mins tented with tin foil.

Side dishes

Cranberry Sauce

1 bag of fresh cranberries

1/2 apple cored and peeled and diced

6-10 tbps of white sugar depending on taste

add all ingredients to a small sauce pan and turn on low heat, keep and eye on it and stir frequently- this should take about an hour to cook, you know it is cooked when you can easily mash the cranberries.

serve warm or cold :)

Roasted Root vegetables

3 parsnips

3 small turnips

2 large beets

3 large carrots

2 onions

3 springs of fresh rosemary

salt/pepper

olive oil

cut all vegetables any way you want, chunk strips etc..this is a really easy anyway you want recipe.

place parchment paper on a backing pan (you may need two) and spread the vegetables out in a layer, sprinkle with salt and pepper and a little bit of olive oil, remove the rosemary from the stalks and sprinkle on top of the veggies, stir the veggies around to evenly coat them with the oil.

Place in oven and bake for 30 mins, or until veggies are fork tender.

Steam broccoli/cauliflower with cheese sauce

Cut broccoli and cauliflower into pieces and add to steamer, steam for 15 mins

Cheese Sauce

2 tbps butter

2 tbps corn starch

1 cup milk

2 cups cheddar cheese (or your favourite)

In a medium sauce pan, melt butter on med-low heat, add the corn starch to the melted butter and stir till well combined, heat through for 2 mins, add 5 table spoons of milk one at a time to help, once heated through, slowly add the rest of the milk, bring to boil while stiring constantly to ensure the mixture doesnt stick or clump.

Add the cheese a little bit at a time, ensure each handful has fully melted before adding more. Once all the cheese has been added, place sauce in a serving container and serve hot :)

Roasted garlic mashed potatoes

I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of these, but here is what I did.

Make your potatoes as you usually do for mashed potatoes. You will be adding roasted garlic to them while mixing.

Recipe for roasted garlic above :).. we didn't add enough of these as I couldn't really taste them..so if you are making a large amount of roasted garlic mashed potatoes.. put at least 4 whole bunches of roasted garlic cloves. :) salt, pepper, butter and milk..DONE!!!

Dessert-

PUMPKIN PIE see previous post for recipe

Snack roasted pumpkin seeds

I took my three small pumpkins that I used for my indoor decor and had my husband cut them open for me.. I removed all the seeds and guts of the pumpkin, I ensure to seperate the seeds from the pulp and give them a rinse and pat dry with paper towel.. I lined a baking sheet with parchment paper, laid out the seeds and sprinkled some sea salt ontop of them.

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees and roast the pumpkin seeds for an hour, depending on how hot your oven is. Ensure you stir them around half way through :)