Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free » Holiday

Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Favorites

Janel — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:00:45 +0000

Thanksgiving is almost here!It seems like it sneaked up on me this year.

We’re having our traditional holiday feast of roast turkey, orange-glazed ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, cornbread dressing, salad, some kind of veggie (probably brussels sprouts), homemade ice cream, and a couple of pies. This year it’s going to be dairy-free too.

If you’re still planning your menu, you might want to try one of these gluten-free recipes that are sure to be a hit at your Thanksgiving Feast next week:

You might also want to check out my Ingredient Substitution List so you can make all of the recipes at your Thanksgiving table work for anyone with allergies or intolerances.

Need healthy baking tips for the holidays? Get them here.

What’s on your menu? Have any questions about holiday cooking?

Vegan Butternut Mac & Cheese

Amy — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 14:00:26 +0000

You really can make healthy mac and cheese from scratch with this easy recipe. You don’t have to worry about what kind of cheese to use either. There’s no cheese in this mac.

I thought you might want to add this to your Thanksgiving menu.

The flavors are so close to my original gluten-free mac & cheese. It tastes like the real deal, only a little lighter. But it’s still creamy and filled with the richness you expect when you take a bite of one of America’s classic noodle dishes. Leftovers hold well in the fridge, too. Always a bonus when you’re dealing with gluten-free pasta.

It passed the Joe test with flying colors. Our dinner conversation that night went something like this:

Amy: How’s the mac & cheese?

Joe: This might be mac but it’s not cheese.

Amy: It’s mac and cheese. Just try it.

Joe: I’m not eating it until you tell me what you put in here.
(...)
Read the rest of Vegan Butternut Mac & Cheese

Crispy Sweet Potatoes

Amy — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 03:00:45 +0000

Sweet potatoes made savory for the holidays – without marshmallows, brown sugar, or pecans. Instead, a simple brush with olive oil, butter, seasoned lightly with salt and pepper, then slow baked with shallots and thyme.

I wish I was clever enough to think of this all on my own, but the truth the fine people at Everyday Food made it first with regular white potatoes. I thought that it just might work with sweet potatoes, and though they probably don’t get as crispy as regular white potatoes, they’re slightly crispy on top and still have a deliciously firm bite.

Joe isn’t crazy about sweet potatoes, but I caught him grabbing little slices out of the baking dish and eating them like potato chips. He actually likes them. A lot.

To get the potatoes thin and uniform, I used my mandoline slicer on the second to last setting, about 1/16 inch. If you’ve never used one before, it’s great for slicing and julienning fruits and veggies.

If you’ve been hanging around here for a while, you know I love sweet potatoes. If you love them, too, you might like my:

Sweet Morning Potatoes
Parmesan Crusted Sweet Potato Fries with Light Garlic Aioli
Sweet Potato Quinoa Cookies
Gingered Sweet Potatoes (a guest post at The Nourishing Gourmet)

Reminder:

Go Ahead Honey, It’s Gluten-Free has a new host this month – Stephanie of Gluten Free by Nature. The fitting theme is Holiday Cookies. If you want to be included in this round up, send your link and to Stephanie via the contact tab on her blog by December 27th.

This post is linked to Finer Things Friday.

Crispy Sweet Potatoes

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

2 – 3 medium sweet potatoes, about 2 pounds
1 tablespoon good quality extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
1 shallot, peeled and sliced thickly
kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
3 -4 sprigs of fresh thyme

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Peel potatoes and slice them into uniform, thin slices with a very sharp chef’s knife or a mandoline slicer. Keep the potatoes together as you slice them so it’s easier to arrange them in a dish. (Make sure you have enough sliced potatoes to fill your chosen baking dish. A shallow, smaller dish about the height of your potatoes works best. My baking dish was about 1 quart, maybe a little smaller.)
Combine melted butter and olive oil. Use a pastry brush to coat the inside of a 1 quart baking dish with the mixture. Reserve remaining olive oil and butter for topping potatoes. Put shallot slices into the open spaces in the potatoes. Brush with remaining butter and olive oil. Sprinkle with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. Bake for 1 1/4 hours. Add thyme and bake for another hour or until the tops of the potatoes are browned and crispy and the potatoes are baked through.

http://simplysugarandglutenfree.com/crispy-sweet-potatoes-recipe/

Apple & Walnut Stuffed Acorn Squash

Amy — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:00:22 +0000

Squash in all forms makes me happy. We’ve been getting locally grown, farm fresh, organic squash from our CSA lately and it’s amazing how much better it tastes than store-bought squash. It’s one of those foods that just feels good to eat – even the skin. Quite honestly, I like it roasted with nothing on it – not even salt or pepper. But sometimes it’s fun to dress it up a little. That’s what I did here.

I like to include squash in my meals as a carb – it has so many great health benefits, including beta carotene, vitamins A & C, dietary fiber…read all about it here. I steer clear of certain carbs – white pototoes and white rice to name a couple. They tend to spike my blood sugar and then I feel tired. Choosing healthier carbs has been an important part of my long-term weight loss, and this is one of them I love. It’s also naturally gluten-free, which is always a plus in my book.

Instead of stuffing this beautiful squash with a greasy sausage, I went for apples, dates, and walnuts with a little cinnamon and agave. It’s a simple stuffing that you could easily use with any other winter squash.

If you don’t know how to roast a squash, read my tutorial. You can throw it in your CrockPot, too, which creates a really flavorful, moist flesh.

What’s your favorite way to eat squash?

Apple & Walnut Stuffed Acorn Squash

Yield: 2 - 4 servings, as a side dish

Ingredients

1 medium acorn squash
kosher salt & fresh ground black pepper
1 medium apple, peeled and cubed into ¼ inch
¼ cup walnuts, chopped
2 Medjool dates, pitted and chopped
¼ teaspoon good quality cinnamon
2 tablespoons agave, divided
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash and dry the outside of the squash, cut it in half, and remove the seeds. Season the squash flesh lightly with salt and pepper. Place the squash flesh side down in a baking dish and add about ¼ – ½ inch of water to the pan. Place the pan uncovered into the oven and bake for 30 minutes.
While squash is baking, prepare the stuffing. Combine apple walnuts, dates, cinnamon, 1 tablespoon agave, and melted butter in a bowl. After 30 minutes, remove the squash from the oven and divide the stuffing between the two halved, placing the stuffing in the cavity of the squash.
Cover with aluminum foil and return to the oven for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes , heat remaining one tablespoon of agave slightly in the microwave. Uncover the squash, baste with agave and bake for another 10 – 20 minutes, or until squash flesh and apples are tender. Serve as desired, either as halves or cut into smaller pieces.

http://simplysugarandglutenfree.com/apple-walnut-stuffed-acorn-squash-slightly-indulgent-monday/

Crispy, Sweet, & Savory Cornbread Dressing

Amy — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:00:13 +0000

You might call it stuffing, but if you don’t stuff it then what? I know it as dressing. At least that’s what my Grandma Ruth called it. We never stuffed our turkeys when I was growing up. Last Christmas I thought I’d try it. I found out that I don’t like stuffing from inside the bird. I’m used to a flavorful, crispy-on-the-outside stuffing with a warm, soft inside.

That’s what I have here. And now that I’m a Texan I gave it slightly southern twist. Not because I was really going for that, but because when I first made this recipe I didn’t know how to bake gluten-free bread and I couldn’t find any in the store without sugar. It was a blessing in disguise. The sweet cornbread and the savory spices make you want seconds. Or even thirds. The cornbread recipe I use for this is below – you have to have a substantial cornbread so it stays together when you add the broth and toss it. Skillet cornbread, as much as I love it, wouldn’t work.

As far as where this fits into my diet, this is definitely a once in a while (ok, during the holidays) recipe for me. It goes in that ‘treat’ category – you don’t have to eat perfectly to lose weight and maintain it. You just have well most of the time. So, this holiday season I’ll have a few days where my diet is not a healthy as usual. But it’ll stop there. Life as normal will resume and I won’t have the Holiday 5 to lose.

This post is also linked to Ultimate Recipe Swap at Life as Mom and Money Saving Mom.

Cornbread

Ingredients

1 cup stone ground cornmeal
¾ cup sorghum flour
¼ cup cornstarch or arrowroot
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon salt
2 extra large eggs
1/3 cup light agave nectar
3/4 cup water
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup oil – grapeseed or extra light olive oil

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly butter a 9 inch spring form pan.
Sift dry ingredients into a bowl then whisk until mixture is uniform. Form a well in the middle. Set aside.
Beat eggs, agave, water, and vegetable oil together with a whisk. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Mix until entire mixture is moistened.
Pour cornbread mixture into spring form pan and bake for 25 – 30 minutes until toothpick comes out clean when tested with a toothpick and top is lightly browned. Once removed from oven, place on a cooling rack. Use a knife or spatula to loosen cornbread from edges of pan. Open remove spring form pan. Let cool and then use a knife or spatula to remove from bottom portion of pan.

http://simplysugarandglutenfree.com/crispy-sweet-savory-cornbread-dressing-gluten-fre/

Crispy, Sweet, & Savory Cornbread Dressing

Yield: 4 - 6 servings

Ingredients

1 recipe cornbread, cut into 1 inch cubes and dried out* (about 5 cups)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium onion, finely diced
2 ribs of celery sliced thin
½ teaspoon ground thyme
¼ teaspoon ground, dried sage
¼ teaspoon dried rosemary, crumbled
¾ – 1 cup homemade chicken stock
¼ cup water
freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. If your cornbread isn’t dry enough, let it dry a little longer in the oven.
Melt butter over medium low heat. Add onion and celery. Cook for 5 minutes, then add spices. Cook for another 5 minutes or until celery is tender. Remove from heat and place into a large bowl. Dump cornbread into the bowl. Add ¾ cup chicken stock and ¼ cup water. Gently mix so you don’t tear up the bread. This is where you have to use your own judgment – you want the dressing to be wet but not soggy. So, you might need to add more stock. You want just enough liquid so the bread can absorb it all but not so much that it’s swimming in a big puddle of broth.
Gently turn dressing into desired dish – I like my dressing thinner so I use a baking dish that lets me spread it out. Season the top with a few turns of the pepper mill. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake another 30 minutes, until top is golden brown and crispy.

Notes

*You can dry the cornbread by chopping it into cubes, leaving it uncovered, and let it sit out until it’s stale. Or, you can dry it in a 325 degree oven. My grandma taught me that the secret to a really good dressing is to start with really dry, stale bread, so I do both. I make the cornbread a couple of days before I need to make the stuffing, and after it cools I cut in into cubes, and leave it out to dry. If it still isn’t good and stale, I let it dry a little longer in the oven while I’m prepping the other ingredients.

http://simplysugarandglutenfree.com/crispy-sweet-savory-cornbread-dressing-gluten-fre/