Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love hosting it, planning it, cooking it, everything. It helps that my lovely husband Phil is in charge of clean-up. I think what I like about it is that it's fun the short week before, doing the planning and shopping, and then I plan it enough that it's an easy pace on Thanksgiving itself, we eat early so guests are gone by 7pm usually, and clean up is done by 9:00. Then we have 3 more days off with leftovers, so we hardly have to cook! I usually need a break by then in the fall, and Thanksgiving is perfect for that. And I love to spend time with my friends-as-family-- so many of us are far from our born families, we make our own with friends, and it's all the love of family with none of the baggage and drama. I love it.This year was our first GF, egg-free Thanksgiving. I probably would have just let E eat wheat and eggs, but we had a guest who was gluten-free, casein-free, egg-free, and soy-free, so that motivated me to do a little extra work and keep my family healthy and comfortable, too. I did both wheat and non-wheat versions of most items, and all turned out very well, though we have LOTS of wheat stuffing leftover for me!
The real savior of this year's Thanksgiving was Bette Hagman's "The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread". I accidentally opened the package from Amazon containing this book as a Christmas gift for me, and once it was in my house and I knew it... I realized it was on my Christmas list because I wanted it for the holidays, so I decided it was appropriate to use it early- a present to my wheat-free family, in fact.
First, off, I will say, don't get sucked in by the picture on the front. I did, and I'm sure the publisher just put a picture of wheat bread on the cover. I was hoping to find some non-pan breads like in the picture, and there aren't really any. But after this initial disappointment, I am cautiously optimistic about the recipes. First I tried some rolls with her Pizza/French bread mix the week before Thanksgiving, and they were not very tasty. I think I do not care for the flavor of lots of tapioca flour. Her pizza crust based on it is fine, because the toppings cover the flavor, but it was not good for rolls. So those became the base for my GF stuffing (or dressing, as many call it). The the weekend before Thanksgiving, I tried her egg-free four-bean flour mix bread, with sesame seeds in it and sprinkled on top, and it was by far the best wheat-free bread we've ever had. It has a great texture and the flavor is very mild. A couple of slices of that rounded out the stuffing, which is a mushroom stuffing recipe from Food & Wine years ago. It is incredibly flavorful, and the bread held together nicely and crisped up just fine for a lovely side dish. I even made it the night before, refrigerated it, and baked it on Thanksgiving. Because my guest was CF and soy free, I replaced the butter with palm shortening and olive oil (there is no soy-free margarine in my town), and although it is tastier with butter, it was really just fine this way, too.
I made that same bread for Thanksgiving, using the medium loaf and taking a clue from the no-knead wheat bread recipe from the NY Times, which is a wet dough baked in a covered dish, like a Dutch oven, or in my case, a terra cotta Romertopf dish. It was BEAUTIFUL! I should have baked it another 10 minutes or so, because it did collapse a bit as it cooled, but it didn't get gummy and sticky or anything (see photo above). My other GF guest was VERY impressed and asked for the recipe!
Finally, I rounded out dinner with a vegan GF pumpkin pie. Truthfully, it was just OK. Without eggs, it was a little pasty, and it definitely needed more spice- Next time, I'd add 1 tsp ginger, 1/4 tsp cloves, and 1/4 tsp allspice to what's in the recipe. If I were not an egg-eater, I'd probably have liked it, and it was nice and firm and didn't have any off tastes. Overall, it was a very successful holiday for the dietary-restricted and the rest of us as well. I only wish I had taken a picture of the table laden with tons and tons of food!
