Thanksgiving Practice Dinner (Why Did I Think This Would Be Easy?)

Earlier this week I decided that I wanted to try out a few more recipes before Thanksgiving. Somehow I thought I could make green bean casserole from scratch (including making my own fried onions), mashed potatoes with bacon gravy and chicken all in about the same time as a usual dinner. About halfway through the cooking I was thinking, why did I ever think this was a good idea? At least I had made the cranberry sauce the day before.

I was getting pretty stressed when I realized I had been cooking for over an hour and I was still working on the green bean casserole. Tommy was fussy and running back and forth between the living room and the kitchen. It was a really long 2.5 hours. I'm surprised that everything actually came together in the end. It was like our own little mini delicious Thanksgiving dinner. On a weeknight.

I was wiped out and the kitchen was a disaster, but at least the food was delicious. Although Tommy wasn't fooled. Even with gravy he still knew the mashed potatoes were made with white potatoes and wouldn't eat them. 

Since there are several recipes from that night, I decided to give each recipe its own page and just put the links here. 

Gluten and Dairy Free Green Bean Casserole
Mashed Potatoes with Bacon Gravy
Quick Baked Chicken Tenderloins
Cranberry Sauce

Gluten and Dairy Free Green Bean Casserole

Note: For this casserole, I used the solids and liquid separately from one can of coconut milk. I know that the coconut milk I have in my pantry already has the solids and liquid separated. If you're unsure, put the unopened can of coconut milk in the fridge for several hours. When you're opening the can, scoop out the solids to measure 1 cup and then use the remaining coconut milk for the fried onions. 

This casserole took a long time to make, but it was delicious. I love green bean casserole, and this recipe is very similar to the good old traditional cream of mushroom and french fried onion classic.

Gluten and Dairy Free Green Bean Casserole

8 oz cremini mushrooms, sliced
1 cup thick coconut milk solids from can (see note above)
1 cup broth
1 Tbsp canola oil
1 Tbsp sherry
1 Tbsp potato or tapioca starch
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp ground thyme
4 cans green beans, drained
3 cups Gluten Free French Fried onions (see below), divided

1. Preheat oven to 425°F. Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish with oil or nonstick spray.
2. In a large skillet, saute mushrooms, salt, pepper and thyme in oil until browned. Add the garlic and saute for 1 min.
3. Add the sherry and starch, stirring for a minute. Add the broth and coconut milk. Reduce heat and simmer until thickened. 
4. Combine mushroom sauce with green beans and 1 cup of Gluten Free French Fried Onions.
5. Pour casserole into baking dish. Top with the remaining 2 cups of fried onions. Bake at 425°F for 15-20 minutes

Gluten Free French Fried Onions

1 large onion
Liquid from 1 can coconut milk (see note above)
1/4 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup potato starch
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
Canola oil for frying

1. Cut onion in half and slice into thin slices.
2. Put the coconut milk into a large bowl. Soak the onion slices in the milk.
3. Combine the sorghum flour, potato starch, salt, and pepper in a gallon ziploc bag. Close and shake well to mix.
4. In a heavy bottomed pot, add enough oil to be at least an inch deep. Heat oil over medium high heat.
5. Working in small batches, shake the excess coconut milk from the onion slices and place in bag. Seal and shake thoroughly to coat all the pieces in the flour mixture. You want the onion slices to be pretty dry. If they are still wet, toss the onions in a little more potato starch.
6. Fry the onions for several minutes until crispy. The onions won't turn dark brown, but they will become more firm when they are crispy. Drain on paper towels. 
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 until you have cooked all the onions. 

Thanksgiving Recipes, Cranberry Sauce

Ben and I are cranberry purists. We like the simple cranberry, sugar and water mix. I'll let you in on my secret to delicious cranberry sauce. I follow the directions on the bag and then I cook it for a long time. The bag says to cook the sauce until the berries burst, about 15 minutes. But I've found it takes more like 60-90 minutes to get it to the consistency that I like. Maybe the altitude is a factor here. The regular cranberry sauce recipe is the same as the canning cranberry sauce recipe. 2 parts cranberries, 1 part sugar, and 1 part water. This time I made a big batch and used 14 cups of cranberries, 7 cups sugar and 7 cups water. I was REALLY lucky that the sauce didn't boil over. The pot I used for the sauce was way too small for all of that. 

Cranberry Sauce

2 cups whole cranberries

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1. Wash the cranberries and throw away any that are very soft.

2. In a sauce pot over medium heat, combine the sugar and water, stirring frequently until the sugar dissolves. 

3. Add the cranberries. Cook stirring occassionally until the berries burst and the sauce is thick. (This may take an hour or more).

4. For canning, pour the hot sauce into hot jars and process boil for 10 minutes at sea level or 20 minutes at 5000 ft. 

Recipe Trial 2 for Thanksgiving, Pumpkin Pie

I think pumpkin pie is one of my absolute favorite parts of Thanksgiving dinner. This year I want Tommy to be able to share in the joy of creamy, spiced pumpkin deliciousness. Last year we made a pumpkin pie with coconut milk and it was good, but I could taste the coconut in it and it just wasn't as good as a regular pumpkin pie. 

Now that I have a pie crust recipe that I love, it's time to start working on the filling for the pie. The best part of baking a vegan pie is you can taste the filling before you bake it to adjust the seasonings if you want! I already had a container of extra firm tofu so I used that in the pie. It made the texture a little grainy, but the taste was still good. Silken tofu would definitely blend better. Since it's a gluten free pie crust, I didn't bother with pie weights during the first phase of baking. The pie crust didn't bubble up at all. This pie was delicious and the filling was really easy to make. Feel free to substitute any pie crust recipe or store bought if you can.

Vegan Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie

For the crust:
3 Tbsp coconut oil
4 Tbsp vegetable shortening
3/4 cup potato starch
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp guar gum
1/4 cup cold water

For the pie filling:
2 cups pumpkin puree
14 oz tofu (silken or medium firm would be best)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp allspice or 1/4 tsp cloves

For the crust:
1. Measure out the coconut oil and shortening into small pieces and freeze for 10 minutes.
2. Process the remaining crust ingredients except for the water in the food processor. Add the shortening mixture and process until it looks like coarse crumbs.
3. Add the water and process until it forms a ball.
4. On a large piece of plastic wrap, press the dough into a 4 inch disk. Wrap the dough and freeze for 15 minutes.
5. Press the dough into a pie plate. Freeze the dough for 15 minutes.
6. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
7. Bake pie crust for 25 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare pie filling.

For the pie filling:
1. Combine all the pie filling ingredients in a food processor. Process until smooth. Taste filling and adjust seasoning if necessary.
2. Pour into partially baked pie crust. Bake for an additional 25-30 minutes.

Variation, Mini Pumpkin Pies

For 24 mini pumpkin pies, double the crust recipe. After crust step 4 above, press 1 inch pieces of the dough into the bottom of regular sized muffin tins. Skip step 5. For step 7, bake for 15 minutes. Then prepare a single recipe of the pie filling exactly as stated above. Pour the pie filling into the mini crusts and bake for an additional 15 minutes, until the edges of the pie filling are brown.

Recipe Trial Number 1 for Thanksgiving (Corn-Free Cornbread Stuffing with Sausage)

This year we'll be at my mom's for Thanksgiving. For the first time, we're going to try making a complete Thanksgiving dinner that Tommy can eat. So between now and then I'm going to be trying out some new recipes. I've already had two dreams about Thanksgiving, and neither of them ended very well. Both dreams involved me basically doing no preparation in advance and then dinner didn't end up at all what I had hoped. Yes, I am aware that I have very mundane dreams...

The first recipe I'm trying out is a cornbread and sausage stuffing. I had great intentions of grinding my own pork and spices to make sausage. But then I ran out of time. We already had some leftover cooked ground turkey, so I just seasoned that to make a mock sausage. I just mixed the spices in with the cooked turkey, but it would be better to cook them with the turkey. 

Success! If you didn't know better, you might not realize it's a gluten, corn, dairy and egg free stuffing. I still plan on trying a stuffing recipe with Tommy's bread, but so far this recipe is a real contender for Thanksgiving. 

Corn-Free Cornbread Stuffing with Sausage

1 recipe Corn-Free Cornbread
1 lb ground turkey
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground sage
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp granulated garlic
1 Tbsp canola oil
1 large onion, diced
3 celery ribs, diced
salt and pepper
2 cups chicken stock
2 Tbsp flaxmeal

1. Preheat oven to 300°F. Break the cornbread into chunks and spread on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool, then transfer cornbread to a large bowl.
2. Raise oven temp to 375°F. Spray a 9" x 13" baking dish with non-stick spray.
3. In a large non-stick skillet, cook the ground turkey and spices. Transfer ground turkey to the large bowl.
4. Add 1 Tbsp oil to the skillet. Saute the onions and celery with a sprinkle of salt and pepper over medium heat until tender. Add to the large bowl.
5. Whisk together the chicken stock and flaxmeal. Let set for a couple minutes. Pour over the cornbread mixture.
6. Gently mix and place in baking dish. Bake for 35 minutes.