Allergen-Free Thanksgiving

photo by Deiru

Two years ago I had my first allergen-free Thanksgiving, and I blogged my recipe list here. I'm so glad that I did, because I've been able to refer to the list for the past two years to remind me what I wanted to tackle. Last year's Thanksgiving was up in Indiana, and if I remember correctly, I just made my stuffing and made sure the turkey and sweet potato casserole were safe for me to eat, and otherwise just admired all the other amazing dishes.

Well, this year Thanksgiving is back here, and my Grandma and my Aunt Deb are coming down for it! We'll also have one or two other friends over who didn't have anywhere to go for the holiday. My grandma is bringing a couple of very gluten filled dishes for her and Chris to enjoy, but my aunt can't have wheat OR dairy OR - eggs, OR get this one - POULTRY. So I'm making some modifications to a couple of my recipes to remove eggs and dairy, and we're going to have some adventures in allergen-free cooking. I've got a couple of pork tenderloins for my aunt to have while the rest of us eat turkey, and I'll use veggie broth in any recipes calling for turkey or chicken broth. Luckily Deb can tolerate some dairy, because my stuffing recipe won't be very good without the cottage cheese, but I've got almond milk to try out for the cream of mushroom soup.

I'm looking forward to all the good times ahead! Thanksgiving just might be my favorite holiday. What's not to love about a holiday that is centered around food, family, and fellowship?

Pumpkin Stew

My husband scored us some free pumpkins a few days ago. I have baked and made pumpkin puree out of two of them. I got a friend to help me cube and peel the third, and most of it is in the freezer. But 5 cups of it went into making Talitha's Vegan Pumpkin Stew today. Sooo good. I had to make my own garam masala because I had most of the ingredients but no time to get to a grocery store. That made my house smell oh-so-yummy.

What I did different: I just boiled the pumpkin / broth mix for about 90 minutes before pureeing because I didn't have the time for a slow 4-hour simmer. Then I threw it all in a crock pot with the pre-soaked beans for 8 hours. It wound up being a little spicier than we normally do (and we like spice!) but maybe that was because it was homemade garam masala. And it was a bit too thick for my tastes, so next time I will probably try 5 cups of broth instead of 3. But trust me, there WILL be a next time. Very tasty stuff. I am excited about my leftovers... I didn't think to garnish it with kefir or anything for dinner, but I plan to add some homemade kefir to it for my leftovers.