A Gluten Free Thanksgiving

 We were in Houston for Thanksgiving this year and had a great day. I finally convinced my mom that she should go gluten free. She has had terrible headaches for years, and since going gluten free has helped me so much, I figured it would help her too. She has been doing it for a couple of months now, and her headaches have decreased dramatically. Imagine that! My dad has also declared that he is "gluten minimum". He has read this book called Grain Brain, and isn't eating many grains to help his mental clarity.

 

My sister, Blake, and Jud said that would try a gluten free Thanksgiving one time. I actually felt pretty bad for them. When we were sitting around the table eating saying what we are thankful for, my sister said she was thankful for gluten. I don't blame her. Gluten tastes awesome.

 

The spread.

 

 

The only fail in the whole Thanksgiving spread was gluten free stuffing. Well, and the rolls. Thank God we had that cinnamon butter from Taste of Texas! Anyway, mashed potatoes, turkey, cranberry sauce; it's all gluten free. I was tasked with making the green bean casserole as usual, but had to do a little tweaking to my favorite recipe to make it G-Free. It was so good! Even the gluten eaters thought so.

 

The recipe is Paula Dean's. I always double it because one batch doesn't make enough.  

 

Ingredients

• 1/3 stick butter
• 1/2 cup diced onions
• 1/2 cup sliced fresh mushrooms (I ALWAYS AT LEAST DOUBLE THE MUSHROOMS BECAUSE I LOVE THEM SO MUCH)
• 2 cups sliced green beans
• 3 cups chicken broth (I USE LOW SODIUM)
• 1 (10 3/4-ounce) can cream of mushroom soup (USE G-FREE MUSHROOM SOUP)
• 1 (2.8-ounce) can French-fried onion rings (USE KETTLE BRAND SWEET ONION POTATO CHIPS, I GOT THIS IDEA FROM ANOTHER RECIPE)
• Pinch House Seasoning, recipe follows
• 1 cup grated cheddar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Melt the butter in a large skillet. Saute the onions and mushrooms in the butter. Boil green beans in chicken broth for 10 minutes and drain. Add the green beans, mushroom soup, onion rings, and House Seasoning, to taste, to the onion mixture. Stir well. Pour into a greased 1 1/2-quart baking dish. Bake for 20 minutes, then top the casserole with the Cheddar and bake for 10 minutes longer, or until the casserole is hot and cheese is melted.

House Seasoning:

1 cup salt
1/4 cup black pepper
1/4 cup garlic powder

 

Try it! You won't be disappointed.

 

We got a pumpkin pie (my absolute favorite) from Gluten Free Nation. It's off of I-10 and Wirt and the sell everything G-Free. I was a little worried about how the pie would taste, but it was awesome! Finding good G-Free stuff is basically trial and error.

 

Blake, Jud and I then did something I never thought I would do. We went to Best Buy on Thanksgiving Night. I know, we are nuts. It opened at 6:00 p.m. and when we got there at 5:45 the line was wrapped all the way around the store. Blake took a wine roadie with him for the wait.

 

 

It actually wasn't all that bad and we were probably out of there by 6:40. And, look what we came away with! We've been in need of a desktop for a while and made the switch to Apple. We even saved a few hundred bucks. WooHoo!

 

 I hope everyone counted their blessings this Thanksgiving.