Low FODMAP Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Thanksgiving is probably the biggest holiday in my family. We always host and with upwards of 15 people, food is always a bit difficult. This year we have the added complication of both my dad and I being on the low FODMAP diet, but luckily we have enough control over the key elements of the meal to change them to what we need. It was a pretty huge success, so here's a little guide to how to make your big autumn meals delicious and tummy friendly!

Turkey- For the brine and stuffing, replace all onions with spring greens of Green Onions and use garlic olive oil when you rub down the turkey.

Dressing- Extra special recipe below!

Veggies- Use any of your favorite veggies dishes! We roasted broccoli and tossed it with lemon juice, zest, Parmesan, and pine nuts.

Potatoes- Bake them, mash them, boil them, just don't use any garlic or cream.

Sweet Potatoes/ Yams- Yams are okay, SP are not for those with polyos sensitivity

Gravy- Use corn starch instead of flour when making your own gravy from the drippings of the turkey.

Dessert- We made an awesome dairy free, gluten free pumpkin chocolate cake! Replace the flour with gluten free flour, butter with fake butter, and buttermilk with a non-dairy creamer option.

Pro-Tips: make your own turkey stock, buy more green onions than you'll think you'll need, make onion and garlic infused olive oil.

So here's the our awesome low FODMAP dressing recipe!

• 10 pieces of Gluten-Free Bread, 5 white and 5 rye, cubed
• 1/3 c minced springs greens of Green Onion
• 1/2 c chopped Celery (1-2 stalks)
• 2 tablespoons Olive Oil
• 2-3 Tbs unsalted butter (1 in veggies,1 on stuffing balls and 1 to grease muffin tin)
• 2 1/2 tsp of Thanksgiving poultry herbs (sage, rosemary, sage) remove big twigs and chop well
• 1 c diced Butternut Squash
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 Eggs, beaten

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Roast butternut Squash for ~20 minutes, until they are fork-tender.
3. Grease muffin tin generously with butter.
   
4. Saute veggies with 1 tbs of the butter, & olive oil over medium heat in medium skillet for 5 minutes or until veggies fork-tender. Set aside to cool down a bit.
   
5. In large bowl, add bread cubes and drizzle 1 cup of water (or onion free chicken stock) over bread.
   
6. Add eggs to bread and stir to blend in.
7. Carefully add cooked vegetables and squash over bread mixture. Using spoon mix vegetables and bread cubes until resembles stuffing consistency. 
   
8. Add herbs and salt and pepper and mix well.
9. Pack in muffin tin to bake.
   
10. Place a tiny slice of butter on top of each muffin.
11. Add a dash of salt and pepper to top of stuffing ball, if desired.
12. Bake for about 25-30 minutes.
    
13. Enjoy!

Pro-Thanksgiving

      It's that time of year again, Xmas prep fest, aka Thanksgiving. Every year it seems like the red and green encroach on the beautiful fall colors earlier and earlier. And every year people succumb to "feeling festive". I manage to stave it off in two ways: 1. because I live in Southern California so it's hard to feel festive when it's 80 outside. 2. by refusing to give into capitalism.
     It is rare that people will feel "like Xmas season" because they want to give to the poor, and cook for those less fortunate. The holiday spirit usually causes people to buy stuff they don't need or start making their list of demands for relatives. So why not fight it off for just a few more days!!

      Thanksgiving is a great holiday because there are no presents, no status symbols (other than having food on your table), no obnoxious social media posts about what everybody did or didn't get. This holiday was created to celebrate two cultures coming together, sharing a meal (before we stole their land and killed most of them) and finding a warm moment right before it gets super chilly.
     I feel that this holiday is even more important this year.  Over the past month I'm sure we've all seen our social media pages fill with bigoted fearful posts. I'd love for one day, if people could just fill space with the love of their family and friends. And take the time to think about how many of us in this country are here because the people we came from wanted to be in America.

So hug your family, crunch some fall leaves, and eat a big meal before we hunker down for winter!!