Thanksgiving

[bubbe1]

Hi,
With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up soon, I was wondering what you all are planning to cook/eat.
This is going to be a quiet T-day for myself and my husband. Our kids who live in Michigan and Texas, are going to Florida to celebrate Thanksgiving with my mom who is 85 and has dementia,(she said today someday she might be senile but not yet!), and my brother and family, with whom we usually celebrate, are going to NY,(we live in VA.). I'm not up to traveling during the busy holiday season this year, and neither is my husband so it will be just the two of us- okay, three if you count the dog!
Anyway, point is, I am trying to think of some things that I can make for my husband that maybe I can eat too. It's actually much harder to do Thanksgiving for two, than for a crowd, especially since my diet is limited.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Laurie

[ICNDonna]

Cornish hens are fun --- and they can be stuffed with rice (I like lots of wild rice mixed in). Another thought is to go someplace really nice for dinner.

Donna

[bubbe1]

Cornish hens are fun --- and they can be stuffed with rice (I like lots of wild rice mixed in). Another thought is to go someplace really nice for dinner.

Donna

Thanks, Donna. I hadn't thought of cornish hens and rice. Nice idea.
We don't care for going out on Thanksgiving. Too crowded and we've found in the past that the food and service are not up to par.

[Julie B]

You can also buy a half turkey breast in most markets these days....or honestly, the turkey is easily frozen for quick casseroles or soup later in the winter!

The great thing is that Thanksgiving foods are usually IC friendly.....turkey, mashed potatoes, homemade gravy and stuffing, yellow squash and pumpkin pie.....whipped cream............yum yum yummmmmmmm just skip the cranberries! lol

[carried_cub]

Sometimes you can find a turkey tenderloin in the poultry case this time of year. It would be like one big giant chicken tender. However, I have seen both natural ones and ones pumped full of saline and flavoring solution, so you would have to check the label. Or you can get turkey drumsticks and put them in the crock pot.

I love Cornish hens. What about quail? So fun. Most holiday veggies are safe unless you put cloves or vinegar/citrus on something. I like carrots cut on the diagonal stir fried w/ salt and a little garlic powder.

Can you eat seafood? If you didn't want to go traditional, and there are just two of you, what about a fresh steamed seafood platter, baked potato, veggie, some kind of safe warm dessert? Some seafood is frozen with a solution in it, so read the label, but shrimp and frozen crab clusters are so quick and don't need seasoning. (I can have a little Old Bay but it might set you on fire.) For only two it wouldn't stretch your budget. Can you have dairy? What about clam chowder (make sure you know everything in it) or oyster stew?

I ate myself full of stone crab claws last week so I have seafood on the brain. :->

[mary124]

We are having the traditional dinner here, including cranberries (which I will skip).
Actually, I think I am having more then the usual one or 2... tomorrow for our Church luncheon we are having Thanksgiving dinner (right now I am boiling eggs - making deviled eggs). then we are having a lunch in the office and if I can stomach it a group of us women at work will meet at the cafe at work and have one there! (I am thinking by the time the big day gets here I will neither want to cook or eat anymore turkey!!)

[bubbe1]

We are having the traditional dinner here, including cranberries (which I will skip).
Actually, I think I am having more then the usual one or 2... tomorrow for our Church luncheon we are having Thanksgiving dinner (right now I am boiling eggs - making deviled eggs). then we are having a lunch in the office and if I can stomach it a group of us women at work will meet at the cafe at work and have one there! (I am thinking by the time the big day gets here I will neither want to cook or eat anymore turkey!!)


I think you're right!
Have fun!
Laurie

[bob04951]

My hub and I are also alone, but because we both enjoy the football games on turkey day, I do cook a turkey. My prob is double because I have him on a revised south beach diet because he has put on like 40 pounds due to the inactivity due to the pain due to the frequency...and he has lost 13 punds in less than 3 weeks, and our hope is to take pressure off the bladder with the weight loss.
We love to smell the turkey cooking. We will prob forgo the stuffing due to the carbs, but we will have cauliflower mashed potatoes (they are excellent can hardly tell diff) and also a mock cranberry sauce that I make from our wonderful Maine wild blueberries and a few strawberries and wild raspberries, with a little sugar and cinnamon, and cook that down and chill it, and it's just as good as cranberry sauce, and prob better for you. Those berries don't seem to aggravate his IC. And the green bean casserole with mushrooms and homemade cream sauce, not the canned stuff with preservatives. Maybe some baked squash with some sugar and cinnamon for desert and homemade whipped cream instead of the pumpkin.
There are a lot of alternatives, you have to get creative, and we will have the turkey leftovers which will feed us and our dogs for quite a few days. Turkey rollups and cheese with lettuce, turkey salad, turkey soup, etc etc.
The south beach diet is wonderful but you have to improvise on that as well, because it does call for a lot of tomatoes, but I do make our own vegetable juice out of carrots, beets and roasted bell peppers. It's pretty bladder friendly. We are excited about his weight loss and will let you know if that is a link to improvement.
Have a good holiday all and a pain free one.

[carried_cub]

Do you have a recipe for the green bean casserole? If so a lot of folks might be glad to have it in the recipe section! I don't eat it myself (bad memories, lol) but there are a few casseroles I used to make that would otherwise be friendly if not for the canned cream of mushroom soup. I know how to make milk gravy/white sauce and roux etc. but it's not quite the same thing.

Hope everybody has a lovely Turkey Day!

[bubbe1]

Do you have a recipe for the green bean casserole? If so a lot of folks might be glad to have it in the recipe section! I don't eat it myself (bad memories, lol) but there are a few casseroles I used to make that would otherwise be friendly if not for the canned cream of mushroom soup. I know how to make milk gravy/white sauce and roux etc. but it's not quite the same thing.

Hope everybody has a lovely Turkey Day!

Cub,
If you have a Trader Joe's anywhere near you you can get mushroom soup that is preservative free. They are actually featuring it now, for the green bean casserole.

[bob04951]

Yes you can get all natural canned cream of mushroom soup, but it is so easy to make. Just slice up mushrooms of your choice, sautee well in butter with just a little garlic and minced onion, maybe some thyme and/or parsley, add some flour or corn starch, add some stock (chick, veg or turk) and slowly add cream til thickened. Before you add the cream you can freeze in smaller portions for later use and add cream when ready to use. Doesn't taste like Campbells, but who wants all that sodium, MSG, soy, etc. Reading labels is scarey sometimes. Basically it is the same way you would prepare milk gravy, but with the shrooms. Enjoy!

[bubbe1]

Yes you can get all natural canned cream of mushroom soup, but it is so easy to make. Just slice up mushrooms of your choice, sautee well in butter with just a little garlic and minced onion, maybe some thyme and/or parsley, add some flour or corn starch, add some stock (chick, veg or turk) and slowly add cream til thickened. Before you add the cream you can freeze in smaller portions for later use and add cream when ready to use. Doesn't taste like Campbells, but who wants all that sodium, MSG, soy, etc. Reading labels is scarey sometimes. Basically it is the same way you would prepare milk gravy, but with the shrooms. Enjoy!

Thanks! I think I'll try it.

[carried_cub]

Ooo that sounds good. Thanks!

[Sunflower23]

That does sound good. ALL the ideas sound so good. (Gosh, Thanksgiving is sooo yummy.)

[VickiB]

This is a bit after the fact, but for Thanksgiving I made a sweet potato pie. A Paula Deen recipe I found on the internet. OMG! Is that ever good! And the only IC questionable ingredients are a little bit of cinnamon & ginger which are both in the "try it" category of the diet list.

My hubby has a new favorite pie.

[Goldfinch]

Pumpkin Pie can't hold a candle to Sweet Potato Pie. And what I like best about SPP is that it doesn't need all the traditional PP spices; it just needs to tastes like real sweet potatoes, so if the cinnamon etc is problematic for anyone, leaving it out still makes a great pie. Believe it or not I made a very interesting pie last year that was mostly sweet potato, but also included some parsnip! No one could have guessed, but it had a slightly more vegetal edge than straight sweet potato. Excellent with whipped cream.

In my experience the best sweet potato pie is made from roasting the potatoes rather than boiling them. I have never used a Paula Deen recipe for anything, but does her pie have a hamburger in it somewhere? Someday she's going to get too close to the oven and explode.

[bubbe1]

Pumpkin Pie can't hold a candle to Sweet Potato Pie. And what I like best about SPP is that it doesn't need all the traditional PP spices; it just needs to tastes like real sweet potatoes, so if the cinnamon etc is problematic for anyone, leaving it out still makes a great pie. Believe it or not I made a very interesting pie last year that was mostly sweet potato, but also included some parsnip! No one could have guessed, but it had a slightly more vegetal edge than straight sweet potato. Excellent with whipped cream.

In my experience the best sweet potato pie is made from roasting the potatoes rather than boiling them. I have never used a Paula Deen recipe for anything, but does her pie have a hamburger in it somewhere? Someday she's going to get too close to the oven and explode.


Potato pie sounds good!
Love the Paula Deem comment!:smile tee

[Katief1976]

Love the alternative cranberry sauce idea by using blueberries! THANKS for the tip!