Paleo Thanksgiving Recap

I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of good food and surrounded by friends and family. Ours was pretty relaxed and low-key, which is nice. I did all the cooking this year and we only had my folks and nephew join the four of us. My folks are on a special diet so they only ate turkey and green beans, but I'm glad they even joined us for that! I tried to keep things simple, but still ended up making way too much food. And I learned a few thing, which I'll share with you in a minute. First, the food!

My dinner plate, clockwise from the top: Dry Brined Turkey (Paleo Comfort Foods), Potato Puree (Gluten Free Girl), Sauteed Green Beans (Paleo Comfort Foods), Sweet Potato Casserole (Paleo Comfort Foods), Cranberry Apple Stuffing (Elanas Pantry), Cranberry Sauce (Make it Paleo). I did whip up gravy with the drippings and some coconut flour, but it didn't turn out that great. It tasted good but didn't thicken. Also not pictured are the rolls that Erik picked up for him and the kids. So the rolls and mashed potatoes were the only non-paleo things!

The turkey turned out awesome! It was so easy and tasted super good. I cooked it in a counter-top roaster that I borrowed from my folks'. I loved having my oven clear for everything else.

The cranberry sauce was super easy to throw together too.

And it tasted great, if you like tart cranberries. Unfortunately, I'm the only one in the family that likes it and its a bit too high in carbs for my everyday eating. I think I might freeze the rest so it doesn't go to waste. We probably could've done without it.

Sweet Potato Casserole: Another one that was easy to throw together. I actually assembled it the day before and just baked it on Thursday. Everyone liked it and were surprised at how tasty/sweet it was without all the added sugars. 

Bread  for the stuffing. I used Elana's Paleo Bread recipe.

The stuffing. This was one area that I got a lot of grief from my family. I was the only one who liked it, and Erik politely asked for me to make "normal" foods for holidays. *sigh*. I will remember that if I do another turkey dinner anytime soon. I suppose it could be the 10%. Even if I did paleo bread with all the other "normal" ingredients, that might work better. 

The green beans were a hit and the mashed potatoes, too. The gravy tasted good but I needed an extra hand to whisk it properly I think. Oh well!!

On to the desserts!

All of our desserts were recipes out of the Food Lover's cookbook: Make it Paleo

 And let me just say, if you bought this cookbook just for these three recipes, it would be worth it.

Coconut Fudge.

Wonderfully chocolate and coconutty. It filled my need for chocolate without all the sugar and junk. Only Erik and I liked it because the girls are not huge fans of dark chocolate and I used unsweetened dark cocoa powder for it.

Next, came the pies.... 

First, I made the crusts. Two made with almond flour and palm shortening. So easy!

Then I filled them...

 

One with chocolate pudding.

And the other with Pumpkin Chiffon.

Either I didn't squish the crusts enough or my pans were smaller than I thought, because I ended up with extra filling, which we ate plain and loved it. But let me tell you, when you ate the filling with the crust....heaven!!! It was SO.GOOD. Like seriously. I'm not usually a pumpkin pie fan and I loved this one, like a lot. So, I'll do you a favor and give you this link to the recipe for Bill's Chiffon Pumpkin Pie, so you can experience it for yourself. You're welcome.

This is the bacon omelet roll that I had planned on making for dinner the night before, but we went out to eat that night instead. I was tired of being in the kitchen! So, I whipped it up for breakfast instead and it worked perfectly. Kera didn't like it much, what with the peppers and onions, but oh well, you can't please everyone!

Overall, it was a great holiday and we all ate well. So well, in fact that I'm doing a 6 week challenge through a cool blog I've found in the past 6 months, Life as a Plate. I'm determined to do well and make some changes, hopefully I'll have success to share with you on January 6th!