Friendsgiving

Getting ready for Friendsgiving

Every year I travel back up to Vermont to spend Thanksgiving with my family.  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it's all about family, good food, and it opens up the holiday season.  I like Thanksgiving so much that for the past two years I've traveled to Toronto to join my college roommates for Canadian Thanksgiving in October as well. Might as well double up on the joys of Thanksgiving if you can, right?

This year I'm happy to be adding a third Thanksgiving to my list in the form of Friendsgiving.  This afternoon I'm heading to a friend's house with several others to hang out, eat, chat, and watch football.

I spent yesterday and today cooking up a storm.  I'm bringing roasted Brussels sprouts, creamed spinach, stuffing, and pumpkin spice muffins with a cream cheese filling.  I'm even bringing gluten free gravy as to not miss out on any holiday staples.  Other people are bringing turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, a dessert someone is accommodating to be gluten free just for me, and lots of other things.  Not everything will be gluten free, but a whole lot of it will be.

I'm really excited about the stuffing I made for today.  My friend Mallory posted a recipe for kale and sausage stuffing that I had to try.  I haven't had very good luck with gluten free stuffing thus far in life, but this homemade stuffing is really good.  I used Canyon Bakehouse's Rosemary and Thyme Focaccia for the bread and added some mushrooms to the veggies.  Thanks for the recipe Mallory!

And those pumpkin muffins cooling up above?  One of them is already gone.

Some of my other go to Thanksgiving recipes include:

Sweet Potato Puree

Mashed Cauliflower

Pumpkin Pie

What are your favorite Thanksgiving staples?

Gluten Free Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow we are off to my aunt's house for Thanksgiving.  My mom wanted to have turkey left over at our house, so we did a pre-Thanksgiving dinner tonight.  The best part of tonight's dinner?  The entire meal was gluten free!

Tonight we had:
Turkey
Gluten Free Gravy*
Gluten Free Stuffing
Mashed Cauliflower
Broccoli
Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie

Tomorrow we are making and bringing:
Creamed Spinach
Sweet Potato Puree
Gluten Free Apple Crisp

Everything we bring tomorrow will be gluten free as well.  I'll bring left over stuffing and gravy to have with my meal tomorrow.  I'll also bring some gluten free crackers for the appetizers.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and I'm very happy that my family is being so accommodating to my needs.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

*I'm not posting a recipe for the gravy because my mom makes it and I honestly don't know how.  I do know she made it gluten free by using rice flour instead of wheat flour to thicken it.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Granola

Sunday morning I woke up to a recipe for pumpkin granola posted on my facebook page from an old college roommate.  Sunday afternoon I made this granola by Lisa at With Style and Grace.  Right after the granola I made the pumpkin spice muffins.  It was a day of pumpkin.

I love granola.  An endless supply of "low fat" cafeteria granola greatly aided in making me fat in college.  Due to the fact that it is actually not as good for you as you'd like to think, and that gluten free granola is absurdly expensive, I tend to steer clear of it except every once in a while.  But I couldn't pass up the chance to make it on my own.  I could control the amount of fat that went into it and it would be much cheaper than buying it.  Win win.

And without further ado, here's the how:

Ingredients:
4 cups gluten free oats (if you aren't gluten free make this recipe using regular oats)
1 cup chopped almonds
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/3 cup applesauce
2 tablespoons maple syrup (as a Vermonter, I beg you to use the real stuff)
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup dried cranberries

Directions:
1) Pre-heat oven to 325.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

2) In a large bowl combine the oats, almonds, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, and salt.  In another bowl combine the brown sugar, pumpkin, applesauce, maple syrup, and vanilla.  Add this mixture to the oat mixture until everything is coated.

3) Spread the granola mixture onto the baking sheets.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, then stir to ensure it bakes evenly.  Bake for another 20 minutes.

4) Remove from the oven and let cool before mixing in the cranberries.  Store in an airtight container.

I was pretty amazed at how easy this was to make.  Lisa bakes hers in two batches and suggests you either do the same or use two sheets.  I must admit I only own one baking sheet and was too lazy pressed for time to do two batches.  It was probably a mistake because the granola didn't turn out quite as crunchy as I like, but it was still good, don't worry.  Not only was it good, but now I have a ton of it!

Speaking of having a ton of it, you might notice there is no oil in this recipe.  That's good for not making you fat.  It has a pumpkin taste, but not overbearingly pumpkin.  Who knew making granola could be so easy?  Thanks Margaret!

Pumpkin Spice Muffins with Cream Cheese Filling

Photo compliments of my roommate.

I came across this recipe on Quick Feet, Good Eats recently and have been dreaming about it ever since.  Apparently I really like cream cheese in my baked goods.  I made these yesterday with a few adjustments to the original recipe and they were pretty great.  Here's how I made them:

Ingredients:
Filling:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup confectioners sugar

Muffins:
3 cups GF flour (I used 2 cups Bob's Red Mill All Purpose and 1 cup brown rice)
1.5 tsp cinnamon
4.5 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
4 eggs
1.5 cups sugar
2 cups canned pumpkin
1 cup applesauce
1/4 cup oil

Topping:
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons GF flour
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp cold butter, cut into small pieces

Directions:
1) In a medium bowl beat the softened cream cheese and confectioners sugar until smooth.  Put mixture in the freezer while you prepare the muffins.

2) Pre-heat oven to 350.  In a medium bowl combine the flour, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, salt, and baking soda. 

3) In a larger bowl beat together the eggs, sugar, pumpkin, applesauce, and oil.  Stir the flour mixture into the liquid mixture.  Set aside.

4) To make the topping combine the sugar, flour, and cinnamon.  Using a pastry blender, two forks, or your fingers, work the butter into the mixture until it's crumbly.

5) Grease 24 muffin tins.  Fill each tin 1/3 of the way with the pumpkin mixture.  Put a dollop of the cream cheese mixture into each muffin tin, then cover with more of the pumpkin mixture.  Sprinkle some of the topping mixture over each muffin.

6) Bake for 20-25 minutes.

That's it.  They are especially good straight out of the oven when the cream cheese is still gooey.  Enjoy!