Well, yesterday was, of course, Thanksgiving.  As previously mentioned, I was only cooking for the six of us.  But I decided to still go all-out and and make it a huge meal so that we’d have leftovers all weekend and I wouldn’t have to cook. 

Actually, I really, really like to cook.  I don’t like the cleaning-up part.  I tried my best to clean as I went, but still ended up with a PILE o’ dishes, which my hubby surprised me by washing, as I went on an after-dinner walk with my toddler, Audrey.  When I got home, he wasn’t quite done, but he shooed off my offers of help, saying, “Go sit down!”  Martin only does dishes once a month or so, but it’s always at just the right time. 

Today is the 23rd, which is my hubby’s 41st birthday.  We are doing absolutely nothing for his birthday, which I feel rotten about.  I’m really not great at planning special surprises.  He asked me not to get him anything (and really meant it), but I wish I could think of more than one thing at a time;  my mental efforts this week were on cleaning and preparing for Thanksgiving, and I feel awful that I couldn’t get something special figured out for him.

Anyways.  It wasn’t until after the meal that I realized, “This was our first gluten-free, casein-free Thanksgiving.”  It didn’t feel like we were missing anything.  We really had a bounty.

I baked pies on Wednesday night (GFCF pumpin, “regular” gluten-free pumpkin, and GFCF lemon meringue), but everything else, I made at a fairly leisurely pace on Thursday morning and early afternoon.

We had:

• Turkey (I found fresh, free-range turkey for only $1.29 a pound!  Smokin’ deal.)
• Stuffing (made with red & ”regular” quinoa, and GFCF bread)
• Fresh cranberry sauce
• Baked yams (I make mine not-so-sweet)
• Mashed potatoes with roasted garlic
• Gravy
• Fresh spinach salad
• Garlic-braised broccoli
• Corn with red bell pepper
• Fruit salad
• Pies

The only thing that’s really conspicuously missing is dinner rolls, which I just didn’t have time to make.

I liked the way everything turned out except, sort of, the GFCF pumpkin pie.  It was my first time trying one w/o condensed or evaporated milk, substituting coconut milk for the dairy.  The taste was great, and the texture was perfect, but it was oddly dark-colored.  I used a recipe that called for both dark brown sugar and turbinado sugar.  I think next time, I’ll tinker with the recipe and try to get that classic creamy-orange color so that it doesn’t look weird.  It just feels wrong eating brown pumpkin pie.

After we had the kids in bed, Martin and I grew weary of watching ASU getting heartbreakingly pounced by USC, so we popped in a movie.

It was a good day. 

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