Simple (Allergen Free) Feasting

I hope that everyone is having an awesome holiday season! We had a very merry Christmas at our house. Eli had the most fun, of course! Even though it has been almost a week, I still wanted to share our simple Christmas meal on my blog. It has just been awhile since we had a holiday by ourselves, and so although it may seem silly, it was really fun for me to orchestrate the whole little meal by myself. The whole meal was gluten free, casein free, soy free, and nearly corn free as well.





We had on the menu, turkey of course, which you can see below the cheesy smiles in the first picture. The turkey was Norbest Tender Timed. Although not quite as preservative free as I would wish, it did say GLUTEN FREE. And by the way, the timer did not work, which I found kind of amusing. I put Earth Balance spread under the skin, as well as the juice from half a lemon, and a mix of spices including paprika, salt and pepper, and dried chopped onions. I meant to also use rosemary, but I forgot. The results really were surprisingly great.

Sides included green beans, carrot sticks, and green salad. Jason loves deviled eggs, so I made them as allergen-free as possible, using only Canola Mayo, (to avoid soy,) French's Mustard, salt and pepper. Eli, our son with autism, apparently hates deviled eggs, so I didn't have to worry about them bothering his system after all. The mashed potatoes had Earth Balance, Rice Dream rice milk, salt and pepper. Of course I made gravy from the turkey drippings, adding just alittle potato starch to thicken. Although Eli is sensitive to yeast, he did have 2 little pieces of his favorite "Sandwich Bread" from page 21 of Carol Fenster's "Cooking Free."

Dressings included Annie's All Natural Roasted Red Pepper salad dressing, Old Nauvoo homemade style red raspberry jam, and of course our favorite Earth Balance spread. We washed the whole thing down with Martinelli's Sparkling Apple Cider. Yum.

Eli had lots of fun with making cut out cookies later that evening with another recipe of Carol Fenster's, from page 239 of the same cookbook.

And tomorrow is a whole new year. The holidays pass way too quickly once they get here!!