Thanksgiving Extravaganza

Last week, we celebrated Thanksgiving three times.  It was a Thanksgiving Extravaganza, and it was wonderful and exhausting.  I made lots of delicious goodies I was able to share at all the events (I planned out my recipes earlier last week here).  Thursday was the Haugo Family Thanksgiving in Mt. Vernon, Iowa.  After making all my goodies, Josh and I were an hour late.  We missed eating a warm dinner, but the cold leftovers were delicious!

I'm a stickler for fresh pumpkin pies.  As in, I only make pumpkin pies with fresh roasted pumpkin.  So, the first thing I did when I got off work on Wednesday was roast a pumpkin.

While the pumpkin was baking, I put together the ingredients for the fresh apple pie, mini pecan pies, mini salted caramel apple pies, and chocolate peanut butter pie.  It was a little hectic.  I baked for about 12 hours.  I finished baking everything and still had some extra pumpkin leftover so I made mini pumpkin whoopee pies.  These desserts were certainly a labor of love, and I was so happy to share the with our families.

Haugo Family Grandkids

The "older" Haugos

Friday, we headed up to Maplewood, Minnesota, for the Huntley Family Thanksgiving with Josh's mom's side of the family.  There were almost 30 family members in attendance, and it was great seeing them all.  Josh and I accidentally wore matching shirts.  It makes us easy to spot in the family photo.

Huntley Family Photo

Saturday, I hosted Thanksgiving dinner with my mom, sister, four kids, and Josh and Sophie. On Wednesday, I made the brine for the turkey.  It was my first time making a brine, and I feel very sophisticated for making a "fancy" turkey this year.  I also tried making mashed potatoes in a slow cooker.  The convenience of letting the potatoes cook for hours on their own seemed lovely, but I don't think I'll ever make them like that again.  They ended up being kind of hard (not like my normal fluffy version); I think they were overcooked and I wasn't impressed.  My sister took photos on her camera; the only one I took was of my delicious peanut butter chocolate pie.  I doubled the peanut butter filling...and I don't think I'll ever go back to the original recipe.  More peanut butter is always better.

Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Menu

Thanksgiving is this week, and we have three wonderful family-packed celebrations coming up.  I like to bring desserts to two of our family events).  Since no one else in our families eats g-free, I do my best to make sure what I bring is delicious and doesn't taste weird (I don't want to be "that" family member who brings the food everyone else avoids).  Here's what I have on my menu.

For Thursday and Friday's Thanksgiving celebrations, I'm bringing Salted Caramel Apple Bites, Mini Pecan Pies (it's a family recipe; I'll show pictures once I make them), an apple pie (with this awesome crust mix from the Gluten Free Pantry), and Pumpkin Whoopie Pies.

(source)

For Saturday, I'm hosting the dinner, so I'll be making more than just dessert.  Here's what's on the menu: a lovely roasted turkey (and thanks to The Pioneer Woman's show yesterday, I know how I'll be making it), whipped potatoes (I make them a little different every time I make them), cornbread stuffing (from a Whole Foods recipe), gravy (made with cornstarch like this recipe), roasted acorn squash, and a peanut butter chocolate pie for dessert (from Simply Gluten-Free).  Since I'm the difficult one to cook for, I like to make the tricky menu items and ask my guests to bring the easy stuff (like cranberries, veggies, and beverages).  After church this morning, we purchased all the ingredients, so I'm ready to rock for this food-packed week!
 

Tasty (and fast) Gluten-free Dinner

Tonight I made an amazing dinner: baked salmon with balsamic roasted Brussels sprouts. It was delicious and easy. I cleaned the Brussels sprouts like I did yesterday, then made the same olive oil, salt and pepper mixture, but added a little bit of balsamic (probably a tablespoon). They baked for the same length of time. For the salmon, I sprinkled on some Magic Salmon Seasoning (it's g-free) and baked the filets for about six minutes at 450. Easy and tasty - it really doesn't get much better than that!

Gluten-Free Halloween Candy

I bought the biggest bag of Halloween candy yesterday at Costco.  Of course, I opted for the good stuff - chocolate.  Thank goodness I only had a few kids come over to trick-or-treat (we have beggar's night the day before Halloween in my 'hood), so I have a lot of leftovers.  Then, today, I found a great website (myglutenfacts.com) that shows a listing of g-free Halloween candy.  Below are my favorites (and almost all of them are in my bag of chocolate candy leftovers!).

(G-Free) Comfort Food

The weather has cooled down quickly (last week's cold snap did me in), and now I'm in the mood for soups.  This week, I've made two soups - mixed bean and squash.  Below are beautiful images someone else took (and they also created the recipes).  You should make them.  I'm loving both soups and think you will, too!

Mixed bean and ham shank soup from Bliss (source)

Creamy garlic butternut squash soup from Undressed Skeleton (source)

For my birthday, Kristina made me the best g-free chocolate cookies (and she delivered two platters of them to my desk).  She got the recipe here.  You should make these, too.  They're heavenly.

Flourless fudge chocolate chip cookies from Chocolate and carrots (source)

Birthday Cupcakes

After I ran The Color Run on Saturday, I picked up a dozen g-free cupcakes from Creme (remember when I discovered them a couple weeks back?).  The cupcakes were heavenly - from the tantalizing aroma to the creamy frosting, I couldn't choose from the chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting and the red velvet cupcakes...so I ate one of each of them...each day...for three days.

The cupcake selection, my mimosa cupcake I tried on Friday, and their g-free section.

Happy birthday to me and Luke!