I love the holiday season.  Starting with Halloween and through New Years’ there’s so much fun celebrating (and eating!) to be done.  I love getting an excuse to spend time with family and prepare meals together.  Thanksgiving is one of my favorites and it makes me sad that many stores seem to have completely skipped over Thanksgiving and gone straight to Christmas.  I went to The Container Store on November 1^st and it was completely outfitted for Christmas.  I’m sure there’s more money to be made on Christmas, but can’t we just enjoy Thanksgiving?  There’s still a whole month after Thanksgiving to buy all the wrapping paper we need.

When I was visiting my parents in Alexandria, VA a few weeks ago, Mom and I started planning the many meals that we’ll be making and eating during Thanksgiving.  Since I’m not getting to the Eastern Shore (where I’ll be spending the holiday) until the night before Thanksgiving, Mom is in charge of the grocery shopping so we began piecing together the many yummy meals we’ll create over the 4-day vacation.

If you’re recently diagnosed with celiac or even if you’ve been living gluten-free for a while, I encourage you not to feel deprived this holiday season.  Think about the many things you can eat and how you want to prepare them to please the palates of gluten-free and gluten eaters alike.  Just think about how many delicious traditional and unique Thanksgiving foods are entirely gluten-free.

Here’s a glimpse at what will be on my table at Thanksgiving dinner:

• Turkey on the grill (David’s in charge of this one.  He’s up for the challenge and I’m excited to enjoy his creation.)
• Rosemary parmesan mashed potatoes
• Baked butternut squash
• Creamed spinach
• Green beans
• Canned cranberry on orange slices (it’s a family favorite!)
• Pumpkin pie and Apple Pie made with Whole Foods’ gluten-free pie crust; I made a practice pie this weekend and it was delicious (I’ll publish the recipe soon!)

Doesn’t it make your stomach growl just looking at the list?  I won’t be missing gluten at all this Thanksgiving!  Each of these components to my Thanksgiving meal is delicious and relatively simple to make.

Let me know what gluten-free dishes you’ll be making this Thanksgiving.  Also, feel free to share Gluten Freedom with family members who might be looking for gluten-free ideas.  It can be overwhelming for our families to think about cooking gluten-free so it’s good to give them some gluten-free guidance in advance.  Stay tuned for more recipes and meal ideas for the holidays.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 3:28 pm and is filed under cooking, meals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.