Hits and Misses

I don't know about you, but we have just finished eating the Thanksgiving leftovers at our house.

We changed some of the traditional dishes we've made for Thanksgiving due to dietary changes I've had to make in the last six months. Last spring, at the suggestion of my physician, I had some testing done for allergies and was found to be sensitive to dairy, eggs, almonds and peanuts. I now need to avoid these foods and things that contain these foods. I didn't think it would be much of a problem because I  didn't drink milk and didn't think I used much milk in cooking, (I was wrong)  I am also sensitive to casein, which is the milk protein used in a lot of foods I thought were non dairy....good bye coffee creamer, the cheese had to go as well. Apparently I used more dairy products then I realized. I have basically had to learn a new way to eat and cook...my challenge... how in the world do you do Thanksgiving with these restrictions?

Now before you feel sorry for my family, we kept the traditional green bean casserole and the potatoes with lots of milk and butter, I didn't want others to feel deprived because of my restrictions. What we did was add some new side dishes and modified some of our old favorites. Some of the dishes were hits others were misses. (or still needed tweaking)

Some Hits

• Braised Kale with apples and onions. I could eat this all day long and will include the recipe on a future post
• Brussels Sprouts with bacon, I never thought I liked Brussels Sprouts but these were wonderful, everything is better with bacon right?
• Gravy without using milk or butter. Husband made a stock using the neck and giblets,  a large carrot, half onion and a stalk of celery. (left the vegetables in big pieces) After it simmered for several hours, husband pulled out the large pieces of meat and vegetables and "motor boated" the bits and turned it into a wonderful "creamy" gravy
• Mashed potato using coconut milk and "buttery" spread (yes we made two separate batches of potatoes, we had a guest who was also "dairy free")
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Misses

• Pumpkin pie, the recipe I found used coconut milk and an egg replacement product. The taste was okay but the texture wasn't right. It never fully set up and is one of those recipes I will have to "tweak" a little bit, looks a little sad
  
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• Oyster Dressing, we have made this for years but tried to "clean it up" a bit by reducing the butter and replacing with broth. My oldest son was the only one who cared for it. Could be because the other dressing to chose from was so much better ....youngest son made a Sausage, Spinach Dressing with Fennel that was preferred by most everyone.

I guess you are wondering, if I've noticed any difference since making all these dietary changes. That's a hard thing for me to say, because it has been quite the roller coaster ride these last several months concerning health issues. Lots of medication changes, dietary changes etc, so it's hard to know what is responsible for my improvement, but since there has been improvement, I'm not going to change a thing.