Tuesday, December 30, 2008

12 Low carb Thanksgiving dishes

well maybe not 12 but I did manage to keep ALL of my Thanks giving low carb. It was imperative since I gained a lot of poundage while at Reni's ( i wasn't a very good girl at all when it came to sticking with my eating plan)

we had a small dinner this year as all the other family had other plans already in place. Just Seymour and I, Seth and Peter, a friend of ours. It was very very nice.

Menu: with recipes to follow
Turkey and gravy
sage and onion stuffing
Cauli Mash
broccoli and cheese casserole
tossed salad with pomogranite seeds
sugar free pumpkin pie
lower carb pecan pie

I know that I had some appetizers, but I for the life of me can't remember what!

The dressing--which is a family tradition from my great grandmother-- is generally made with fresh breadcrumbs. It's just breadcrumbs, onion, sage and butter. This year I subbed low carb bread, flax meal and almond meal for the bread. it was delicious.

Cauli mash is steamed cauliflower processed in the food processor with about 4 ounces of cream cheese to one head of Cauliflower. add a little salt and and garlic powder and it's done. This is one of our favorite dishes and we have it a couple of times a week. Its wonderful with gravy. Or without!

The broccoli casserole was a variation of the traditional green been casserole, just for a change. I added some grated cheese to the recipe--the one with the French's onions on top. This is our new tradition, we liked it so much.

the tossed salad was romaine lettuce with cucumber , jicama, Pomegranate seeds and pecan halfs roughly chopped. the dressing is 1/4 cup of walnut oil, 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar, 3 packets splenda, a dash of tabasco and about 1/2 teaspoon salt. this is my FAVORITE salad dressing. soooooo good!


for the pumpkin pie I use the Libby's recipe ( on the can)with the following subs-- half heavy cream and half water in place of the canned milk( saves 20 carbs) 1/4 cup xylitol and18 packets of splenda for the sugar ( saves 150 carbs) and I increase the spices by half again.--(thats just my preference.) bake as per the recipe.

for the crust I use:
1 1/4 cup almond or pecan flour
2 T oat flour
1 T xylitol
1 T poly dextrose ( optional)
4 T melted butter

mix it all together and then just press it into a 9 in pie pan like you do with a graham cracker crust

bake at 350 for about 10 min ( I put foil over the edge to keep it from burning) take out and brush the crust with egg white and bake for an additional 5 min to set it. pour in the pie filling and bake as usual--this is why the foil over the edge becomes important as you are baking the crust twice. but it doesn't work if you don't! this saves about 200 carbs. each piece of pie is under 5 grams carb--a normal piece is about 50!!!!!!!

The pecan pie was very complicated, used a lot of specialty products and wasn't as low carb as I wan'ted it to be. It was for Seymour and he loved it--he doesn't care as much about lower carb as i do as he doesn't have the same metabolic issues I have! if i get it tweaked to my satisfaction I'll post the recipe.

3 comments:

Serenity Rachel said...

Yum! I'm going to have to try the pie crust recipe.

Quinn said...

Thanks for the low-carb recipes. I will definitely try out the "brocolli bake" as a replacement for the green bean bake as we call it. It is a tradition, so I always make it, but somehow it hardly ever gets eaten. My husband told me not to even bother making it. I'll surprise them next year with something else. 8-) Happy New Year!

Kylee said...

We got a food processor for xmas this year, so your "cauli mash" recipe was just what I needed to give it a try. Jacob, being the picky eater that he is, could barely gag down one bite, but Alec adored it. I thought it was tasty as well. And Zach hasn't tried it yet as he's stuck driving home in the snow and missed dinner. Thanks for sharing!