Healthy Holiday Cooking
Healthy holiday cooking is easy. You just use real, whole foods, like sweet potato, pecans, walnuts, cranberries, winter squash and more. Recently I was reviewing the book "Super Foods", by Dr. Steven Pratt. Superfoods include cranberries, oats, oranges, pumpkin, sweet potato, spinach, tomato, green beans, walnuts, and turkey breast. Sounds like Thanksgiving! You can make pumpkin pie, a green salad with spinach, walnuts, tomato, and romaine lettuce, turkey, cranberry sauce, wild rice, and oatmeal cookies. The healthy versions of these dishes use less sugar, eggs, butter, salt and fat, and more herbs, squashes, nuts and fruits.
Healthy Holiday Cooking Tips - Keep it simple. Choose simple dishes for less stress. Forget perfection. Think rustic kitchen. For instance, I thought about making a green bean casserole, but instead I steamed green beans and pearl onions, and drizzled on olive oil. easy!
- Menu Ideas. Here's the thanksgiving menu I shared with my mom, dad and Alan: organic turkey from Whole Foods, steamed green beans, pearl onions and carrots, baked vegies, cornbread dressing, mushroom gravy, baked sweet potato, green salad, wild rice pilaf, cranberry sauce, canned peaches from last summer peach harvest, and oatmeal raisin squares.
This meal had no dairy or gluten but you could easily add them in small amounts. We use olive oil, plenty of herbs, parsley, mushrooms, onions, celery. Tip: Sauteed mushrooms and onions make anything taste good. I use arrowroot in place of flour for thickener. - Have your guests bring a dish. Mom brought up the cornbread dressing, sweet potatoes, and oatmeal squares. Alan made the turkey, and I made the green beans, baked vegies, salad, mushroom gravy, wild rice pilaf, and cranberry sauce.
- Prep vegies the day before. This meal has lot of vegetables, so I cup up onion, mushrooms and vegies, and soaked wild rice and quinoa for the pilaf.
- Use fall vegetables, fruits, nut and seeds. Corn, squashes, sweet potato, cranberry, apples, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, green beans are all in season.
- Go lightly on sauces. Our sauce was the mushroom gravy, a clear gravy with no dairy. I used arrowroot to thicken it, not flour. And we had our usual salad dressing of olive oil and vinegar, plus some oil was cooked in the pilaf.
Healthy holiday cooking recipes
- The turkey. We get an organic turkey from Whole Foods. Alan bakes the turkey according to the package directions. He uses a meat thermometer. We don't stuff the turkey with dressing.
- Steamed green beans: Wash and cut up green beans into bit size. Add in peeled and halved pearl onions and diced carrots. Steam about 7 minutes. That's it.
- Green salad: Wash and tear romaine lettuce and spinach, and add in grated carrots, cherry tomatoes, diced red onions, sliced red radish, sliced red bell pepper, and fresh parsley.
- Baked sweet potato: Wash 2-3 sweet potatoes and pierce them a few times with a fork. Place on a baking sheet or casserole dish. Put in 400 degree oven and cook 1 hour. Test and see it it is soft. Remove and keep warm. Slice into bite size pieces and serve with butter or olive oil
- Cornbread dressing
- Oatmeal raisin squares
- Wild rice pilaf
- Mushroom gravy: Saute about 1 cup sliced mushrooms and 1/2 cup sliced onions in olive oil until they shrink, about 5 minutes. Add a pinch of salt, pepper, and 1 tsp each sage and thyme. Mix 1 Tbsp arrowroot in small amount of cold water and add to mushrooms, along with 2 cups vegie or turkey broth. Heat over low flame and keep stirring. It will thicken up. If you need more gravy, keep adding in a small amount of cold water mixed with 1 Tbsp arrowroot, until you get the thickness you want.
Optional: add in "milk" like plain, unsweetened rice, almond, hemp, or dairy milk. - Cranberry sauce
- Baked vegies
- Pumpkin pie
- Fruit dessert: We had homemade canned peaches and apple sauce for dessert. Also mom's oatmeal raisin squares and the cranberry sauce are sweet as well. Simple fruit can be a dessert.
Happy Holidays!
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You might also like these healthy holiday cooking recipes: Fall vegie recipes with cauliflower, squash, apples, and walnuts Green bean recipes Pumpkin seeds Salad dressing recipes, vegan Winter squash recipes for cooler weather
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