#or buying just straight beef gelatin

[jenroses]

Turkey Day Menu 2017: GF and allergy friendly

From http://jenrose.com/turkey-day-menu-2017-gf-and-allergy-friendly/

Courtesy of my sister, who is willing to adapt menus for other allergy issues. Comment here if your needs are different. 

First off, we have multiple allergies and food issues. In short:

Me; Militantly gluten free and no strawberries or sulfites due to allergies. Also allergic to crustaceans (lobster, crab, possibly shrimp?), peanuts, hazelnuts, lima beans, oats, banana, and weird issues around standard commercial dairy and eggs, but I do fine with certain local products on eggs and dairy. I also randomly have issues with tomatoes, garlic, onions, some veggies,  peppers, but there are meds I can take that help reduce inflammation to tolerate those. Some forms of garlic are better than others. I avoid most soy, refined sugar and mold-type cheeses due to inflammation issues.

My eldest: Allergic to soy, egg, dairy, peanuts and wheat.

My middle: No citric acid or citrates, reacts to wheat in weird ways, same for natamycin

Hubby has texture/taste issues (goes beyond dislike, not an allergy) with visible egg, set gelatin, and most cheese (except pizza.)

Youngest is Intensely picky.

A turkey dinner is actually one of the easiest meals to adapt.

So, within those parameters, here is our menu, according to Sis, with bullet commentary by me.

  Turkey: 20 lb Shelton free-range, brined with herbs and spices, salt water, and apple juice or cider with no added citric acid

I don’t usually brine turkeys, but I trust Sis. Dad uses wine on the turkey, I cook at high heat and don’t touch it or baste it or brine it, but I might slip some kind of fat under the skin.

Stuffing: Costco gluten free bread cubes, better than bouillon based broth, herbs and spices, soy/dairy/egg/gluten free sausage, chopped apples & walnuts

I haven’t looked at Costcco’s gluten free bread cubes, but it’s really hard to get bread that everyone can have. Happy Campers is probably the best bet. Elegant Elephant has a sourdough loaf that can also be converted to cubes easily. Middle kiddo and I can both do Franz gluten free. Eldest and I can both do BFree. Bread is very regional, don’t be afraid to investigate. Other good substitutions include riced cauliflower, quinoa, and brown rice. Just substitute those for the bread in your favorite stuffing recipe, and be prepared to either cook the grains in broth and/or adjust the liquid content down.

Sausage: standard breakfast sausage is our usual–use whatever standard breakfast sausages you can tolerate. We use sausage-shaped ones, but loose sausage can also be used. Nuts are optional, sub sunflower seeds if you want the texture but can’t do tree nuts, or omit.

Apples work for us, cranberries and raisins are other options we’ve used in the past.

Better that Bouillon is something we also call “Chicken squishy” (or “beef squishy”) and is well tolerated by all of us. We use the organic low sodium version from Costco. Vegan options exist. Turkey is probably the ideal for this meal.

  Potatoes: potatoes, olive oil, salt

I mean, you can do almost anything with potatoes, ranging from just swipe a little oil on the skins and bake, to peel (or not) and boil and mash. Contrary to popular belief, mashed potatoes are fine without milk and butter, especially if they’re going to be buttered later and doused with gravy. Sub chicken broth or veg broth for flavor and texture if you want creamier potatoes, and Earth Balance for butter if you really want them “buttery”.

Pro flavor tip: While I love a peppery olive oil, if you get the “Extra light Napoleon” it tastes very buttery, a la melted butter.

Sweet potatoes*: plain, roasted whole

*actually Garnet or Jewel Yams (which are sweet potatoes, but very orange.)

The neat thing is that sweet potatoes take zero work. Stick them in the oven at whatever temp and roast until squishy.

Once roasted, the skins slip off and they can be sliced or mashed and amended as people like after. One of my favorites involves mashed sweet potatoes with coconut milk, coconut sugar, and spices like ginger and cinnamon. For dairy-and-citrate having people, slice the cooked sweet potatoes and layer with butter, maple syrup, orange and/or lemon zest, orange and/or lemon juice, ginger, nutmeg and paprika.

If you must have them with marshmallows, see my marshmallow recipe. Make the marshmallows with vanilla, not peppermint.

One year we made purple yams, garnet yams, and Japanese sweet potatoes, and mashed them separately and let people pipe them onto their own plates.

This was more work than it was worth given how picky my children are, but a lot of fun for those who both like sweet potatoes and like playing with their food.

Gravy: tapioca or rice flour, better than bouillon based broth, herbs and spices, assorted drippings and giblets

Most of the liquid should come from the turkey, plus the cooking water from any boiled potatoes if you have it, which can be boosted with Better than Bouillon if needed.

Holler if you want to know how we do gravy.

Cranberry sauce: cranberries, sugar and/or honey

I’m lobbying for maple syrup.

Homemade cranberry sauce is the absolute easiest thing. Put cranberries and sweetener in a small pan on the stove. Simmer for 10 minutes. Adjust flavor with more sweet, spices as desired. It really is that easy. It goes from whole berries to sauce sort of all-of-a-sudden. Cook for a minute or two longer to thicken.

Not middle-child safe as cranberries are inherently high in citric acid.

You can make a similar sauce with frozen blueberries.

Applesauce can fill a similar ecological niche on the dinner plate for those who can’t have citric acid.

Green beans: fresh green beans, garlic, mushrooms (I’m hoping for chanterelles), olive oil, salt

Probably using some sort of frozen garlic as I react less badly to frozen garlic than to fresh or dried.

If you can find a safe cream of mushroom soup, use that if you want a more casserole-y thing

Pacific Foods has a yes-dairy-no-gluten condensed cream of mushroom soup.

Adding coconut milk (full fat) to the above would give a similar effect.

This will taste outstanding even if it’s not creamy.

If dairy isn’t a problem, use butter

Add a little wine if you can tolerate it

And the best mushrooms you can get.

Brussels sprouts: Brussels sprouts, uncured bacon

*side-eyes hard*

I hate Brussels sprouts.

But they’re hypoallergenic

I guess

Raw sauerkraut

Plain, lactofermented sauerkraut is delightful and will help with digestion. It also adds a bright acid note to a heavy meal

We buy it. Sonoma Brinery is fantastic, but Trader Joe’s also has a very good version.

Oregon Brineworks Ginger Roots would be fantastic and pretty alongside a turkey dinner.

Vanilla ice cream

Sparkling cider

We watch for added citric acid but lots of brands are fine

Wine

“Well Red” from Trader Joe’s is no-sulfites-detected and passably drinkable

“Our Daily Red” is a cooking wine that is no sulfites detected but kind of awful tasting

If you can find Orleans Hill Zinfandel, it may be the best NSD wine I’ve ever had.

Gluten free pies:

We buy gluten free crusts that everyone can eat. IDK the brand

Where you can’t buy safe crusts, chop sunflower seeds or whatever nuts can be tolerated very fine (not paste) and toast them with a safe butter substitute and press them into the pan a-la crumb crust.

If they’re not staying up, just line the bottom like a cheesecake

Or do a straight up custard

It is possible to substitute gluten free flour for wheat flour 1;1 and palm oil, coconut oil or Earth Balance (we do the soy-free) for the fat, and then follow almost any pie crust recipe. Or google “gluten free pie crust” if you want.  We just buy crusts, it’s easier and the texture is more consistently what we want.

Pumpkin (eggs, pumpkin, brown sugar, vanilla, spices)

Note that this is a dairy-free recipe.

It’s basically just exactly the recipe on the Libby’s label but substituting eggs for the dairy

It’s a lot of eggs

It tastes better that way

and sets up VERY well.

Not safe for my eldest

Egg-free pumpkin (tapioca starch, pumpkin, brown sugar, vanilla, spices)

Note that this is corn-free, vegan, soy, egg, dairy and gluten free.

I would use coconut sugar

Apple (apples, brown sugar, spices, rum)

When I make apple pie, I mix the rum (or whiskey, but that’s not necessarily gluten free) with butter, sugar and a little starch to make a “hard sauce” that gets mixed in with the apples

People have gotten tipsy off of my apple pies

We have used booze to stop the apples from browning (it may not work but people think the browning is booze)

(they’re probably right.)

If citric acid is an issue, don’t use lemon in your pie

If it’s not, definitely use lemon in your pie.

Cherry (cherries, tapioca starch, sugar, almond extract)

Use almond flour for the crust if you want to really punch up the cherry almond goodness.

[shinshikesesese]

Hello! :) Congrats on becoming Japan ambassador! 🎉😄 Since you're a japanese (I read your profile :)), I want to ask what stereotypes of Japan/Japanese you've heard and wanted to comment or change the perception of it if you have a chance? I just want to know it straight from the Japanese themselves. Thanks! :) (btw, I really love the little Tama you put in the end of ask 😍😆 he's just like a cute little potato 😆😆)

Hello and thank you! (/・ω・)/あざっす

Well here’s some top 6 stereotypes of Japan/Japanese I’ve heard or said to me

Japanese eat sushi everyday and only eat rice

Japanese are really good at drawing in anime/manga style and everyone is an otaku

Everyone in Japan are smart, polite and hardworking

Japanese people eat whales and sharks frequently

Everyone in Japan are skinny and healthy

Japanese are bad at English and can’t speak other than Japanese

There’s a lot more but I don’t remember much (笑笑…   ごめん)

WARNING THIS IS A LONG POSTCLICK KEEP READING

Japanese eat sushi everyday and only eat rice 

No, we don’t eat sushi everyday and only eat rice. Sushi is cheaper in Japan than overseas and you can buy the tamago nigiri sushi for around 100 yen/$1 but we do no eat sushi everyday. Going out to eat sushi is quite a feast and some family and people go and eat for special occasion. We eat other things other than rice, like bread and pasta, but it’s just rice is cheaper to buy and easy to cook. Bread is popular in Japan, especially toasts and breads from the convenience store. We eat pasta as well and the most popular pasta dish is Neapolitan pasta but most of the time, it’s considered as a side dish because it’s expensive to buy pasta and the ingredients. ((It costs a lot to make bolognaise pasta in Japan!!))

Japanese are really good at drawing in anime/manga style and everyone is an otaku

No, not everyone is good at drawing and not everyone is an otaku. I guess the amount of people who are good at art are probably the same amount of people who are good at art in your country, and probably there’s a little bit more amount of people who draw in anime/manga style, that’s about it. In Japanese, the word “otaku” means someone who has an obsessive interest in something. It’s not a term to call a person who watches anime and reads manga. The term otaku can be used for any one who has an obsessive interest, such as cars and history ((car otaku, history otaku etc)). Also in Japanese society otaku can be seen in a negative way so it’s not a really good idea to call yourself an otaku in Japan. 

Everyone in Japan are smart, polite and hardworking

This is half true and half false. There are stereotypical views about Asians always being smart. Well this is because most children they start their education at an early age and most primary, middle, and high students go to cram schools/tuition after school. In the Japanese education system, every students are brought to the level of standard Japanese level. Everyone learns the same subjects and there are only few subjects that you can do less ((like only do one semester)). But this doesn’t mean that all Japanese are smart, but it is expected by the community and the school for the students to gain knowledge to the standard Japanese educational system. Off course there are some students who drop out school and fail school, but this is only likely to be a student from the countrysides and not in the cities. Not all Japanese people are polite but it is in the Japanese culture to be polite to people, especially to elders and to people who are older than you ((this is why the term senpai exists guys)). Bowing is probably the most noticeable one and you can probably say hello without saying hello if you bow and they bow back. There are some people who are really rude and don’t even bow and this is normal, because not all humans are perfect. ((sorry I don’t know what to say))Some people view Japanese as hardworking bunch but most of the time it’s because Japanese salary is quite low and also students are always doing homework from school and cram schools. 

Japanese people eat whales and sharks frequently

No, no, no, no, no. I know that Japanese people eat whales and sharks but this is really really rare and only done in few regions in Japan. Whale meat is really expensive as well as shark fins ((no shark meat it’s disgusting and smells, only fins)) and because of the problems with whaling and catching too many whales, the whaling custom was hold back. I’ve never ate whale meat and I don’t know how to cook it but apparently shark fin soup is good but it’s really expensive.

Everyone in Japan are skinny and healthy

No, not everyone in Japan are healthy. MOST people in Japan are healthy and CONSIDERED TO BE skinny.This may be because of the Japanese diet at we don’t eat as much meat. ((Japanese only started eating beef around when the western culture came to Japan)). Japanese cuisine are mainly cooked vegetables seasoned differently, miso soup and rice. It’s really easy if you are vegetarian or vegan to live in Japan because you can probably survive in Japan without eating meat, egg, milk and gelatin. Probably one of the reasons why Japanese people are skinny is not only because of the healthy diet but because of avoiding diabetes. Apparently Japanese people are likely to become diabetes and likely to become fat so people tend to eat healthy food. I don’t think most Japanese people knows about this but it is one of the medical issues about Japanese diagnosed with diabetes.

Japanese are bad at English and can’t speak other than Japanese

Half true and half false. In Japan right now, English has become one of the compulsory subject in school and if you can speak, understand, write, listen in English you have higher percentage of being accepted for the job you want. Most Japanese classes mainly focus on writing and if you have good memorising skill, you can pass tests in Japan. So during English class in Japan, students focus on the writing side rather than speaking and only the students who wants to do a deeper study in English goes overseas and learn English. If you want to learn another language other than English, you need to go to university to learn it. There aren’t as many Japanese people living overseas but in recent years, there have been more Japanese people living overseas other than English speaking countries.

I hope this answers your questionand congratulations to read all of this textsIf you have any questions feel free to message/ask me!お便りありがとうございました