Posts Tagged Thanksgiving recipes

So here we are, a couple days from Turkey Day. Every year we are bombarded with ideas of how to make the holidays healthier. Every year many of us say to ourselves, maybe next year I’ll give it a try.

Last year Suzy and I decided that we would begin hosting Thanksgiving at our house. The reason was two-fold. First, we had just had our second child and it would be easier to stay at home. Secondly, we would be able to prepare the food and have some control over what was served.

I grew up on buffet style holidays. Everyone brought a dish and I ate until I could eat no more. The spread of food at my Grandma’s house would put a Vegas buffet to shame and all of my aunts can cook some delicious food. Unfortunately, I wanted to make sure I got a good amount of everything which meant eating to excess.

Suzy and I decided that we wanted to focus more on the meaning of the day rather than focusing on food. When we decided to start having dinner at our house we talked about how we can have a healthy meal without having our guests feel like they are being deprived or punished because we are working on ourselves.

The interesting thing about Thanksgiving is that many of the common staples of the meal are pretty healthy. Somewhere along the way we decided that those staples needed some added ingredients to make them taste better.

Let’s take turkey for example. Turkey is a healthy lean meat but for some reason the good old fashion way of baking it or roasting it for hours just wasn’t that appealing anymore. What did we do about that? Deep fried turkey! Mashed potatoes aren’t that bad in the big scheme of things when prepared sensibly but now people “add some flavor” by adding extra butter, cream, even sour cream. We take yams or sweet potatoes and cover them in a layer of marshmallows and butter and brown sugar, but hey they’re still healthy because there are yams under there. Right?

I could go on and on. Instead, I want to share what we do at our house. For starters, Suzy roasts the turkey and uses several herbs such as sage, rosemary, and time. She puts carrots, celery, and onions on the bottom of the pan and puts the bird on top of it. After she adds some water, a little salt and some pepper, she has made a nice little broth to baste the bird in. I can say from tasting it, the turkey tastes great and she doesn’t even rub it down with butter or stuff it under the skin which seems to be a poular method these days. TURKEY TIP: Try using natural ingredients to enhance the flavor of your turkey!

For mashed potatoes Suzy uses red potatoes and adds skim milk. Instead of butter she adds some chicken stock instead of butter. Once again, as a veteran mashed potato eater, I have no complaints with her healthier version.

Alright alright, yes we do still have some desert! Believe it or not, we have actually found a way to have healthier options at desert as well. My favorite holiday desert is pecan pie. Not just pecan pie, but pecan pie with good old fasioned real whipped cream and not just a tablespoon. I want so much whipped cream you can’t even tell there is pie underneath!

Unfortunately, I can’t do that in good conscience anymore but I still want my pecan pie. Suzy came up with a great idea. She bought those little tiny cupcake tins and made bite size pecan pies. So to get my pecan pie fix I got my little “mini pie” with a little bit of fat free cool whip. Having the little portion allowed me to have a taste and Suzy only prepared enough for us all to have ONE. I was able to stay in control.

Possibly my favorite desert is something that Suzy started making to take to get togethers around the holidays so that we could have something to eat without worrying about calorie counts. I call it pumpkin pie pudding. It consists of 2 pkgs of fat free/sugar free pudding prepared as directed on the box. Add half a can of prepared pumpkin, add cinnamon and pumpkin pie seasoning to taste. Put in the fridge until it sets and then add one container of fat free cool whip and mix right before serving. This is a delicious creamy dessert that can take the place of some of the heavier more calorie filled dishes that we often like to have at Thanksgiving.

These are a couple of the things that we do at our home. Tomorrow I am going to give you some ideas on how to keep active over the next couple of days. See you then!