Recipe: Three healthy Thanksgiving recipes

Happy Thanksgiving! Today I'm sticking with my anti-inflammatory diet (what fun would a holiday be if I spent all night with an upset stomach?) and I thought I'd share the recipes I used for three of my healthy courses. I'm also making mashed roasted cauliflower (just steam-in-the-bag roasted cauliflower mashed with vegetable broth and roasted garlic) and seared salmon for my main course.

Keep reading for recipes for Pumpkin Custard (dairy-free, gluten-free, and nut-free!), Hazelnut Wild Rice Salad, and Cranberry Apple Relish (recipe courtesy of my mom!)



Cranberry Apple Relish
My mom has been making this for years and recently switched up the recipe to make it fit my anti-inflammatory diet, which was so sweet of her! My family eats pretty healthy for the most part, so it's pretty simple to make mostly-healthy recipes (fruit and sugar) into much-healthier recipes (fruit and maple syrup.)

You'll need:

1 orange
1 medium apple (my mom suggests gala or fuji)
3 c. fresh cranberries
3/4 c. maple syrup
1 Tbsp water

Grate zest from whole orange. Cut off any remaining pith from orange. Cut orange into chunks. Peel, core, and cut apple into large pieces. Combine everything in a food processor until finely chopped - but not mushy. Stir in maple syrup and water. Refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight.



Pumpkin Custard
This is just like eating pumpkin pie without the crust! My Grandmom has Celiac so custard has been a Thanksgiving staple ever since she was diagnosed about 20 years ago. This year I adapted this recipe I found online so that it's not only gluten free but anti-inflammatory as well. And I made sure to use coconut milk (a lot of dairy-free recipes call for almond milk) since my brother is allergic to nuts.

You'll need:

1 1/3 c. light coconut milk
1 c. pumpkin puree
3/4 c. maple syrup
3 eggs
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. pink Himalayan sea salt

Preheat the oven to 325'. On the stove heat the coconut milk over low heat until small bubbles form along the edges. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and maple syrup. Then once the milk is heated, whisk it into the egg/syrup mixture one tablespoon at a time.

In a separate bowl, whisk the pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and salt. Then whisk that mixture into the egg/syrup/milk mixture. Pour into a glass baking dish, and then put that dish into a slightly larger baking dish. Fill the outer dish with hot water until it goes halfway up the edge of the inner baking dish. Bake for 1 hour and 30 minutes, or until the top is mostly set. At the 1 hour mark I started checking on mine every 10 minutes just to make sure it was setting properly.

Remove the inner baking dish from the outer baking dish and cool on a wire rack until the pan is room temperature. Then refrigerate until ready to serve!



Hazelnut Wild Rice Salad
Several years ago my family had a similar salad from the prepared foods section at Whole Foods and we fell head over heels with it! Of course that meant that every time we went back afterwards they never seemed to have it again. Luckily I kept the ingredients list from our first order and recreated it at home! The vinaigrette was adapted from this recipe. This makes a pretty hefty batch of rice so you might want to halve it if you're not feeding a lot of people.

For the rice you'll need:

18 oz. Lundberg Farms Whole Grain & Wild Blend Brown Rice
(other wild rice will do, but this is my absolute favorite!)
1 1/2 c. dried cranberries
1 1/2 c. diced red peppers
1 1/2 c. chopped hazelnuts
1 1/2 c. chopped spinach
1 1/2 c. sugar free dried pineapple, diced

For the vinaigrette you'll need:

1/3 c. chopped hazelnuts
1 shallot (finely chopped)
1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp. red wine vinegar
a pinch of allspice
3/4 tsp. pink Himalayan sea salt
2 tsp. maple syrup
2 tsp. lemon juice
1/4 c. walnut oil

Cook your rice, and then combine all of the rice ingredients listed. For the vinaigrette, sauté the chopped hazelnuts, shallot, and extra virgin olive oil. Then whisk with the remaining ingredients. Toss with the rice and refrigerate for at least one hour before serving.



I hope everyone has a wonderful and healthy Thanksgiving today! 💞

recipe: pumpkin pie ice cream

Last weekend I got a text from Yogurtland saying they had a new pumpkin pie flavor of frozen yogurt and I was dying to try it! I went on Wednesday and the cashier told me the flavor was already gone for the season (what?!) so, heartbroken, I went to the grocery store to see if they had any. They didn't! Then I remembered that I got my dad an ice cream maker for his birthday this spring and we had yet to try it out.

I did a quick google search on my phone but couldn't find any recipes that used real pumpkin pie. Most have pumpkin filling and graham cracker crumbs or something like that, but I wanted actual pie in my ice cream. So I decided to just wing it and BOY am I glad that I did. I used the milk measurements from a peanut butter ice cream recipe that came with the ice cream machine and then eyeballed the rest. It came out so great I can't wait to try other flavors now! I want to try apple next but my dad is campaigning for garlic (yup, garlic!) We'll see..

Here's my recipe for pumpkin pie ice cream:

1 pumpkin pie, pre-cooked
1 cup fat free half-and-half
2 cups heavy cream
1/3 cup brown sugar
red and yellow food coloring (optional)

Cut 1/4 slice of the pie and eat it. If you want to save it for later or give it away that's fine too, but I recommend eating it immediately. Then scoop out the entire center of the pie, including the bottom crust (leaving only the crust edges in the pan) and mash it up in your mixing bowl with a fork. Add brown sugar and mix. Then add the half-and-half and combine with a hand mixer on low speed. Then add the heavy cream and continue mixing on low for about a minute. Cover your bowl and store in the fridge for a couple hours (I left mine in overnight.)

When the batter is cool, add it to your ice cream machine and watch the magic happen! My ice cream maker (this one) is open at the top (I don't know if all of them are? I'm new to this) so I could see the batter transforming into ice cream right before my eyes. It was SO cool! While it was churning I added 3 drops of yellow and 3 drops of red food coloring to make the ice cream a little bit more pumpkin-looking. I was also planning on adding some crumbs from the leftover crust edges a few minutes before the ice cream was done but it ended up getting too thick for me to add anything! I definitely want to try that in my next batch for some added texture.