Who ever said Celiac's had to miss out on the delicious holiday food?

Before the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years) I was in a near panic over all the great foods and traditions I would be missing out on. No delicious Hilligoss rolls, no pie (my MIL makes an AWESOME apple pie-- my fave), no traditional white choc. chex mix, no chocolate covered Oreos, etc. I was so upset about all the things I would have to miss that I forgot to look at all the recipes I could try out and all the great gluten free food that could easily fill these holes in the delicious menu. Until a few weeks before Thanksgiving. My MIL and I worked to make the ENTIRE meal (minus the pie-- I couldn't ask the in-laws to give that delicious stuff up, nor would I want to) gluten free! And it was DELICIOUS! We changed some things in her scalloped corn recipe to make it GF, I made GF cornbread stuffing, we used GF flour to make the gravy, and I made a GF red velvet cake for my dessert (I wasn't the only one who ate it though!). Otherwise, everything was a piece of cake for T-day! And so delicious!
Then Christmas rolled around. This was our first Christmas since getting married at my parent's house, a house so full of memories and tradition-- thus sending me into yet another small panic. However, a little planning and experimenting resulted in a weekend of fabulous gluten free food for all!
Christmas Eve: My family always does "snacky" foods on Christmas Eve. You know, chips and dips, potato skins, pizza rolls, cheese sticks, meatballs, shrimp cocktail, hot dogs and Vienna sausages in bbq sauce, veggie trays, etc. A few weeks before Christmas I started researching and planning and came up with some great GF alternatives to almost all of these things! It worked like a charm.
Here are a few recipes of things I made that night...
Homemade BBQ Meatballs: (SO easy) 2 lbs. ground beef or turkey. Flax seed to thicken. Garlic Powder. Onion Powder. Rolled into balls and baked on a foil lined sheet for 20 min. Cover in Sweet Baby Ray's Honey bbq, add half a jar of grape jelly (yeah, weird but so good!), season with garlic, onion, salt and pepper to taste, ENJOY.
Cheesy Bacon Dip and Tostitos: One brick of reduced fat cream cheese, one cup Helman's Mayo, one cup GF sour cream, one cup (or to taste) Moz. Cheese, 1/4 cup Parm. cheese, Bacon tidbits-- Eat with Tostitos or GF crackers
Homemade Potato Skins: Boil potatoes until they are slightly more firm than for mashed potatoes, cut in half, scoop out center, fill with cheese, bacon and green onion, serve with sour cream and salsa.
Christmas dinner was at my Granny's house. At first she wasn't sure about how gluten free would work but everything turned out great! So great in fact that my aunt and uncle admitted they had thought I was starving because I can't eat gluten-- but boy were they wrong! We ate a delicious meal of rump roast, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, green beans, scalloped corn, watergate salad, and lettuce salad with red velvet cake for dessert. YUM!
New Years Eve was another situation entirely. Rob and I decided to have a whole bunch of friends over for a NYE party. I was pretty excited to try out some new recipes in cookbooks I had received for Christmas. We had the meatballs again, spinach and artichoke dip (HUGE hit), cheesecake with a GF chocolate chip cookie crust, margarita pie (with some Jose Cuervo), turkey roll ups (a Rob creation), and a homemade devil's food chocolate cake for a friend's birthday. Needless to say, I don't think anyone missed gluten too much that night!

I hope you had a great holiday too. I've developed a new appreciation for Celiac Disease. It allows me to be creative and flex my "cooking" muscles a little bit. I've always loved to cook and being gluten free has provided me with a unique opportunity to experiment and enjoy being a little different!

If you want any other recipes let me know. I'm totally up for sharing! Good things are meant to be passed around!

Peace!