Grain Free Stuffing

For anyone who is eating gluten-free, paleo, or wants a healthier substitute for stuffing, this recipe is for you! It’s packed with the essential Thanksgiving flavors, like sage, rosemary, thyme, and garlic. It’s filling and will help make you feel “stuffed” with the starchy vegetables like sweet potatoes and parsnips. Finally, the fattiness from the sausage rounds out all the flavors to make this hearty stuffing the perfect pairing for your turkey dinner. Not to mention, it’s simple to make and you can prep it in advance to clear up some oven space!

Ingredients

• 1 lb of organic pork sausage without the casing, crumbled

• 3 large sweet potatoes

• 8-10 parsnips

• 2 yellow onions, peeled and diced

• 2 apples (honeycrisp or another tart variety), peeled and cut into cubes

• 5 stalks of celery, washed and cut into ½ inch pieces

• 6 cloves of garlic, minced

• 7-8 tbsp of olive oil, coconut oil, or avocado oil

• 1 tbsp dried sage (or 2 tbsp fresh)

• 2 tsp salt

• 1sp dried rosemary

• 1 tsp dried thyme

• 1 tsp dried oregano

• 1 tsp black pepper

Directions

• Heat oven to 375

• Wash and peel turnips; cut into ½ inch wide pieces

• Wash and dry sweet potatoes; cut into ½ inch wide pieces

• Coat the sweet potatoes and turnips in about half the oil and half the spices; then roast on two separate baking dishes so vegetables are in an even layer; roast for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until vegetables are soft when poked with a fork and a little browned

• When root vegetables are cooking, heat oil in a pan over medium heat

• Add sausage and stir; once browned, remove from pan into a bowl

• Add remainder of the oil and add onions and celery; stir and cook until softened

• Add remainder of the spices and apple and cook for 3-4 minutes

• Mix together ALL ingredients in a large bowl and serve immediately (or make ahead and warm in the oven before serving)

Roasted Butternut Squash and Red Onion

Another super simple and flavorful side to add to your Thanksgiving meal plan! Maybe you are sensing a pattern here; I love great tasting food, but I don’t feel the need to slave over a dish for hours and hours. My thoughts are, as long as you have high quality, local, and seasonal ingredients (as often as possible), you should only use a handful of other ingredients so as to highlight and enhance the flavors, rather than cover them up! That, and, there’s many other things I need to do throughout the day and can’t spend it all in the kitchen. Pretty sure that’ll resonate with most of you :)

For this side dish, any type of squash will work, but my favorite are butternut and delicata. The smooth, buttery flavor of the squash compliments the sweetness of the roasted onion. Not only does it taste great, but it looks great too!

Easy substitutions:

• You can swap the red onion for a yellow onion

• You can simply roast the squash with coconut oil and a sprinkling of cinnamon for a sweeter flavor profile

• You can try roasting the squash with apple, cinnamon, and sage as well!

Ingredients

• 1 medium/large butternut squash

• 1 large red onion

• 2 tbsp avocado oil

• 2 tbsp fresh rosemary (or 1 tbsp dried)

• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees

• Cut off ends of butternut squash and carefully slice the skin away

• Halve the squash, scoop the seeds, then cut into ¼ inch pieces

• Peel and halve the red onion; cut into ¼ inch wedges

• Drizzle with avocado oil

• Add salt, pepper, and rosemary

• Bake for 45 mins or until browned and soft when poked with a fork

Preparing the squash

Roasted and ready to be served

Accompanied here by grilled steak, chimichurri sauce, broccoli, rustic bread, and salad

AIP Pumpkin Bars

I am completely pumpkin obsessed! However, for the past month, I’ve been on a strict autoimmune paleo (AIP) healing protocol, which is basically an intense elimination diet. The reason for it is to heal my Leaky Gut and try to prevent getting a full-blown autoimmune disease, especially since I already have hypothyroidism. It was super challenging for me to get my pumpkin fix because of the restrictions I was facing in my diet, but thankfully I found inspiration from AIP bloggers to create these DELICIOUS pumpkinny treats. I even served them at a girls night last week and they were a huge success! They are guilt free and easy to make. Enjoy :)

Ingredients

• 2 ripe bananas

• ½ cup pure pumpkin puree

• ⅓  cup coconut oil (melted)

• 3 tbsp maple syrup

• 1 cup tigernut flour (https://thrivemarket.com/p/organic-gemini-organic-tigernut-flour)

• ¼ cup coconut flour

• 1 tbsp cinnamon

• ½ tbsp pumpkin pie spice (for non-AIP - otherwise ½ more tbsp cinnamon)

• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

• ½ tsp baking soda

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees

• Grease an 8x8 baking dish with coconut oil

• Mash bananas in a bowl with a fork

• Add pumpkin puree and mix

• Add coconut oil, maple syrup, vanilla and mix

• In a separate bowl, add coconut flour, tigernut flour, baking soda, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice and mix well

• Combine all ingredients and mix well

• Spread mixture in baking dish and bake for 35-40 minutes

• Let cool before serving