The Turkey and Ham are a given, luckily I can have that without too much worry. The ham may have a syrup glaze on it so of course I would need to be more careful with that. But what about all those lovely sides? Buttery mashed potatoes drenched in gravy, stuffing made with bread and those fluffy soft dinner rolls that we all love to slather with butter. Then there are the pies and cheesecakes and cookies and pumpkin breads! What's a low carb girl to do?
I am not a foodie, I don't invent foods or make tweaks to current recipes to transform them to low carb, but lots of others do. There are hundreds of bloggers and foodies out there that love to share their ideas. This is the best time ever to be a low-carb eater!
My mom's stuffing, that is my kryponite! That is what will be the hardest to stay away from. I have promised myself a small helping in the morning while mom is making it. Just 1/4 of a cup. I'm not even going to try to figure out how many carbs will be in that 1/4 of a cup I'm just going to eat it and savor it and be extremely grateful that my mom is still with me and able to make stuffing for me again!
However, I am also going to make this lower carb version from Davida of The Healthy Maven blog, Cauliflower Rice Stuffing from The Healthy Maven.
 |
| Cauliflower Rice Stuffing from The Healthy Maven |
 |
| Photo Credit - Ocean Spray.com |
Unfortunately it's a bit high in carbs as well as it's made with sugar and high fructose corn syrup. 1/4 of a cup will be 28 carbs.
So I have been searching high and low for an alternative as I really do love this stuff on my turkey!.
I came across this recipe that was also shared on The Healthy Mavens blog but is a creation of Gina from the blog Running to the Kitchen.
This is 5-ingredient slow cooker Cranberry Sauce. Best thing it's slow cooked, so you can prep it, set it and forget it! This will lower the carb count to about 8 per serving. I will miss my canned jellied cranberry sauce though!
What I will be on the hunt for next is something to replace my pumpkin pie! That was even hard to type, but it must be done. For those of you that have been following my low carb journey, I have now lost 23 pounds. I feel so great and I am having so much fun fitting into my skinny clothes again! Yay me! So yes, I could splurge, I could do a cheat day, but looking at these yummy recipes above, why would I want to when I can substitute with equally fulfilling and delicious dishes?
What is your favorite Thanksgiving food that you can't live without?
Congratulations on your weight loss! 23 pounds is quite a victory, and it's enough to keep you away from carbs.
ReplyDeleteI myself like turkey meat and mash potatoes; I can definitely do without bread and cranberry sauce or any other sauce.
I plan to stuff myself with turkey since it's very low carb. Instead of mashed potatoes I plan to make a Cauliflower mash. I made some the other day by steaming cauliflower and mashing it and adding cream and mayonnaise and salt, pepper and a touch of garlic and it was really delicious. I've learned to really love salads so I'll probably whip up a salad and some green beans with almonds will be nice as well. It's become so much easier to come up with ideas as I follow so many blogs that eat low carb and it's a great incentive to have lost 23 pounds! I've been buying new clothes and getting rid of my "fat" clothes and it's been so much fun! I'll have to do a post about that soon. Thanks for commenting, a pleasure always to hear from you!
DeleteI don't know Alicia, I would just do the cheat for Thanksgiving Day and then back to grind...no leftovers.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on the loss of 23 pounds.
Thanks Sextant! Wow, but see, I will have 4 days off and if I cheat on Thanksgiving then sometimes it's the beginning of the end. You convince yourself that it's ok, you cheated and you didn't die and before you know it you're telling yourself that you'll start again on Monday. Oh we women are great at justification and rationalization...lol.
DeleteNo, I always tell myself that I am my own dominatrix! I control my destiny and what I eat and how I want to feel. I can't let food control me. I will eat my mom's dressing because she won't always be here and I would hate to think that I could have tasted it one more time and I didn't, so I will have that, but then the rest with be relatively low carb. But thanks for trying, I know it comes from goodness Sextant :)