Really Simple Allergy Friendly Apple Stuffing

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I caved. I know that I said I wasn’t making stuffing this year, but I love it too much to forgo it even though it is a lot of work. Instead of giving up the stuffing, I simplified my recipe a bit and did not make the cornbread this year, making it with only two types of bread that I already had in my freezer.

Ingredients:

5 cups of cubed bread*

1 green apple, diced

1 red apple, diced

2 tablespoons of olive oil

8 tablespoons of olive oil or butter

½ cup cooked sausage, diced or crumbled*

1 to 4 cups quality chicken or turkey broth*

Salt and pepper to taste*

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Arrange bread cubes on a large baking sheet. Place bread and oven and bake for 5 minutes. Then turn down the temperature to 200 degrees and prop the oven door open. Dry the bread this way for about 30 minutes or until no longer moist.
2.  Meanwhile, sauté the apple in 2 tablespoons of olive oil until the apples are slightly soft. Add the sausage and cook until warm. Turn down the heat to low and add the remaining olive oil or butter. Salt and pepper to taste.
3. Mix the apple mixture and the bread cubes together in a large bowl until the bread cubes are oily.  Add one to two cups of the broth and allow the mixture to rest in the refrigerator for at least one hour. After one hour, add 1/3 cup more broth if the mixture isn’t soft yet. Stir and allow the mixture to rest in the refrigerator for another hour. Continue adding broth 1/3 cup at a time and waiting an hour until the bread cubes are no longer hard. My most recent batch took 2 2/3 cups broth, but each batch will be different based on the kind of bread used and how dry the bread was before adding the liquid.
4. Once the stuffing has reached the desired moisture level. Oil or butter a baking pan and press the stuffing into the baking pan. If you have an olive oil sprayer, spraying the top of the stuffing will cause it to brown prettily, but if you don’t have a sprayer, it’s okay to skip this step. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes to warm through and brown the top. Alternative, you can press the stuffing into muffin tins to make individual portions and bake for only 20 minutes.  This recipe should serve 8, but let's be honest, it will probably serve 5.

Note about Bread: You can use nearly any type of good quality bread—gluten free, white, whole wheat, or corn. I recommend homemade or deli bread, not the cheap mass-produced stuff. The recipe works best if you use at least two types of bread. I recommend a quick bread like biscuits or soda bread and yeast bread. Cornbread is also good to throw into the mix. I keep chunks of homemade bread in the freezer for recipes such as this one. If you don’t have food allergies, you can also buy toasted bread cubes at many grocery stores.

Note about Sausage: I used my homemade chicken sausage recipe that I have provided in an earlier post. You could use a vegetarian sausage as a replacement or any store-bought sausage if allergies and intolerances are not challenges for you and your guests.

Note about Broth: I cooked an organic chicken the week before. Then I simmered the left over bones, meat, and skin in my slow cooker with a quart of water for 2 days. You could substitute vegetable broth.

Note about Seasonings: This recipe would be even better with freshly chopped sage, oregano, parsley, chives, and the leafy parts of celery. I am not sure of my allergies and tolerances for these seasonings, so I have left them out for now. Feel free to add a tablespoon or any or all of these to enhance the flavor.

Best Sulfite Intolerance Website

Tracy has the best website I've found so far that explains which foods may contain sulfites on her website Hold the Sulfites. I wanted to share this link with any fellow sulfite intolerance sufferers.

Overnight Slow Roasted Organic Turkey with Gravy

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The centerpiece of Thanksgiving is a deliciously roasted bird. Mmmmm.

My body doesn't like most commercially processed poultry for some reason. Therefore, I secure an organic or less processed "natural" bird for my table. These birds are often tougher than the massive commercial birds. Therefore, I find that the slow cooking method gives me the most tender and flavorful bird. I use regular wheat flour in my turkey bag and in my gravy because the gluten-free flours make me ill. However, King Author's Gluten-free Multi-purpose Flour works as a substitute in this recipe. Not all gluten-free flours work for making gravy, so you may want to do some trial runs if you are using a different variety of gluten free flour than this one.

Turkey

Ingredients:

1 twelve to 18 pound organic or natural turkey

Salt and pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 rib celery, halved

1 apple, halved

1 carrot, halved

1 tablespoon flour (wheat for me, but any kind for those with glutton allergies)

Turkey bag and large roasting pan

Directions:

1.     Make sure to thaw the turkey completely. Partially frozen turkeys are dangerous to cook using this method. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Add 1 tablespoon of flour to the turkey bag and shake. Remove giblets and organs from turkey cavity.  Salt and pepper outside of turkey and rub with olive oil.  Place celery, apple and carrot in turkey cavity. Place turkey in turkey bag and then place in a roasting pan. Cut several holes in the bag.

2.     Bake turkey at 400 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes. Then turn temperature down to 200 degrees. Roast at 200 degrees for 10 to 24 hours (Avoid opening the oven for the first 10 hours).

3.     Remove turkey from oven. Allow turkey to rest for 20 minutes.  Remove turkey to platter.  Reserve drippings for gravy.

Turkey Gravy

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

Drippings from roast turkey, strained

2 tablespoons general-purpose flour (wheat for me or King Author Gluten free Multi-Purpose flour for those with a gluten allergy)

1 to 2 cups chicken broth (I usually cook an organic chicken the week before and freeze the broth for this purpose).

Salt and pepper

Directions:

1.     Skim fat from turkey drippings and add to a saucepan with olive oil.  Turn heat to medium and add flour, stirring constantly. 

2.     When flour is brown and is free of lumps, add the rest of the turkey drippings. 

3.     Continue stirring until gravy thickens.  Add broth or water to get the amount of gravy you need.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

One-Hour Chicken and Potatoes

This recipe yields a delicious, tender roasted chicken with crispy potatoes.

Ingredients:

1 organic whole chicken

1 lime, halved

4 tablespoons cold butter or olive oil

4 potatoes, cut in 8 wedges each (russet or Yukon golds)

1 tablespoon olive oil

salt and pepper as desired

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Place chicken beast side up onto a large baking pan. Don’t forget to clean the innards out of the body cavity. Place the lime and the butter in the chicken cavity. Use olive oil instead of the butter if you have a dairy allergy. Tuck the wings tips behind the body to stabilize the chicken. Bake for 10 minutes
2. Toss the potato wedges in oil. After the chicken has cooked for 10 minutes, use a spoon to move the chicken around so that it won’t stick. Then add the potatoes to the pan. Place the pan back in the oven and bake for 15 minutes.
3. After the potatoes have baked for 15 minutes, use a spatula to unstick them from the pan. Bake an additional 15 minutes. Then use the spatula to unstick them again. Bake for another 15 minutes.
4. Remove chicken from oven check for doneness (I always jiggle a leg to see if it is loose and see if the juices in the body cavity run clear). If the chicken isn’t done, return it to the oven for an additional 10 minutes.  Allow the chicken to rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Creamy Pistachio Chicken Pasta

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I visited a Whole Foods for the first time. The company finally built one an hour away, so we made a pilgrimage last Saturday. It is a marvelous place. A couple were selling local honey and showcasing their bees out front. Just in side were mounds of fresh produce. There were bulk honey, syrup, oil, and vinegars. Fresh whole fish gleamed in tubs of ice. Frozen organic turkeys nestled in coolers in the center aisle. Someone had told me about the cream. She said it would be in an old fashioned milk jug and would not be labeled as milk, except for the top of the lid, which would say cream. So I saw it and new what it was immediately. You may not realize it, but the cream you buy from the typical grocery store isn’t really cream. The grocery store whole whipping cream has stabilizers that keep it from becoming whipped cream or butter. The real stuff is much different.

This recipe isn’t for those with nut, dairy, or wheat allergies. It is low sulfur.

Ingredients:

3 organic or natural, additive free, skinless, boneless chicken breasts

extra virgin olive oil

salt to taste

8 ounces (1/2 a package) angle hair pasta

1 pint real whipping cream

¼ cup pistachios, crushed

Directions:

1.     Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Oil and salt chicken in a casserole pan. Bake until done, about 40 minutes. Cut chicken into slices.

2.     Bring a pot of water to boil. Add pasta and cook according to package directions. Do not overcook. Drain the pasta and add it back to the pot.

3.     Stir the cream into the pasta and add salt to taste. Divide the pasta onto 4 plates. Top each plate with chicken and crushed pistachios. Serves 4.

Grilled Tomato Lasagna

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A low sulfur lasagna, not safe for people with dairy, wheat, or egg allergy

Lasagna is normally a sulfur bomb. With aged cheese, beef or pork, gassed canned tomatoes, and garlic and onions, most lasagna makes people who are sensitive to sulfur sick. This is a lower sulfur version. If you are not feeling adventurous, leave out the egg and spinach and cut the amount of cheese in half. If you are feeling ambitious, make your own white vinegar-based cheese because you will know that it will be low in sulfur. It was super tasty and made the best leftovers.

Ingredients:

2 or 3 pints cherry tomatoes

7 lasagna noodles

1 cup fresh farmer’s cheese

½ cup fresh mozzarella cheese (the kind in a ball), torn into small pieces

½ cup fresh spinach

olive oil

1 egg

½ pound ground beef or organic or additive-free ground turkey

Special Equipment:

Grill

Blender or food processor

Directions:

1.     Preheat the grill. Toss tomatoes in a tablespoon of olive oil and then cook them on the grill until they burst. Then remove them from the grill. Puree the tomatoes with a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt.

2.     Brown the ground beef or turkey in pot. Then add the tomato sauce.

3.     Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Meanwhile, cook the lasagna noodles according to the package directions. Make sure that you have not bought the no-boil variety, and make sure to not overcook them as the noodles will cook more in the oven.

4.     Mix together the farmer’s cheese, a beaten egg, and the spinach finely shredded.

5.     Oil a 9x9 casserole dish with olive oil. Layer sauce, noodle, sauce, cheese mixture, noodle, sauce, noodle, sauce, and mozzarella cheese.

Mozzarella cheese

Sauce

Noodle

Sauce

Noodle

Cheese mixture

Sauce

Noodle

Sauce

Olive oil

6.     Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Allow it to cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting.