Saturday, November 24, 2018

How Do Holidays Change With LPLD: Thanksgiving

 A holiday based around a particularly low fat meat?  And fruit based pies??  Perfect for LPLD!

The hardest part of Thanksgiving, in my opinion, is extended family who doesn't understand LPLD.  The last thing I need in my life is a well-meaning aunt or uncle pressuring my daughter to try a food that might make her sick.  Or even just offering a food, with my daughter assuming that any adult offering a food must know what they are doing!  For this year, at least, we are living on a continent apart from family, so it wasn't an issue this year!  Here's what we ate:

A breakfast of pumpkin muffins, though with at least half flour being whole wheat flour, and a lot less sugar than these call for.  I'll try and blog about my exact recipe sometime...  My girls ADORE it when I put pumpkin seeds on top, usually about 3 per muffin, I guess it looks fancy.  And if one girl also gets to help stir, and another to grease the muffin pan with a pastry brush and some melted coconut oil, and another gets to put the seeds on top, well then it's a perfect morning!

This year I also happened to have some fat free cream cheese on hand, so I added a tablespoon or two of maple syrup for sweetener, and some vanilla extract, and we had an extra special breakfast.  My non-LPLD girl wasn't a big fan of the frosting, it doesn't taste quite the same as full fat cream cheese frosting.  But my darling LPLD 3 year old absolutely adored the frosting, but still consented to eat the rest of the muffin.  I count that as a serving of vegetable for breakfast!


We snacked throughout the day on muffins while we watched the parade (from last year, ah time zone changes...).  We had a cream cheese/crab/chili sauce dip to snack on for the adults, so the LPLD girls only got to snack on canned crab (rough life!) with chili sauce, which is still delicious, don't worry!

Our traditional feast always has to include a grilled turkey, which every single year my husband swears is ruined and burned (note his thumbs down), but every single year is delicious and fantastic.  He makes a glaze out of cranberry sauce and chili sauce, so it's a little barbecue-y, which is also notably fat free.  And if you're a kid with wimpy taste buds, you take off the skin of the turkey that's loaded with the glaze, so we don't even have to worry about that fat for our LPLD girls.
So much of Thanksgiving revolves around sides which we have found pretty easy to make low fat and vegetable dense.  Some rainbow carrots prepared a la Jamie Oliver were stunning.  We also had his minted peas with less oil added than he calls for.  In the past we've also had sweet potato pie (our secret is orange juice concentrate that really sweetens and adds flavor).  Then a simple french bread, and that rounds out our Thanksgiving meal!

For dessert, I've had great luck with MCT oil for an oil pastry crust, and then apple pie is a no-brainer.  With fat free whipped cream for special occasions!

How was your LPLD Thanksgiving?  What are your go-to menu items?  Any secret ingredients to make it all extra delicious?


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