Surviving Thanksgiving Dinner

     Thanksgiving dinner is my favorite meal of the year.  But once I got my diagnosis, I felt like it had become a mine field.  There was butter and milk in the mashed potatoes, milk in the green bean casserole, milk in the pumpkin pie.  What was I to do?  Lucky for me, or unlucky for me depending on how you look at it, Thanksgiving dinner was always at our house.  One year we invite my family, the next year we invite my husband's family.  If they ask to bring something, I suggest something I know won't trigger any of my symptoms.
     Here are my suggestions on how to survive Thanksgiving dinner:
1.  Do everything ahead you can.  This goes for any dinner party.  Enough things will happen at the last minute you won't see coming so do anything ahead you can.
2.  I make my mashed potatoes one to two days ahead.  After your potatoes are peeled, cooked and mashed, add lactose free milk and stick margarine.  Add salt to taste.  I have been making my mashed potatoes like this for years and no one has noticed that I haven't used regular milk or real butter.  When they are cool, I put them in a plastic bag and refrigerate.  We serve our big dinners buffet style and keep the food hot in crock pots.  On Thanksgiving I take the bag out of the refrigerator.  When it is room temperature, I put it in a crock pot sprayed with vegetable spray and put it on low to heat up.  Add more milk and stick margarine if necessary.   Stir occasionally to make sure the potatoes are heating through but not burning, you may have to turn the heat up.
3.  Both of our families were divided on cooked vegetables, but the one vegetable I could get everyone to agree on was corn.  If you buy canned corn, drain almost all the liquid and heat with stick margarine.  If you buy frozen corn, rinse and then heat with stick margarine.  I've had people tell me with the frozen corn they couldn't believe they weren't eating fresh corn.
4.  Gravy was a problem for me.  Since we cook our turkeys on the rotisserie on our BBQ I didn't have enough pan juice to make gravy.  Reluctantly I looked at the gravies at the grocery store and while they were good on their own I couldn't resist my "improvements."  For every two jars of bottled gravy (I like Heinz the best) rinse the jars with 2 tblsp. Marsala wine and 1/4 tsp. poultry seasoning.
     As far as pumpkin pie goes, I don't have an answer on that yet.  Since I prefer pecan pie, I have been working on other recipes, but as soon as I have that one figured out, I will share it.
     Following is my stuffing recipe.  Even though we cook our turkeys on the BBQ we still stuff our turkeys.  If there is any stuffing left we bake it.  If you prefer your stuffing baked, you can do that too.

                                                                    Stuffing                                    

2 boxes sliced mushrooms
1/3 cup Marsala wine
2 12 oz. boxes seasoned corn bread stuffing mix (I like Mrs. Cubbison's the best)
2 cups celery chopped (It will be easier to digest if you take the strings off first)
1/4 cup dried minced onion
2 cups chicken broth
2 tsp. poultry seasoning
2 tsp. fresh chopped parsley
2 tsp. fresh chopped sage
2 tsp. fresh chopped chives

Break mushrooms into small pieces, cook in margarine and Marsala wine until browned.  Cool.  Mix with all other ingredients.  You will be able to stuff at least a 20-22 lb. turkey or two smaller turkeys. and probably have some dressing remaining to bake in a separate bowl.

     Next time I will share some of my suggestions for hot drinks.  These are non-alcoholic, but some you can make at home and one you can take with you so when you are eating out and everyone else has coffee or tea you can have something hot too.  See you next time and have a happy and safe holiday!