Thanksgiving Dinner Italian Style

Normally we'd have Tofurkey for Thanksgiving dinner. There's also an awesome vegan pot pie we make on special occasions, but as gluten and soy are off our consumable's list we started a new tradition. A few tweaks from an old recipe turned out better than expected. The Classico sauce costs a bit more, but doesn't contain any soy oil.

1 lb corkscrew rice pasta

1 1/2 lbs baby portabello mushrooms, sliced

1 jar Classico Fire-Roasted Tomato & Garlic Sauce

1/2 c nutritional yeast

1/2 c cornstarch

2T brown rice flour

2t garlic powder

1t salt

2c water

1/2 grapeseed or olive oil

1t yellow mustard

Saute the mushrooms in a vegetable oil of your choice. (I used grapeseed oil.)

Cook the pasta according to package directions. While the pasta is cooking, combine the nutritional yeast, cornstarch, brown rice flour, garlic powder and salt. Put in a heavy sauce pot on medium heat. Stir the mixture over medium heat for about 4 minutes (if you don't stir the mix will taste burnt instead of nutty). Add the oil and keep stirring until combined. Then add the water and don't stop stirring! Squeeze the mustard into the sauce as you continue to stir for another 4 minutes, or until sauce thickens. Remove the sauce from the heat.

Combine the sauce, pasta, mushrooms and tomato sauce in a large bowl. Pour into a greased 9x13 pan. Sprinkle to taste with nutritional yeast and bake at 375F for 35 minutes. Let sit 10 minutes before serving.

Tummy Troubles

My daughter's been having what we refer to as "tummy troubles" for some time now. We've tried eliminating various foods with little success. We've supplemented her diet with acidophilus powder from our naturopath, even cut off eating by a certain time each night to avoid the common bedtime refrain, 'my tummy hurts.' This past summer, however, the tummy troubles culminated into fits of bloating, stomach pain and tears. We shelled out several hundred dollars to have her blood work sent to the US for testing and have just recently been given the results. We figured wheat was a problem, but we never anticipated the long list of foods to which she was highly sensitive. No more soy, gluten, eggs, dairy... not even lentils or navy beans for our little Stellbell. This on top of eating neither fish nor fowl (nor beef). What follows is my (somewhat daunting) adventure in soyless, wheatless, vegan cooking and baking. Here goes 'nothin!