Merry Thanksgiving

 


Oh, who am I kidding?  It was a bittersweet Thanksgiving.  But still, we made it as merry as we could, and there were many moments of joy in between the family spat and the intermittent self-critical thought of “doing too much” and trying to make it all perfect.  Whew!  But we made it through and it really was lovely.

This was our fifth Thanksgiving eating keto and as usual, our plates were full.  Turkey, keto dressing, caulimash, green beans, broccoli, Rachel brought her deviled eggs, my dear friend Cathy brought the pickles for us, biscuits, some salad with homemade ranch dressing.   It was a lot of cooking, a lot of food and the fridge is now stuffed with leftovers!

This was my first attempt at making keto dressing.  The dressing was always important at our house as I was growing up.  And Mark’s mom still makes her dressing every year.  I’m so in awe of her.  She’s 82 years old, she lives alone, but she cooks beautiful meals for herself everyday.  That’s an amazing self-care practice.

 

Anyway, this year I made the effort to make a keto version of cornbread dressing, which turned out really good.  It was a little dry, I should have pulled it out of the heat earlier.  But with a ladle of keto gravy and the keto cranberry sauce, it was good.  My grandmother might have laughed at my first dressing attempt.  She was the person who would just say, oh let me do it. And then she would wash the dishes too. But she would be happy for us with our weight loss.  She battled her weight off and on over her life, both weighing too much and sometimes getting way too thin.  She visits with me quite often.  I ask her what she thinks about things in this big old world and I can just hear her laugh and shake her head.



 

 


Pecan pie, brownies, cranberry muffins, and not pictured, a cheesecake.  Like I said, way too much food!  But now we have another Thanksgiving memory.  Our local loved ones were here with us, and in this time of the virus many families were not able to be.  I am so thankful for our family, for the keto food on our table, for another memory.

I share this here in hopes that it’s inspiring to you, that it gives you ideas for cooking for your family, that it helps us think of keto as a blessing and not at all restrictive.  Yes, certain foods were not there, but there was so much there to enjoy in better health all together.  I hope your Thanksgiving was that kind of merry too.

 

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