Kayla created this really great gluten free pumpkin bread recipe a few years back.  We can’t quite remember how she did it, but possibly from a combination of other recipes we’d seen and used before. It’s a good one, and I pulled it out on Sunday to make a dessert for a church youth lunch at our house. We ended up having an all-girl gathering, and most of them seemed to enjoy the treat.

Here’s the recipe again. You can also find it here ~ with a few really cute photos of Kayla and her friends enjoying the fall season.

3 cups GF flour blend {rice, tapioca, potato – or a mix that includes xanthan gum)
4 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp xanthan gum {omit if your GF mix already has it}
4 eggs
1/2 cup orange juice*
1 cup granulated sugar*
1 cup brown sugar*
1 cup canola oil*
1 can pumpkin puree {15oz can}
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips {These are optional in some homes, but not mine.}

Whisk together dry ingredients: flour, spices, salt, soda, and xanthan gum.  In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, oil, orange juice, sugar, and pumpkin.  Stir until thoroughly combined.  Add pumpkin mixture to dry ingredients and blend by hand or electric mixer until smooth.  Fold in chocolate chips. Pour batter into two 9×5 inch pans and bake for 1 hour, or four small loaf {5×3} pans and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Test with a toothpick or fork before removing from oven.

*I substituted the orange juice for apple cider and the canola oil for coconut oil on Sunday, because I happened to have those on hand and not the original ingredients. It still worked fine. Oh, and I also used only 3/4 a cup of each sugar, because sugar is not good for you, of course.  You might even be able to get away with a 1/2 cup of each, since there is sugar in the chocolate chips.

I meant to take some photos of the finished product, and even sliced a loaf yesterday for your viewing pleasure, but all of the slices were gobbled up (and not by me!)by the time I got around to a photo.

Thanksgiving is always a 3-4 day affair around here. It got started this morning with me pulling out all of my favorite cookbooks and deciding on the menu. Nothing really changes that much from year to year, but I’m trying a few new vegetable dishes this year:

Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Bacon Jam

and

Green Bean Casserole with Crispy Shallots

Both are from Danielle Walker’s newest cookbook, Celebrations. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but I adore Danielle Walker. Not only because she has such incredible gluten, grain, and dairy free recipes, but because she is also a lovely person, wife, and mother. Follow her on Instagram, and be well-fed, encouraged, and inspired. Here’s the link to her website: Against All Grain.

It took about three hours, but I went to three grocery stores ~ Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and Big Y, which is a local, western Massachusetts store. I might have made a stop at Starbucks somewhere along the way, because I needed a motivating treat halfway through.

I love Big Y for many reasons. It is literally located on the corner of the street I live on, and I can walk there in about five minutes if I need to. The staff is so friendly, and during the holidays, they mark all of the traditional food way down in price.

The sweet potatoes are marked down about $1.20, and the Russets are buy-one-get-two-free!  Perfect.

Not only that, but in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, they give out Turkey coupons. I always buy two turkeys, because we typically have 20-25 guests, and I prefer cooking two medium sized turkeys to one gigantic one. Today, one of my turkeys had a severe leak and left a puddle on the conveyor belt and in the bagging area. I had no idea, and only hope that I wasn’t leaving a trail of turkey juice and salmonella all over the store. The woman bagging my groceries was pretty rattled by it, and by the fact that I got TWO turkeys.

“Why???” she kept asking me? “What if some people don’t come??? What will you do with all of that turkey???”

If only she knew that has NEVER been an issue here.

Big Y was my last stop, but I often go there first so that I can savor the Whole Foods experience on the final leg of my shopping journey. I can usually only buy a handful of items at Whole Foods, but something abut being in the store just makes me happy. Today’s Whole Foods treasure was figs – and some hazelnuts and fancy cheeses. I wasn’t expecting much, because figs in these parts leave a lot to be desired – especially after a recent trip to Turkey(!!!) – but these were very pretty…and pretty decent. They’ll get roasted in the oven along with some red grapes, green apples, and hazelnuts and placed on top of a big bed of arugula and baby romaine for an autumn-style salad – also from Celebrations. Can’t wait to try it.

Cooper is on his way home from college as I type, and even though I’ve spent my day focused on food for Thursday, he’ll probably want some dinner when he arrives. (Kayla and Robert seem to want dinner every night, too.) So, while I put all of the groceries away, I threw some chicken breasts in the oven and some veggies on a cookie sheet.

It will all get combined to make Danielle’s Roasted Chicken and Vegetable Soup from her Meals Made Simple cookbook when I get home from a coffee date (more Starbucks!) a bit later.

Tomorrow, I’ll be in the kitchen all day making pie crusts and pie fillings and mashed potatoes and praline sweet potatoes. I’m hoping I can rope Kayla into helping me with a few of those things. Robert will be on clean-the-bathrooms and iron-the-tablecloths-and-napkins duty. Cooper will probably put himself on watch-ESPN duty, but we’ll get him to do some chores, too. And we’ll miss Kory, who is spending the holiday in Texas at the home of his girlfriend, Rebecca. (Hi guys!)

If I can get a jump-start on the food prep, I’m hoping to be back here tomorrow in order to share a couple of things I’m really thankful for lately in the area of health and healing and God’s hand being so visible in all of it.

Happy Thanksgiving Week to you!