I can’t believe that 18 years ago, I was spending Thanksgiving week having a baby and then being so engorged with breastmilk that I could hardly sit up for a proper Thanksgiving Dinner! My daughter “Virtue” was born 18 years ago the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It was my first natural birth, a Bradley birth. Let’s just say I got a new respect for the forces of nature after birthing her. Whew! I am so happy she came into my life. She has been easy to raise and so helpful and cheerful and wonderful. I can hardly believe that 18 years of childhood have gone and she is now going to fly the nest and go to college in January. She fixed low carb ice cream for me on my birthday this year and then four days later I fixed some non-white sugar-free ice cream for her.

This year it is certainly different. I am not postpartum or engorged, and the baby is grown up and is helpful! She has volunteered to fix my delegated portion of the Thanksgiving Dinner: a salad and mashed potatoes. I am also going to ask her to fix cauliflower faux mashed “potatoes” for me.Click here for the recipe we are going to try!

Here is a promising recipe for the best turkey ever! Maybe I can convince my mom to do it this way. The chef in the video has cooked a turkey for 25 years. He says the secret is brining.

Now, what about the pie? Keep scrolling down…

Go here for last year’s recipes. Yum! The one pictured above is grain-free because it has no crust! That makes it easy! No searching for an alternative crust, just go without. I will use that trick again this year!