Gluten-free Thanksgiving

[Ilaine]

My first gluten free Thanksgiving. Two questions are stumping me.

First, corn-bread dressing. Cornbread without wheat flour is no problem, but seems like it would be heavy for dressing, needs something to make it lighter. I was thinking maybe some wild rice?

Second, gravy. How to make a roux without wheat flour?

Any suggestions?

[Pat]

My first gluten free Thanksgiving. Two questions are stumping me.

First, corn-bread dressing. Cornbread without wheat flour is no problem, but seems like it would be heavy for dressing, needs something to make it lighter. I was thinking maybe some wild rice?

Second, gravy. How to make a roux without wheat flour?

Any suggestions?

I'm not sure about the cornbread, but what about a nut flour for the roux. Almond flour?

[zoramargolis]

Second, gravy. How to make a roux without wheat flour?

Any suggestions?

Cornstarch, potato starch or rice flour. You need some kind of a starch.

[Pat]

Cornstarch, potato starch or rice flour. You need some kind of a starch.

My mother always used cornstarch to make gravy, never flour.

On second thought, the ground nuts would probably clump up. Not such a good suggesion .

Arrowroot should also work, I would think.

[AlliK]

Have you looked at Gluten Free Girl? She's got a post about what she's doing for Thanksgiving and I believe it included a gravy recipe using rice flour.

[Ilaine]

Have you looked at Gluten Free Girl? She's got a post about what she's doing for Thanksgiving and I believe it included a gravy recipe using rice flour.

Sweet rice flour, which is not the same as rice flour. Sweet rice is glutinous. I will give it a try and report back. We were thinking arrowroot, but I like the idea of cooking the flour in the pan, it reminds me of roux.

I read a comment on the Internets that garbanzo bean flour makes a good roux but just can't bring myself to try it based on one comment.

Not that we have garbanzo bean flour, potato flour, or sorgum flour, yet, but we do have white rice flour and sweet rice flour that we bought for Asian recipes.

There is something vaguely creepy about using weird ingredients to make ersatz food that vaguely resembles foods you can't eat anymore, in my opinion.

If I can't eat wheat, I don't want to eat fake wheat, I want to embrace the highest and best of the things that I can eat, rice, corn, etc.

Adaptation is something different than ersatz, adaptation is good, ersatz is not good. There are probably grey areas.

But Gluten Free Girl is cool. If she likes something, I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

[Ilaine]

My first gluten free Thanksgiving. Two questions are stumping me.

First, corn-bread dressing. Cornbread without wheat flour is no problem, but seems like it would be heavy for dressing, needs something to make it lighter. I was thinking maybe some wild rice?

So, wound up making Edna Lewis's cornbread and then her cornbread dressing, straight from "The Gift of Southern Cooking."

I won't copy the recipes here because I want you to buy the book, it's a keeper.

No gluten, no phony-baloney fake flour, either. Just cornbread made from cornmeal, and cornbread dressing made from cornbread made from cornmeal just as God intended.

The solution to the gravy problem is to skip gravy, and just use jus.

There was an elegant sufficiency and more.