Nov 23, 2010

Low fat pumpkin pie


Nothing’s more traditional than pumpkin pie for a Thanksgiving dessert, so I just had to include one in this series. For my more heart-healthy version, beaten egg whites make for a wonderfully light and fluffy filling, and almond milk stands in for the usual half & half or evaporated milk. The crust, adapted from this recipe, is made from whole wheat pastry flour, ground pecans and oats. I’ve had people tell me this is the best pumpkin pie they’ve ever eaten, and I have to agree.

Of course, pumpkin pie isn’t everyone’s favorite, so scroll down to see a few more of my recommended heart-healthy Thanksgiving dessert suggestions.

This is my last entry in the Healthy Thanksgiving Series. Now the holiday is upon us, so it’s time for me to cook all over again. I’m probably going to make totally different dishes than the ones I’ve posted here, because my husband and I have been eating all of this Thanksgiving food for weeks now. Oh, the sacrifices I make for you, dear readers!

Enjoy your holiday, and if you make any of my recipes, please report back. Happy cooking – and eating.

Fluffy Low Fat Pumpkin Pie

Crust:
3/4 cup pecan pieces, lightly toasted
3/4 cup oat flour (or finely grind 3/4 cup oats in a food processor)
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch salt
1/4 cup organic canola oil
3 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons skim milk

Filling:
1 can organic pumpkin
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon tapioca flour or cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
pinch ground cloves
1 egg yolk
1 cup unsweetened plain almond milk
2 egg whites

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine the pecans, flours, cinnamon and salt in a food processor and process until ground. In a medium bowl, whisk the oil and maple syrup. Add the skim milk but do not stir. Mix in the dry ingredients with a fork until combined. Press into a 9-inch pie pan (not deep dish), making sure the crust extends all the way to the top, even a bit beyond. Then crimp the edges with your fingers. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove to cool.

Combine the filling ingredients, except egg whites, in a bowl and whisk until smooth. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Gently fold the whites into the filling mixture, repeatedly folding until the egg whites are fully incorporated. Pour the filling into the partially-baked crust. Return to the oven and bake about 45 minutes, until the center is just set. The middle should still jiggle like jello, but should not slosh around like liquid.  Cool well before serving.

Other Thanksgiving dessert ideas for you:

Glazed Chocolate Pumpkin Bundt Cake

Pear Right Side Up Cake

And of course, my Apple Pie (to make it more seasonal, use an extra apple and substitute one cup of cranberries for the two cups of raspberries used here)

If you Google “Thankgiving vegetarian main dish,” you find a lot of recipes like squash stuffed with rice,  mushroom turnovers and pumpkin risotto. All delicious, but I tend to prefer dishes that include some protein so the vegetarians at the table don’t feel like they’re getting just another side dish. The vegetarian recipes below feature beans, tempeh or quinoa, so they all fit the bill.

As for the first two recipes, you might think lentil loaf sounds like a hippy-dippy dish from the ‘70s … and you’re right. But cook it in individual ramekins, as shown in the photo, and you suddenly have fancy lentil timbales. Pour on my gravy and your vegetarians will be happy as clams (or as kale, I should say.) The other vegetarian options here are delicious stews and casseroles with seasonal ingredients.

Having said all that, I do eat turkey on Thanksgiving – so I’m also including a great recipe here for turkey. Unlike most, the turkey isn’t slathered with butter, but rather a bit of heart-healthy oil and fresh herbs. Then it’s stuffed with shallots and apples and roasted. Crazy good.

Lentil Quinoa Loaf

Thanksgiving Meatless Loaf

Pumpkin, White Bean and Kale Ragout

Tempeh and Wild Mushroom Fricassee

Baked Pumpkin with Root Vegetable Stew (with chickpeas)

Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie (I’d substitute olive oil for the butter here)

Apple Shallot Roasted Turkey

Stuffing is another one of those Thanksgiving dishes that’s usually drowned in butter – but it doesn’t have to be. A good quality olive oil works very well. The trick is to make sure your other ingredients are packed with flavor.

I make a different stuffing almost every year, but they all seem to be variations on this one. With whole wheat bread instead of white, and heart-healthy olive oil instead of butter, this feels almost virtuous. Chestnuts give it a richness without adding an excess of fat – they are only low fat nut – while mushrooms provide a meaty texture and more depth of flavor.

If you want to try some of my other variations on this recipe, here are some suggestions:

-Substitute apples for the fennel
– Add chicken-apple sausage, crumbled and sauteed (I use Field Roast vegetarian smoked apple sage sausages)
– Throw in some chopped dried apricots or figs

Chestnut Mushroom Stuffing

1 large loaf whole wheat bread, cubed and dried (about 10 cups)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium-large yellow onions, diced
4 medium stalks celery, chopped
1 small fennel bulb, diced
1 pound mushrooms, sliced (mix of cremini, shiitake and oytster)
1 1/2 cups chestnuts (roasted from 1 lb. fresh, or use jarred chestnuts), crumbled
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
3 tablespoons fresh sage
¼ cup chopped flat leaf parsley
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 large eggs, lightly beaten (vegans, use a substitute such as ground flax seed mixed with water)
1½ to 2 cups vegetable broth (recommend Imagine brand No-Chicken Broth here)
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Heat the olive oil in a large pot. Add the onions, celery and fennel, and sauté for 10 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes more.  Turn off heat and add the bread, chestnuts, herbs, olive oil and eggs. Mix well, then add broth until the stuffing is quite moist but not overly soggy. Add salt and pepper if you’d like.

Place in an oiled casserole dish, cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake 10 minutes longer, until stuffing is crusty on top.

This is a simple but delicious twist on regular old mashed sweet potatoes. The small amount of bourbon gives them a kick, but the cinnamon and brown sugar will make these sweet ‘taters appealing to the more traditional types at your Thanksgiving table. They might not even realize they’re eating way less sugar and fat than usual!

Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Apples and Bourbon

3 ½ lbs. sweet potatoes (about four large)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 apples, peeled and diced
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon maple syrup
2 tablespoons bourbon (I think you can substitute rum for gluten-free)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place the sweet potatoes on a baking sheet and bake for an hour or until very tender when pierced with a fork. Let cool slightly then scoop out the insides and roughly mash in a large bowl.

Heat the olive oil in a large heavy skillet. Add the apples and cook over medium-low heat for 15 minutes, stirring frequently. If the apples don’t seem soft enough, add a tablespoon or two of water and cover for a minute. Add brown sugar and bourbon and cook for two minutes more. Stir in the maple syrup. Puree the apple mixture in a food processor, adding a teaspoon or two of water as necessary to achieve a puree. Stir into the sweet potatoes, add cinnamon, cayenne, salt and pepper, and mash well.

Serve immediately or reheat later in a covered baking dish, for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees. (If refrigerated, bring to room temperature before reheating.)

Serves 6-8

Here’s another outstanding recipe from Catie Schwalb, who’s an actual chef as opposed to a wannabe chef like me. Her recipes are so inspired and thoughtful, I’m thrilled to share them with you. I’m not sure whether I’d call this a stuffing, a dressing or simply a side dish, but whatever you call it, it’s sure to be delicious. The colors alone make me swoon! – C.

When putting together her heart-healthy Thanksgiving series this year, Cathy asked me to work on a recipe for “stuffing made without meat or butter”. Not an intuitive leap for this French Culinary Institute-trained, duck-fat-loving chef. In the spirit of Cathy’s own recipes, I certainly wanted to stay far away from bland and boring, and in a season heavily saturated with recipes, I wanted to try to find a combination that didn’t feel like a rehash of a menu we could each recite in our sleep.

I started musing on wild rice. Deeply flavored, elegant, and a little unexpected, it is also a really smart choice in the middle of a seemingly endless table of fatty simple carbohydrates. This nutty whole grain is not technically rice, but rather a seed from the aquatic grasses surrounding fresh water lakes in northern North America. It has twice the protein of brown rice, and almost eight times the protein of white, serving up 6.5 grams in one cooked cup, with 3 grams of fiber.

There is a rich mysterious aroma to the grains, reminiscent of tannins and black tea. I added tart dried cranberries and apricots, lightly pickled with white wine vinegar, which will offset the richness of turkey and gravy. This dish would also be wonderful for lunch the next day, as a cold rice salad with leftover pieces of turkey added, or made with chicken any time during the year.

Wild Rice Stuffing With Cranberry, Apricot, And Scallion
By Catie Schwalb, www.pitchforkdiaries.com

1 1/4 cups wild Rice, uncooked
2 1/2 cups stock, vegetable or poultry, or water
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup dried apricots
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar, plus more to taste
6 scallions, green and white parts, thinly sliced, about 3/4 cup loosely packed
2 large garlic cloves, slivered
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup pecans, toasted and roughly chopped
Salt, to taste

Combine wild rice and 2 1/4 cups of stock, or water, in a pot. Bring to a boil, reduce to a fast simmer, cover and cook for 45 minutes. Remove from heat, let stand for 10 minutes, and then fluff with a fork.
In a small bowl, combine cranberries, apricots, 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar, and 2 tablespoons warm water. Set aside for about 20 minutes.

Saute scallions and garlic with olive oil, gently, until just wilted, but not browned.

Drain cranberries and apricots. Thinly slice apricots.

Combine cooked wild rice, pecans, cranberries, apricots, and scallion and garlic mixture, including all of the infused olive oil in the pan you sauteed them in. Season with a generous pinch of salt. Taste. If needed, add more salt, a few drops of vinegar, or a little warm stock if it feels too dry.

Can be served cold, at room temperature, or warmed in an ovenproof dish tented with foil.

Serves 6. Can easily be doubled or tripled.

One of my favorite recipes for Thanksgiving has always been Brussels sprouts with maple-mustard sauce, from the now out-of-print Thanksgiving Dinner by Anthony Dias Blue. However, that recipe called for boiling the Brussels sprouts and marinating them in a lot of sauce.  This year I wanted to try roasting them and using the sauce as more of a glaze. The result?  Pure sprout perfection.

These Brussels sprouts are only a tad sweet, since the mustard and lemon juice balance out the maple syrup. In fact, the mustardyness (I know, that’s not a word, but I’m using it anyway) helps this dish cut through the sweetness and richness of the traditional holiday meal. Another thing I love about this dish is that it’s great served at room temperature, so you can cook it a few hours ahead and cut down on your Thanksgiving panic attacks! I’m not the only one who has those, right?

And if you’re a Brussels Sprout hater, scroll down for more healthy Thanksgiving vegetable ideas.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Maple-Mustard Glaze

2 pounds Brussels sprouts, trimmed

1½ tablespoons lemon juice

1 ½ tablespoons Dijon mustard (use a gluten free mustard if you prefer)

1½ tablespoons coarse-ground mustard (use a gluten free mustard if you prefer)

1½ tablespoons maple syrup

3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste.

Heat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a large bowl, whisk the lemon juice, mustards and maple syrup, and add salt and pepper to taste. Gradually whisk in the olive oil.  Add the Brussels sprouts and stir to coat.

Remove with a spoon and place on a large baking sheet, reserving extra sauce from the bottom of the bowl.  Roast until very dark and just tender, about 40 minutes. Toss with remaining sauce and serve hot or at room temperature.

Serves 6

Other Cathy-approved Thanksgiving vegetable recipes you might want to try:

Healthy Green Bean Casserole with Pumpkin Seed Crumble. A lighter take on the traditional green bean casserole (except I’d substitute lowfat milk here)

Spinach with lemon and currants from Sunset magazine. Interesting in that it includes minced lemons – I’ve never seen that before.

Roasted Root Vegetables with Chestnuts and Quince. I was surprised to see this in Redbook magazine, of all places. The combination of beets, quince, chestnuts and other vegetables is unusual and intriguing.