Boy-Friendly Thanksgiving Recipes from Gender Dreaming!!

[atomic sagebrush]

Before we get to the recipes, first a word from our "sponsor!"

If you haven't done so already, I'd like to urge everyone to buy a Dream Membership to Gender Dreaming. It's $12 for a full YEAR, a dollar a month, (not $12 a month like some people have thought.) This money goes to support the site, helps keep atomic unemployed so she can help swayers as a full time job, and keep things up and running for everyone. The site owner has a lot of expenses affiliated with keeping the site functional, and I for one really appreciate having a site that WORKS.

Basically, it's not really about what you "get", it's about supporting the site. But here's what you get anyway. Dream Members have access to private forums so you can post about personal issues privately. Trolls and spammers will be banned IMMEDIATELY rather than allowed to run amok for days like on some other sites. We have a few paid-for studies that you can check out (including the Dutch study and the Oxford study) and hopefully more of these to come in the future. The complete French Gender Diet and the complete IG FAQ for the benefit of IG-style swayers, because no one can get onto IG any more (and if they don't like it, they can fix their site LOL).

And if in the future you do decide to go HT, there are extensive private forums for HT and also perks involved with some doctors offering discounts to Dream Members.

I will always post basic swaying information to be free for everyone, but I am currently working on 3 cookbooks, the Low Everything Diet for pink, the High Everything Diet for blue, and an In-Betweener Diet for pink swayers who don't need to/want to cut back too much, and blue swayers who are vegetarian. These will be 200-300 pages long with hundreds of recipes, and are designed to be healthy, delicious, gourmet diets that you can stay on indefinitely, rather than exercises in slow torture that will endanger your health. Dream Members have access to my complete diets and I will post the recipes in the DM section as I go the cookbooks are completed.

Anyway, on to the recipes!!!

[atomic sagebrush]

Thanksgiving is already a boy-friendly holiday to begin with, but here are some extra-meaty, dairy-free recipes just because! You’ll be eating boy-friendly leftovers for DAYS and will not have to worry about mixing proteins and carbs!! Traditionally, some of the boy diet suggestions have been a little low-brow (canned soups, ramen, hot dogs, etc) so these are more on the gourmet side for everyone who is sick to death of hamburger meat.

You’ll still need your MIL to bring rolls, turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, and pie (try to get her to bring pumpkin and pecan - totally boy friendly!!) You'll also want to add some sparkling cider and maybe even some Silk Brand Soy Eggnog or other holiday flavors http://silksoymilk.com/products/seasonal While I don't encourage soy milk as an everyday food for TTC blue, once in a while will not hurt anything. The Mint Chocolate flavor is actually sweetened with stevia!! REAL eggnog is also great, for those who are including dairy.

Be sure that when you fill your plate, you select dark meat! It’s much higher in those saturated fats and cholesterol than the white meat is and those are the building blocks of testosterone and estrogen.

--White Bean Crostini

For the spread:
3 oz. diced bacon
½ c diced red onion
1 19 oz can canellini beans, drained and mashed (note - the salad below ALSO has canellini beans, so if you can find a larger can, buy it and you can kill two birds with one ginormous can of beans.)
2 cloves garlic
¼ c white wine

For the crostini:
1 baguette, sliced into 24ths
3 T olive oil
2 cloves garlic, halved

For the topping, any, none, or all of the below.
Fresh herbs of your liking, minced (see note on fennel in the salad below)
½ c minced roasted red peppers
½ c chopped black and/or green olives
Leftover cooked bacon from making the bean spread

For the spread, cook bacon until it’s crispy. Using a slotted spoon (metal if you have it, because the grease may melt plastic…if you only have a plastic spoon, be sure to wait until it’s cooled slightly), remove bacon to a plate covered by a couple layers of paper towels. Cook onion in the bacon grease until it’s soft, then add beans and garlic and cook another minute or two, till heated through. Add wine and simmer for 8-10 minutes, then put into a heat-safe bowl and mash (you can make it very smooth or leave it chunky.) Stir in some or all of the cooked bacon (you can reserve some to sprinkle on top if you want.)

For crostini, brush baguette slices with the olive oil and rub them with the garlic half (as the half disintegrates, switch to a new half). Lightly toast on griddle or in a frying pan until lightly toasted and set aside to cool slightly.

To serve, spread the bean mixture onto the crostini and sprinkle with your desired topping(s).

--Sweet Onion and Orange Salad

One large bag/box of baby spinach (the 2 pounder)
1 c canellini beans
1 c slivered almonds
1 orange, peeled and segmented
2 sweet onions
Optional - If you like it, 1 bulb fennel, halved, sliced, with the stem and stalk removed (you can use the ferny bits to sprinkle on top of your white bean crostini above but make sure you LIKE the taste of fennel!!!)

Toss the above ingredients (except almonds) into a large salad bowl. Dress with vinagrette below and toss again to distribute dressing throughout. Top with almonds and serve without retossing.

Orange Vinaigrette:

½ c orange juice (fresh if you can)
1 T ACV
1 t Dijon mustard
3 T olive oil
Zest of one orange (fresh if you can)
Sea salt and pepper to taste
Sugar to taste if desired (the original recipe I adapted this from, does not call for sugar, but I personally prefer sweeter dressings on spinach)

Combine all ingredients and whisk to blend. Using a leaf of spinach, dip it into the vinaigrette and taste to see if you like the flavor or if it needs salt, sugar, or pepper. Season to taste.

--Proscuitto-Wrapped Asparagus

4 oz thinly sliced proscuitto (this is a kind of Italian ham and you can get it in most grocery-store delis)
1-2 bunch(es) of asparagus (you want 16 nice big spears, and you may have to buy more than one bunch)
Sea salt and black pepper

Prepare asparagus by quickly rinsing and patting spears dry, and snapping off the thick end piece. Roll spears in prosciutto slices, tapering it slightly so the prosciutto is a little bit diagonal and rolls most of the way up the spear (you want a thin layer of proscuitto with just the tip of the asparagus showing, rather than a thick wad around just the middle of the asparagus)

To cook, you can either grill for 4-6 minutes (until asparagus is tender and prosciutto is crisped) and then arrange in a dish to serve, or arrange in a serving dish in a single layer and bake at 425 (prosciutto will not get as crispy.)

Orange Aioli Sauce

1 cup mayonnaise
½ c orange juice (fresh is best)
Zest of one orange (fresh is best)
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ t cayenne and/or ½ t black pepper, if desired.

Combine all ingredients and pour over cooked asparagus.

--Dairy-Free Garlic Mashed Potatoes

2 lbs potatoes, cut into 1-in chunks (do not peel - extra nutrients in the peel! You will want to pay a little extra for high quality potatoes and cut off any cuts or bruises though.)
5 cloves garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped
¾ cup chicken broth
2 T olive oil
1 t sea salt
Black pepper to taste

Place potatoes and garlic in a steamer basket fitted over a large pot of boiling water. Cover and steam until the potatoes are knife-tender, 12 to 15 minutes. Or, you can toss them into a pot and boil them, but drain them well. Warm chicken broth on the stove in a pan that is big enough to contain the potatoes as well. Transfer the drained, still hot potatoes and garlic to the pot, add oil, salt, pepper, and mash until smooth.

Calories 170; Total Fat 4 g; (Sat Fat 0.5 g, Mono Fat 2.5 g, Poly Fat 0.5 g) ; Protein 4 g; Carb 31 g; Fiber 3 g; Cholesterol 0 mg; Sodium 310 mg

--Oatmeal-Cookie Sweet Potatoes

The oats may help raise testosterone, but if you want this to be even more boy-friendly, you can add pecans to the topping.

7 large sweet potatoes (about 5 pounds - don‘t use yams for this recipe)
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter, softened
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup orange marmalade
2 teaspoons sea salt

Topping:

3 cups crisp oatmeal cookies
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) cold butter
Chopped pecans if desired

Prick potatoes and bake at 375 until very soft, about 1 1/2 hours, OR bake in the microwave (this may actually take quite a while due to the number of sweet potatoes you’ll need - you‘ll probably have to do 2-3 batches - so it may just be easier to bake them in the oven anyway.) Cool potatoes till you can handle them and peel off the skin, dumping potato flesh into a large bowl and mash with other ingredients. Spread mixture evenly in baking dish. (This can be made a day ahead and kept in fridge until ready to finish, but bring to room temperature before proceeding.)

For topping, in a food processor grind cookies fine, or have kiddos just crumble them as much as they can.. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles soft cookie dough or use a pastry cutter to cut in the cold butter, till it looks like the topping for fruit crisp. Stir in pecans if you want to. You can make the topping ahead as well, but don’t combine the two until ready to bake. Crumble topping over potato mixture and bake at 375 until topping is browned, about 25 minutes.

--Indiana Green Beans and Bacon

This is my grandma’s recipe and you will never willingly eat canned green beans again.

One pack of thick-cut pepper bacon, diced (8-12 slices, or more, you can never have enough bacon. It‘s easier to dice if you freeze it slightly first)
2 pounds fresh green beans, trimmed and cut in 1-inch pieces (they are selling these prepackaged in the store now and it’s a great time-saver.)
One big sweet onion, chopped (don’t skimp on the onion)
2 t salt, minimum, and you may want to add more (these things NEED salt)
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

In a large pot with room for the green beans and onion, fry bacon until it just starts to get crispy. Add onion and cook until just soft. Add beans and about 1 inch of water (and you may need to add more as they cook, although the beans will release some water as well and you don’t want too much water because it dilutes the taste). Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for what feels like a lifetime, or until desired doneness is reached. If you like crunchy rabbit-food green beans, this will be about 15 minutes, but to REALLY make em Indiana-style, you will want to cook them for 45 minutes, until they’re practically mush and the onion has pretty much disappeared.

--Sausage Stuffing

1 pound bulk sausage (you can use Italian sausage for a different taste, or just breakfast sausage is fine. You want the kind that is NOT in link form.)
2 tablespoons butter
1 large red onion, finely diced
6 stalks celery, finely diced
1 large carrot, minced
5 cloves garlic, minced
6 fresh sage leaves, chopped
1 large egg, slightly beaten
4 cups stale bread, cut into 1-inch dice (you can make this yourself in which case you might want to use really good quality bread, or you can just buy the prepackaged bread ****s from your grocery store bakery.
1 1/2 to 2 cups warm chicken stock
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Cook sausage until brown, breaking it up into small pieces. Remove the sausage with a slotted spoon (you want to keep as much of that tasty fat in there as possible!!). Add butter to pan and cook onion, celery, and carrot until soft. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Remove the mixture from the heat and stir in sage. When mixture has cooled slightly, add sausage. Then add egg and bread and mix to coat. When well combined, add chicken broth a bit at a time, stirring until the bread is fully moistened (if you just dump in in there all at once, some of it gets soggy and some of it stays too dry). Season with salt and pepper, to taste (I know this is the boy-diet, but with sausage stuffing, it doesn’t NEED a terrible amount of salt, so taste as you go.) Bake in a large, greased baking dish or pan, at 375, for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden.

--Lemon Gingerbread Bars (from the Jelly Belly people)

I originally got this recipe from the Jelly Belly company and they decorated the tops with Jelly Belly jelly beans, which I thought sounded kinda gross and I never actually tried it. We did like the bars though. So if you’re so inclined, you can try topping these with JBs in Thanksgiving colors, candy corns, or simply a dusting of confectioners sugar.

For Gingerbread layer:

1/3 cup molasses
¼ c brown sugar
2 T butter
3 T cold water
1 ¾ c flour
½ t baking soda
1 ¼ T pumpkin pie spice
¼ t salt

For lemon layer:

1 c sugar
1 T lemon zest (try to get fresh)
3 T lemon juice (fresh is best)
¼ t baking powder
¼ t salt
3 large eggs
Confectioner’s sugar
Jelly Belly jelly beans, candy corn, lemon zest if desired

To prepare gingerbread, cream molasses, butter, and brown sugar. Add cold water. Then mix in flour, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice and salt. Press into the bottom of a greased 13-9 pan and bake for 10 minutes at 350 while you make the filling.

For filling, beat sugar, lemon juice and peel, baking powder, salt, and eggs together until well mixed, about a minute. Remove crust from oven and pour filling into the hot crust. Bake for an additional 20-25 minutes until set.

Let cool and sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar. You can serve them as is or decorate the tops with jelly beans, candy corn, a curl of lemon zest, or whatever you’re in the mood for.

[atomic sagebrush]

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