A "Swing and a Miss" Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is either amazing or awful. For those of us lucky enough to experience the absolute best and worst of our loved ones on this holiday instead of sitting at home and eating a TV dinner (alone); this holiday falls into one of two categories “hit” or “miss”.

Either (a) the following morning you wake up thinking about all the great moments you shared with your friends and family or (b) you wake up remembering how your parent’s bird sprung out of the it’s cage and flew directly into the mash potatoes and/or how your dog decided that it would be a brilliant idea to use the marble floor and Persian rugs at your parent’s house as his personal bathroom.

If your Thanksgiving leaned more towards the (b) scenario, the recovery time for another Thanksgiving gone a rye is between two days and a week.

The start to the recovery process is the feeling of complete and utter guilt particularly if you have the fortune of a great family and really sweet, wonderful parents. You also start evaluating at exactly what point the holiday started going downhill. For me, I didn’t have to look further than my dog, Brando, who has been a dog of model behavior since returning back to my Venice apartment from the Thanksgiving holiday. It’s almost as if Brando decided, “Let’s just see how bad I can misbehave before everyone completely flips out.” Mission accomplished, Brando.

While my Thanksgiving was in the (b) category this year, there were some things that went right, and I’ll start with my favorite of the positives, dessert.

Gluten Free Apple Pie

Ingredients:

For the pie shell:

A frozen gluten free pie shell from Whole Foods

Filling:

6 cups of thinly sliced apples (Macintosh apples are good)

¾ cup sugar

¼ tsp. ground cinnamon

¼ tsp. salt

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Topping

4 tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons rice flour

½ tsp. ground cinnamon

Preparation

Pie Shell – Remove from freezer and set aside.

Filling – In a large bowl combine all ingredients and spoon into the pie shell.

Topping – In a small bowl, cut butter into small pieces and combine together with the flour and cinnamon until you have crumbs then spread those crumbs evenly over filling.

To Cook:

Place pie in a pre-heated 450-degree oven and bake until you see liquid bubbles appearing at the edge of the shell. Then remove from oven and set on a wire cookie sheet and cool.

Serve with ice cream and / or whipped cream.