Here at Gluten-Free Portland dot Org our slogan is: “Take back the holidays!” What with wheat bread in the stuffing, wheat flour in the gravy, wheat in the pie crust and wheat everywhere else wheat goes in your typical holiday meal, we all need some help, especially if you have celiac disease. Here are some suggestions for good gluten free holiday recipes.

Coincidentally, these are great for a diet AND are gluten free.

We discovered these recipes on the TV show, The Biggest Loser. Should I say here that I am in no way affiliated with The Biggest Loser or NBC? I am not. Let’s also make it clear that these are Rocco’s recipes, not my own. We had links up to these recipes but NBC has since taken them down – sorry. Good thing we still have the Sweet Potato Pie recipe here.

Because they made the instructions confusing and also put the “unhealthy” versions on top of the “healthy” versions, I’m going to put my own revised Sweet Potato Pie recipe and directions here. Besides the cutting of the sweet potatoes, this would be a great recipe for kids. It only takes about five minutes of prep time. If you don’t have mace, you can substitute nutmeg in a pinch. And since we are not competing with the Blue Team to lose pounds fast, we used evaporated cane sugar instead of sugar substitute. So without further ado, here is the recipe, which says it feeds 4 to 6:

Fortunately for us, they suspect nothing.

SWEET POTATO PIE A LA BIGGEST LOSER

1 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes (about 6 small)
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tsp sugar substitute (or what-have-you)
2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp mace
1/8 tsp cardamom
1/8 tsp nutmeg

DIRECTIONS

1. Either use a non-stick cookie pan or lightly grease a regular one.

2. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

3. Clean potatoes and let dry thoroughly. Dice them up into approximately 3/4 inch pieces.

4. In a small container, mix up the spices and sugar.

5. Put the diced up sweet potato in a large tupperware with a lid. Add the olive oil to the potatoes, and then with the lid on, shake the container to coat the potatoes with oil.

6. Open the container and add the spice mixture. Then close again and shake until all the sweet potatoes are coated.

7. Transfer to sheet and bake until potatoes are crisp outside and soft inside. Approximately 30 minutes. Turn once about 15 minutes in.

While they do not have a nice flaky crust, a person can close their eyes and imagine. Did we mention that these are awesome with apple sauce? They are!