Thankful for blessings & pecan pie

Even though my life hasn't turned out exactly how I wanted, even though my husband is on dialysis, even though we live paycheck to paycheck, even though I have lived with excrutiating pain the last several years, there is so much to be thankful for. I am thankful that my husband is alive. February 2010 it looked he might not make it. Dialysis is hard on us all & leaves us with very little free time, but God has been with us every step of the way. I am thankful that Kevin, Cole, Grant & myself all have good jobs with good employers & great co-workers. I am thankful that God is healing my body by showing me what to eat & what not to eat & helping me figure out how to cook so that I won't be in so much pain.

Knowing that Thanksgiving was coming up, the last few weeks I have been researching & trying to figure out how to fix some of my favorite holiday dishes without sugar, white flour or corn syrup. Sunday we had our church dinner and I made an organic whole grain apple cake with sugar free cream cheese frosting. I thought it was delicious, but apparently nobody at church wanted to eat a healthy cake. I took the leftovers to work the next day & my co-workers & I ate it with our morning coffee. They all loved it & one of the men came & told me how good it was & was shocked when I told him how healthy it was.

For our family Thanksgiving at the Newtons I always make a 6 quart crockpot of broccoli & rice casserole along with sweet potatoes covered in brown sugar & marshmallows (just the way Kevin loves them) and some desserts. The broccoli & rice I usually make has a block of Velveeta, cream of mushroom & cream of chicken soups & white rice. Not too healthy. So this year, I used brown rice, Amy's Organic Cream of Mushroom Soup & made a cheese sauce with butter, 1% milk & cheddar cheese. It was really good. Cole said he actually likes it better than the one I have always made.

I have recently figured out that corn syrup is another pain & inflammation trigger for me after eating what I thought was honey at a restaurant only to find out later when I was hurting so bad that is was corn syrup with honey. Real honey doesn't bother me at all. So I decided to try to make a pecan pie with no white flour, no sugar & no corn syrup. And I did! It was sooooo good!

SUGAR FREE, WHITE FLOUR FREE, CORN SYRUP FREE PECAN PIE

Crust: 1 cup Organic Pastry Flour

1 stick of butter

3 tbsp of cold water

Mix together until forms a dough. Roll out with rolling pin & place in pie pan.

Filling: 1 cup Splenda brown sugar

1/2 cup Splenda, Ideal or Truvia

2 large eggs

1 stick butter, melted

2 tsps vanilla

2 tbsp milk

1 tbsp Organic Pastry Flour

1 cup chopped pecans

1 cup pecan halves

Preheat oven to 325. Beat sugars with the eggs until creamy. Add melted butter, vanilla, milk, flour & chopped pecans. Pour mixture into pie shell. Arrange pecan halves on top. Bake for 55 minutes.

I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving.

Lori