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While I've tried to lean towards a Paleo diet.  There are a few things I would honestly miss far too much too ever go fully Paleo.  Mainly cheese, cream, and potatoes.  I still have cream, cheese, and potatoes, just as a treat now.  I figure if that's my ideal of being bad I guess my diet isn't too bad :).  This au gratin recipe from Allen Dikker founder of the restaurant Potatopia in NYC has cream, cheese, and potatoes, so you know it's right up my alley. 

I've been following the Paleo diet (no grains or dairy) somewhat, but not strictly for the last year or so, which means rarely having any corn.  I didn't miss it for a long time, but all of a sudden the thought of corn sounded sooo..... good to me.
So when I when I needed a side to go with my Mexican lasagna casserole (one day I will post that recipe), I couldn't help but think that mexican street grilled corn would be so perfect, but corn is off season right now so finding corn on the cob is difficult especially is you want organic (so that it's not GMO).  So I thought hey what if I used frozen organic corn and made it into a salad.  Well when I had that thought there was no longer any doubt.  I had to try to create Mexican street corn salad.  Mexican street corn is basically corn on the cob topped with mayo, lime, chilli powder, salt, pepper, and cotija cheese.

If you haven't tried cauliflower mashed potatoes yet, I seriously suggest you give it a chance.  I tried it once like a couple years a go and thought it tasted weird and decided I still do not like cauliflower.  That's right I hate cauliflower.  Well until now that is.  I hope I can grow some this spring now!  I never have tried since I never liked it.  I don't remember what I did to make it before but clearly I have improved, because this is so good I don't know if I will ever have real mashed potatoes again.  And what's great about this recipe is it doesn't even use butter or cream.  Instead I used olive oil and it doesn't have any dairy.  If your like me and not a big fan of cauliflower or are afraid your kids or company might not like it start off with half cauliflower half potatoes.  

Every year I host Thanksgiving at our house.  I am already starting starting on preparing what I can freeze until Thanksgiving.  I've learned it's best to do as much ahead that you can, that way if it doesn't turn out no big deal, you can try again or just buy it pre-made.  Yesterday I started with Sweet Potato Biscuits.  I made Martha Stewart's last year and served them with a honey cinnamon compound butter spread.  And they turned out fabulous, the only problem was I made them too big (considering all the food everyone eats on Thanksgiving), so this year I made them smaller.  I doubled the recipe (why not make more since you can freeze them for later), and I altered the original recipe to have healthier fat, less carbs, no sugar., and I added cinnamon to help stabilize blood sugar.  They still turned out great.  I greatly reduced the grains in this recipe so it's lower gluten but not gluten free, if you have a guest for thanksgiving that is sensitive to gluten you could try using all coconut flour instead.  The only reason I didn't is I don't like to take a recipe to far from the original recipe the first time around. Also do not reduce the amount of fat in this recipe.  I have tried this ( I reduced to 9 tablespoons of fat) and it was a bit dry.  So I instead replaced half the fat with coconut oil, which is a very healthy fat that is baking stable.

These freeze great so don't be afraid to make to many!  I make these a week ahead for Thanksgiving and enjoy some fresh the day I bake it and freeze the rest.  I take it out the night before Thanksgiving to defrost and warm it up in the oven (for about 5 -10 min on warm) just before I serve everything.  They come out perfect like I just baked them!

image from Life's Ambrosia

A favorite at our Thanksgiving table every year is my cranberry cherry mint sauce recipe that I developed through experimentation.  My husband loves it he eats it all every year.  The mint tea and cherries is an expected twist without going to far from the basic cranberry sauce you would expect at Thanksgiving.

image from Martha Stewart

Every year that I have hosted Thanksgiving I have used this recipe adapted from Martha Stewart's Garlic Mashed Potato recipe. This year I plan too add some Asiago cheese to the recipe. This is inspired by the Asiago mashed potatoes at one of my favorite local restaurants. I have tried this before and it's super good. It would be good even without gravy.

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