Grain-Free Cranberry Sage Dressing

by Valerie on November 25, 2011 · 20 comments

Grain-Free Cranberry Sage Dressing 010

Happy Thanksgiving!

First, I am so grateful for you reading, year after year. This blog has grown a lot from a friends and family blog in 2007 to what it is today. So thank you!

I am also grateful for family, friends, good food, and good health. I went to the gym this morning and was grateful for just that – a couple of years ago that was something I was not inclined to do.

Now I know many of you are probably wondering why I am posting a bready dressing recipe on Thanksgiving evening. I could just wait until Thanksgiving next year, but that’s a while away to share.  Not to mention, you might be having a second Thanksgiving this weekend, or like to have Thanksgiving food on days other than Thanksgiving or, like me, associate stuffing/dressing with Christmas. 

Thanksgiving 2011 013

Also, this dressing may be a new tradition for me, and I want to talk about traditions a bit tonight.  Holiday traditions are still something my husband and I are working on, though considering this is our seventh holiday season together, there are definitely some returning favorites: some form of ice cream (like pumpkin ice cream and strawberry ice cream last year), root vegetables and homemade cranberry sauce. We discovered Kim’s Apple Cranberry Sauce last year, and it is safe to say it will be a returning favorite.  We made three batches last year that were gone within days. And we made two batches last night (one with maple syrup and one with stevia, his and hers style) and both batches are 2/3 gone already.  We put it on everything today.  It was good on top of my “cheese” appetizer (Kim’s Cashew Pumpkin Seed Cheese – see above), with dinner itself, and on top of dessert, which were quick mini vegan pumpkin cheesecakes.  Very mini, as all I had to mold them were silicon muffin cups, but they worked out well. 

So, slowly but surely we are finding new favorites, since the first set of favorites was disrupted by my switching to gluten-free and changing my diet completely.  We navigated the first two years after the switch by having grain-free Thanksgivings, but this year I decided to tackle stuffing/dressing and gravy. I know, I know – both are easy to make gluten-free but, you see, I am the one who likes stuffing/dressing and gravy, so the last two years I was more focused on finding whole menus that worked for both of us.  We are getting to the point where we have repeats we look forward to – steamed peas, Broccoli Pick Up Sticks from The Meat Lover’s Meatless Cookbook: Vegetarian Recipes Carnivores Will Devour, and a sweet potato mash.  This year we made the Ginger Mashed Sweet Potatoes & Apples from Appetite for Reduction instead of the extra-virgin olive oil and sea salt sweet potato mash which we had the last couple of years.

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The gravy may be off to the side for the picture,but I added more right after taking the photo.

And now, enter stuffing/dressing.  I wanted it to be a source of protein for me as well as dense stuffing/dressing goodness, so skipped making a bread-based stuffing (if I had, I would have reached for a Food for Life bread, either the Brown Rice or the Millet, as both are dense and appropriate for stuffing) and decided instead to integrate one of my favorite bread substitutes, socca, aka dense chickpea flatbread/pancake.  I stopped by the Pure2Raw site, where the Twins have a whole tribute to socca, including pumpkin socca, which made me think Thanksgiving.  Then I thought of making cranberry orange bread of sorts ( maybe with almond flour) because I go to thinking about one of the first stuffing recipes I ever made, soon after getting married, which was a Rachael Ray recipe for Cranberry Orange Stuffing, using cranberry orange muffins as a shortcut.  Having grown up with wild rice stuffing and traditional bread stuffing on holidays, this recipe was a revelation in terms of sweet and savory stuffings.

I had all these great ideas but never did a test run in the last couple of weeks (life, work, other recipes, crunchy bittersweet chocolate bites, you know).  Then Gena posted two amazing recipes for stuffing this week and I almost forgot about my whole project as I was trying to pick which of her two recipes to make … but I was stuck on trying socca in stuffing, so this morning, I decided to go with this approach, without a test run. Also, I had leftover roasted pumpkin and canned pumpkin puree – just enough for about a 1/2 cup of pumpkin purée when combined, so I went with cranberry pumpkin over cranberry orange.

The dressing (I think I need some sort of grain to call it stuffing) turned out really good.  Basically, you make a socca pancake, which admittedly takes a bit of baking time but, and here is the important part, it is both dense and a bit crunchy, so you don’t have to do the whole dry the bread out in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.  In the 40 minutes of time the pancake takes to bake, you have plenty of time to chop your onions and herbs and celery, before combining it all and returning it to the oven for another 30 minutes.  Considering that you have homemade stuffing, from scratch, within under 90 minutes, with no pre-Thanksgiving preparation, with plenty of inactive time to focus on your other Thanksgiving preparations, I would call that a win.

As for gravy – Sea of Book of Yum solved that with her fabulous (and easy!) nutritional yeast gravy.  I had initially thought of making Maggie’s Deliciously Dark Pan Gravy, but I did not want to have chickpea flour overload, and I liked that Sea’s recipe was lighter on the oil (since, you know, I was the only one eating gravy today).  

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Grain-Free Cranberry Sage Dressing (Gluten-Free, Grain-Free, Vegan, Soy-Free) – Makes 4 generous servings

This dressing has a distinctive savory note amid the sweetness, which is because of the chickpea flour.  Chickpea flour has a strong savory taste, so be aware of that if you have never worked with chickpea flour.  If you would like to use another quickbread or flatbread, the socca portion of the recipe is equivalent to 3 cups of cubed bread/flatbread.  Also, I used extra-virgin olive oil for a more traditional flavor, but you could easily substitute coconut oil,which is a better oil to use at higher heats and what I generally use to make socca.  You could use more oil to cook the onions and celery to ensure a richer tasting dish as well.

  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
  • 1 cup water
  • 1/2 cup pumpkin purée
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 2 tablespoons coconut nectar or other liquid sweetener
  • 1 cup chickpea flour (I used Bobs’s Red Mill)
  • 1 cup frozen or fresh cranberries
  • 1 1/2 cups finely chopped onions (about one large onion)
  • 1 cup finely chopped celery, including leafy bits (about 2 celery stalks)
  • 2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves (a few sprigs of thyme, stems removed)
  • Lots of fresh-ground black pepper (I used about 1/4 teaspoon) and salt (I skipped it, but feel free to salt to taste)
  • 2 tablespoons sage leaves, chopped coarsely
  • 1 cup vegetable broth
  • Dried cranberries for garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to 375F.  Place 10-inch cast iron skillet in oven as oven preheats.  Preheat pan for about 10 minutes as the oven temperature rises.  Add extra-virgin olive oil to hot pan and preheat oil and pan (about 4 to 5 minutes).  While oven and pan are pre-heating, whisk water with pumpkin purée, salt and liquid sweetener.  Add chickpea flour and whisk well.  You want to try to avoid lumps.  Carefully remove pan from oven.  Pour batter in. It should sizzle. Sprinkle cranberries over batter. Bake for 40 minutes, until dark golden. 

While socca is baking, chop onions and celery.  Heat second tablespoon of oil in an ovenproof pan or skillet (I used a 3 1/2 quart cast iron dutch oven) over medium heat.  Add onions and celery and cook until tender, about 10 minutes.  Add thyme leaves, pepper and salt (if using, stir well to combine and cook an additional 2-3 minutes.  You may have some time between reaching the end of this step and the socca being ready for the next step, or you might not, depending on when and how fast you chopped the onions and celery. 

Remove socca from oven. Remove socca from pan and place on cutting board. Cut into 1 inch cubes. You will end up with about 3 cups.  Stir into pan with celery and onion mixture. Stir in sage and 1 cup vegetable broth until all ingredients are well combined.  Place dutch oven or other oven-proof dish into the oven and bake an additional 30 minutes, until top of stuffing is a little drier.  Serve as you wish, though I personally like the approach to individual ramekins or mini cocottes (see first picture).

I am submitting this recipe to the following events:

  • Gluten-Free Wednesday over at the Gluten-Free Homemaker – the theme this month is stuffing!
  • Diets, Desserts and Dogs’ Wellness Weekend
  • Flip Cookbook’s Sugar Free Sunday
  • Simply Sugar- and Gluten-Free’s Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays
  • Week 4 of Gluten-Free Holiday, created by Amy of Simply Sugar and Gluten Free and hosted by Hallie of Daily Bites – the theme for Week 4 is Holiday Entrees and Sides.  
  • My Legume Love Affair, created by Susan of The Well Seasoned Cook and hosted this month by Simona of Briciole – one of the core ingredients in this recipe is the chickpea flour.
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    { 15 comments… read them below or add one }

    1 Sea November 25, 2011 at 5:09 pm

    This looks wonderful! Yum, socca dressing! I love that you tried it with my gravy and the flavors went well together. I can always use another excuse to eat and make that gravy so I might just have to try your recipe (once we go through the leftovers in the fridge). Great post and resource!

    *hugs*
    Sea

    Reply

    2 Valerie November 30, 2011 at 6:34 pm

    Thanks Sea. The gravy was fabulous and indeeds works well with the socca stuffing.

    Reply

    3 Maggie November 25, 2011 at 10:44 pm

    Socca dressing sounds awesome! I can’t wait to try Sea’s gravy! Can it get any easier than that?

    Reply

    4 Valerie November 30, 2011 at 6:34 pm

    It really cannot :) Thank you for stopping by :)

    Reply

    5 fartygirl November 27, 2011 at 4:19 am

    SOCCA STUFFING?! I love you. I love you.

    Reply

    6 Valerie November 30, 2011 at 6:35 pm

    I had a feeling you would like this concept – socca is so great!

    Reply

    7 Gena November 28, 2011 at 7:05 pm

    Recipe looks fantastic, and so do the photos. I want to try this soon!

    Reply

    8 Valerie November 30, 2011 at 6:35 pm

    Thank you Gena :)

    Reply

    9 Kim @ Affairs of Living November 30, 2011 at 6:19 pm

    Wow, what a great post! Your dressing looks amazing – I love the idea of using chickpea flour. Brilliant, and high in protein to boot! I wish I would have been at your Thanksgiving feast. And of course, thank you for linking back to my posts about the cranberry relish and the “cheese” – it made my day to see that you and your loved ones enjoyed them so much! Have a great day, and as always, great post! xo-Kim

    Reply

    10 Valerie November 30, 2011 at 6:37 pm

    Kim, thank you for stopping by. I wish you could have been there too, as it really was a lovely meal (and, I think, would have been appropriate for your own food allergies and avoidances). And yes, we adore the relish. I think I might need to make more this week, as I don’t want to wait until Christmas (where we are already planning to have more, along with the “cheese”). xo.

    Reply

    11 cheryl December 1, 2011 at 12:53 am

    What beautiful photos! And I love how you have such a range of colors.

    Reply

    12 Valerie December 6, 2011 at 3:20 am

    Thank you Cheryl!

    Reply

    13 Simona December 1, 2011 at 9:31 pm

    Definitely a very interesting recipe. And it looks nice. Thank you so much for contributing to MLLA.

    Reply

    14 Valerie December 6, 2011 at 3:20 am

    Thank you for hosting it!

    Reply

    15 cheryl November 21, 2012 at 11:20 pm

    Nom, nom! I confess,Valerie, I started to make a socca to try this, but it’s not to be (I goofed and used an 8 inch skillet & didn’t want to fish everything back out.) But I will try again!

    Reply

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