The Quiet Man

We had Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year, and a fine time was had by all. As part of our preparations for the big feast I purchased the South Beach Holiday cook book. After reading the recipe from Kaylins Kitchen about the Pear and sausage dressing, I was like ooh, maybe we should check this out. The dressing was a hit, though a few did comment on what seemed like an excess of celery vs bread. To further make our dinner Beach friendly, we used splenda in the sweet potato pudding and topped half of it with pecans and the splenda brown sugar substitute. The other half was topped with marshmallows. There would have been rioting if there were no marshmallows on the sweet potato pudding. I made whole wheat and rye sourdough bread, and used the barilla plus pasta in the Macaroni and cheese. While the cheese sauce was made with real cheese and whole milk, the barilla plus pasta added some protein and fiber. A huge crock pot full of green beans cooked with a ham hock, cranberry relish, Turkey, Ham, and of course pupmkin pie, rounded out the dinner. The wines for the day were a German Resiling by Dr. Loosen, and a California Pinot Noir by Ft Ross vineyards. Did I mention we didn't tell anybody that we had substituted the sugar with splenda, and used whole grains for the bread and pasta? Nobody complained or left hungry. In fact several were shocked, when asking for recipes, that they had eaten sugar free and reduced carb offerings. Of course, a couple were less than pleased that I would tamper with tradition. Others were more curious about the South Beach Diet as they thought it was a "bacon and bun-less cheeseburger" plan. My wife ended up going online and printing off a couple of copies of the basics of the plan and lending out our original SBD book. I'm not going to hold my breath that any of them will actually put the information into use long term, but the fact that they showed some interest and were willing to consider moving in that direction is a start. Sometimes a good example, and a gentle nudge works better than endless shouting and proselytizing.