Last week yours truly, The Clean Eating Coach, cooked my butt off, making a bevy of clean eating dishes for Thanksgiving and I loved it. 

What did I love most? Simply put, the simplicity of the food and its preparation. Clean eating is all about taking fresh, whole foods, adding minimal ingredients, and creating something healthy and delicious.  And my gosh, that food was awesome.

I loved that I had a plan that was easy to follow.  Meal planning and creating a vision makes all the difference in the finished product.  By getting clear early on about what I was making, there were no last minute emergencies.

I loved that nothing was elaborate. I made fresh, healthy and delicious cranberry sauce in 15 minutes. I loved that my healthy dessert, spiced pumpkin mousse, took all of about 15 minutes to make as well (and man is it tasty, yum!). 

It felt easy, it felt doable and there wasn’t even a hint of feeling overwhelmed by all the tasks.  In fact, I was in a clean eating cooking groove, thoroughly enjoying the process of being in the kitchen and feeling inspired by listening to my favorite music (Pat Metheny).

I will say that part of the reason that it felt doable is that I happily followed the advice of Clean Eating Magazine in planning the meal out in advance.  I read through the suggestions of making things 1, 2 or even 3 days in advance.  Frankly, the days in advance thing didn’t happen, despite my best intentions, given some other priorities, but I did shop early (for me that was Sunday, a vast improvement over the day before Thanksgiving).  I started cooking on Wednesday afternoon, but after a solid 3 hours under my belt, I declared myself in excellent shape — cranberry sauce and pumpkin mousse made, sweet potatoes prepared and ready for roasting the next day and the green beans prepared through the first step — blanching.  We roasted our locally grown turkey in our rotisserie which made that part of the meal super easy.

I seriously don’t remember preparing a Thanksgiving dinner that seemed so fun and full of joy.  Part of it was definitely the anticipation of having friends and family join us and partake in the bounty of healthy food.  The fact that Bruce and I were debuting our new dining room table that has a much larger capacity added to the fun too — I loved creating a beautiful and seasonal centerpiece that created a lovely ambiance (see above).

You know what else? I was so organized that I even had a timetable of what needed to get done on Thursday which made for a relaxing day. No rushing around, just happily getting busy in the kitchen with some simple tasks.  We even had time for a visit with our friend Marjorie (pictured here), in the hospital before everyone started to arrive.

Clean, healthy Thanksgiving meal + family and close friends + tranquil and relaxed atmosphere =a day of joy and numerous reasons to be thankful.

What about you? How was your Thanksgiving? What clean eating dishes did you prepare? What was the highlight for you?

Filed under: Family and Friends, Food preparation, Healthy Meals, Meal Planning, Thanksgiving, Turkey, clean eating