Thanksgiving

[Deleted User]

H and I will be home for Thanksgiving this year (THANK HEAVENS!!!!!) and I'm starting to try and figure out what I'm going to bring so we can form the menu.

please please please share your favorite recipes, traditions, and fun ideas.

Swazzle

I've mentioned this before but at Thanksgiving, everyone brings their own pie crusts and after dinner, we fill them with leftovers. Each person takes home their own "leftover pot pie" and you can freeze it and then reheat it whenever you want. They're so good

KateJ16

One of my favorite favorite things we have had in recent years is my cousin's brussel sprout dish (I know, most people hate them).  It is SO good.  I think it's this, but using slivered almonds instead of hazelnuts.  I hated those things my whole life until I had this recipe.

buddysmom80

We're pretty traditional. Our Thanksgiving menu is this:

Turkey with oyster stuffing (don't knock it, it's good)

Mashed potatoes with gravy

Mashed sweet potatoes topped with brown sugar and marshmallows

Green Bean Casserole

Homemade Mac & Cheese

Asparagus wrapped in proschiutto

Olive tray

Parker House rolls

"Worm Salad": Apples, grapes, bananas, canned pineapple chunks, mayo, powdered sugar, mini marshmallows

Pumpkin and apple pie

[Deleted User]

@Swazzle - I don't remember hearing that, but I love it!!

@KateJ16 - we love brussels!

@buddysmom80 - we're thinking of doing green beans wrapped in bacon, kind of similar to your asparagus.  our families are not adventurous eaters, and asparagus and prosciutto sadly fall into the "adventurous" category.  H and I are planning to have a mini Thanksgiving in a week or two, to try out recipes...  maybe I'll include that!

loves2shop4shoes

We're having Thanksgiving at our place this year.  My mom is flying in, so it'll be me, DH, my mom, my brother, and my brother's BF.

We're having the usual:

Turkey, mashed potatoes, turnip, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, carrots, string beans, stuffing, gravy, and we'll make some pies.  We might even mix it up and put a ham in the mix.

NOM!

[Deleted User]

@loves2shop4shoes - what do you do with the turnip?

buddysmom80

@cocobellaf asparagus wrapped in proschuitto is sooo good!!!! I could eat that alone for Thanksgiving.

I forgot to add I make my own cranberry sauce, which is weird I forgot about that since I drown everything in cranberry sauce.

[Deleted User]

@buddysmom80 - OMG LOVE CRANBERRY SAUCE.  I am eating some today, orange-cranberry sauce (with honey/maple syrup/orange instead of sugar).  cranberries are on sale $1/bag so I am seriously buying 10 or 15 bags of them.

LOVE CRANBERRIES.

labro

We have a very tradiitonal Thanksgiving. I love my mom's stuffing because she adds apple chunks to hers and a bunch of other stuff. This year BF volunteered us to bring a macaroni pie...which is apparently some sort of baked mac and cheese dish? I'm not sure...but he says it's good. We'll also bring some sort of roasted brussel sprouts dish (YUM) and green bean casserole.

A few years ago it was just me and my sisters for Thanksgiving. I baked a turkey breast and added champagne and mushrooms and maybe butter? to the roasting pan. The gravy that came out when the turkey was done was absolutely delicious!

CASK85

I'm not going home for Thanksgiving this year. Staying here all by myself to write my thesis. Woe is me. 

However, I love to cook Thanksgiving dinner. If I had one thing to share with you it would be the Smitten Kitchen cranberry sauce. Once you make it you will never buy another can of cranberry sauce ever again. Bonus: you can make it the day (or 2 or probably even 3) before!

ETA: I wrote this post before I read your "OMG I LOVE CRANBERRIES" post. lol

Homemade Whole Cranberry Sauce
Adapted from the back of the Ocean Spray cranberry bag, and my friend Dan

Makes 2 1/4 cups

3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup water
1 (12-ounce) package fresh or frozen cranberries, rinsed, drained and sorted through, removing any stems or deflated ones
Several julienned strips of orange peel, or thick pieces of zest
A few squeezes of orange juice

Combine water and sugar in a medium saucepan. Bring to boil; add cranberries and zest, return to boil. Reduce heat and boil gently for 10-14 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add a few squeezes of fresh orange juice. Cover and cool completely at room temperature. Refrigerate until serving time.

buddysmom80

@cschiano that's the recipe I use, I love it!!!!! I make mine the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and throw it in the fridge.

CASK85

@buddysmom80 - It is so good! I love it too!! I'm so glad I decided to make a few years ago. . . I've never looked back. Leftovers are good on toast!

suzie211

@buddysmom80. I LOVE oyster stuffing!

I'm obsessed with corn casserole and pineapple casserole.  I added them to our Thanksgiving a couple years ago.

[Deleted User]

What @lmhollister said.

Mom usually does most of the cooking. I will usually help with baking the desserts or making a side dish. This year we will be on our honeymoon during Thanksgiving so no special dinner with family for us this year : ( We will find some place in St. Lucia that will give us a Thanksgiving dinner!

[Deleted User]

UGHH! Double post again...my computer is being weird sorry.

[Deleted User]

I LOVE THANKSGIVING! It's one of my favorite holidays to host! Here are a couple of my best current recipes. My mom's turkey recipe is foolproof, but I don't have it with me. I'll try to bring it in and add it to this thread tomorrow. Good luck choosing from all the yummy ideas on here Bella!

 

Bacon-Wrapped Jalapenos (Clicky) - The guys love these for an appetizer while they're waiting for the big meal.

Simple Sweet Potato Rounds (Clicky) - you have to scroll down the page a bit.

Bacon-Wrapped Green Beans (Clicky) - I make these ahead and then pop them in the oven with the sweet potatoes after the turkey is out.

Cornbread Stuffing (Clicky) - I don't stuff my turkey. I bake this (covered with foil) for about 30-45 minutes around 350-400. My BIL who doesn't even like stuffing specifically requests this every year now!

Cranberry Marshmallow Salad (Clicky) - This is actually a recipe my grandma has made for years. The men in my family literally fight over the leftovers. I'm not much of a whipped cream salad type of gal...but this recipe is the bomb. Not too sweet. No one even guesses there's pineapple in it. I've never put nuts in mine...but I bet they'd be good. (Best if you make it the day ahead and let it sit in the fridge over night) 

 

KeptInStitches

@cschiano and @buddysmom80, my mom makes a very similar cranberry sauce. One of her recommendations is to cut the cranberries in half. She says they cook up better. I won't do it - I'm not spending all day in the kitchend slicing cranberries, but I might have to give it a try if I make it.

beanbot2002

And now I want to eat all the things.

We do a fairly traditional Thanksgiving. My mom now makes her own cranberry relish using agave nectar and oranges. It's pretty good and I usually don't like the tartness of cranberries. She also makes cornbread stuffing from scratch with olives. Then we make a regular stove top stuffing mix and add spicy sausage to it. It is so nom. I've started adding mashed cauliflower to the mix because my family loves the way I make it. Other than that, like I said, pretty traditional. I actually have zero clue where we will be this year. For a moment, my brother was asking to take Bean with him to our eldest brother's in SLC, but then that kinda got dropped so I don't know. My mom doesn't know if she's going to SLC or not, and el senor has to work on Friday so we can't go to NC to his parents. The rest of my family seems to be on a 'blow Beanbot off' kick as of late, so I'm not hoping for any invites to their houses. We did get invited to a friends, so we'll see about that.

Hummingbird125

This thread is just making me SO hungry and kind of sad that we're spending thanksgiving with BF's family. I love his family, but I'm used to big loud holidays, and his family keeps it pretty small and quiet.

As long as I have sweet potatoes (with brown sugar and butter NO MARSHMALLOWS), turkey, stuffing, and pie, I'm happy.

@Swazzle - I will be stealing that pie crust tradition as soon as I get to start holding holidays at my future house!

cu97tiger

Thanksgiving #1 will be on Wednesday with my in-laws at Cracker Barrel. Yum. Thanksgiving #2 will be on Saturday with my whole family and will be ordered from Wegmans and heated up by me.

500days

If you want to do something "interesting" you should do a turducken. My family has started making one in addition to a traditional turkey and a small ham. I'm also a big fan of spinach balls for appetizers. Here's a recipe that looks close to the one my aunt probably uses: http://www.food.com/recipe/spinach-balls-146371

loves2shop4shoes

cu97tiger said:

Thanksgiving #1 will be on Wednesday with my in-laws at Cracker Barrel. Yum. Thanksgiving #2 will be on Saturday with my whole family and will be ordered from Wegmans and heated up by me.

I wish you lived closer so you could have Thanksgiving #3 with my crazy clan.

loves2shop4shoes

CocoBellaF said:

@loves2shop4shoes - what do you do with the turnip?

We mash it the same way you would mash potatoes.  But we also chop up some bacon and include that in the mashed turnip.

You can do it without the bacon...but with it, it's just NOMNOMNOMNOM!

thejucheidea

We go to my husband's family's Thanksgiving celebrations because my local family hates each other and the rest of my family lives in California.

Every year, they ask me to make this cranberry salad -- one of my coworkers brought it and the recipe to Thanksgiving at work a few years ago, and when I made it at Thanksgiving, my father-in-law's side of the family went insane over it. Now they want it at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's like... cranberries, pineapple, pecans, raspberry jello. Pretty good but pretty random.

Peaseblossom55

I'm hosting thanksgiving this year and I'm pretty excited. My mom is handling the meat stuff. My family is pretty boring and basic so I can't be too creative.  There will be stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranbury sauce (from the can yuck), corn.  I'll be making sweet mashed potatoes, I roast the mashed potatoes in cinnamon and nutmeg then mash the sweet potatoes in the food processor with coconut milk.  They are so good and I can eat them.  I am also making carrots with olive oil and rosemary.  I plan to try roasting butternut squash with a maple syrup glaze that I found on foodgawker.  This should be enough food.  I also plan to make baked apples, FI's recipe and making an apple cider adult drink using carmel vodka.  I can't wait to make that. I may try to test it this weekend.

@swazzle I love the idea of the leftover pies, yum!

CASK85

@Cu97tiger - Wegmans!! NOM!

GoldenPenguin

I'm very sad that I won't be at Liv's this year. I know it's only been two years of Friendsgiving, but it had quickly become my most favorite holiday because of it. Unfortunately, now that I'm a "real" adult, we have to go to BFs family - mostly because we're going to MY family for Christmas, so I guess his family has to have some sort of a turn. One of the good things about going there though, is that we're only two hours from my parents, so we'll go up there for a day or two as well and surprise them. Since I haven't seen my family since May, it'll be nice to get up there and squeeze everyone. 

It's my first Thanksgiving celebrating with his family, so I don't know what we'll have. I DO know that I'll miss everything about that list above, and more. (Like eating leftover turkey off a platter while staring at each other and giggling.) 

CASK85

@LivLeighton - I know what you mean by "hand-flavored" but I can't help but think of drinking seltzer that tastes like a hand. 

[Deleted User]

I'm going to @LivLeighton's house for Thanksgiving.  menu looks so good!!

doubleSS07

We are having a friend Thanksgiving this year because no one has family here and we can't afford to go back home.  I know there will be a pork roast and a smoked turkey coming.  There will also be brussel sprouts with bacon and a to die for apple pie (so I've heard).  mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes.  I'm bringing the cranberries because my family is from Wisconsin originally and we've only ever had fresh cranberries.  I love making them with a bit of orange juice, a mixture of sugar and agave nectar and a big ole dose of WINE!  I like a merlot or a port personally!

@swazzle - I love the left over pie idea!