We are an openly nosy bunch over here, and we are also usually hungry, too. So we thought we’d share what we’re cooking for the upcoming winter holiday nonstop eat-parties, and of course we want to know what you’re working on, too.
Sarah: This year, as we’re preparing to move next month and are therefore going through the strange holding pattern that is showing a house, I’m not cooking Thanksgiving. But we’re not traveling or going out either. For me, Thanksgiving is a day of elastic waist pants and, unless I’m out walking the dogs, no shoes. So we’re having our Thanksgiving catered by Fairway Markets, and I’m very excited about this. All I have to do is roast the turkey, which is no big deal.
I can share what I usually make: we deep fry a turkey, and I spend yet another year trying to recreate the family stuffing recipe and adapt it for the slow cooker. The recipe was never written down, but it involves roasted chestnuts and a shit-ton of butter.
One new recipe that is much-loved is the Serious Eats recipe for Salted Chocolate Pecan Pie. I was never a pecan pie fan until I tried this one. It’s so incredibly good, and so incredibly messy. I wasn’t going to make it this year because of the sticky mess factor, but I might have to anyway because now I want to eat some.
Elyse: I can’t cook. At all.
Seriously, when we get together for the holidays I walk into the kitchen and say “Can I help with anything?” and my mom says “Oh, no, sweetie, I have it under control. Just sit down and keep me company.” Then my sister shows up 10 minutes later and my mom is all, “Oh thank the lord, can you start making…” It’s bad. I even sliced open my hand opening a can of yams one year.
This year my family is doing a non-traditional Thanksgiving, which is fine by me. If the weather holds (it’s Wisconsin, it probably won’t), we’ll be grilling steaks and having baked potatoes. If it doesn’t, we’re making two different types of chili. As usual I am not cooking, but I am assisting my sister, the hostess for this year, by buying groceries and keeping everyone out of the kitchen.
We make three different kinds of cookies around Christmas (I’m allowed to decorate and use cookie cutters). We make my Swedish grandmother’s sugar cookies and we use her super old, super cool cookie stamps on those. We make my husband’s family’s cutout cookies which involve a shit ton of whipping cream. We also make something called “spritz” cookies. I’m not sure if spritz is a name or not, but they involve–for realsies–a cookie gun.
Amanda:
Since I’m still that age where I’m a barely functioning adult, most of my holiday cooking duties revolve around peeling and chopping things, and generally being my mother’s lackey in the kitchen. This year, I’m not going home for Thanksgiving, which is strange. I’m going to be having it with my roommate and her aunt since she just moved to the area, but it’s thrown off my holiday equilibrium because their holiday cooking traditions aren’t necessarily my holiday cooking traditions. And anything I suggest making is already being made.
So I’m having a little bit of a freakout without any sort of concrete plan right now. My family also fries their turkey, which if you’ve had a fried turkey, you never want to go back to oven turkeys ever again. I will most likely cry about missing out on that turkey this year.
That being said, I want to talk about stuffing. I used to hate stuffing. HATE IT. It was mushy and gross and I was not a fan. That was until I had my grandfather’s stuffing. It was perfectly crispy on the outside and so moist (Sorry, “moist” haters!) on the inside. It had flavor and any family members trying to get the last spoonful would be tossed into the Thunderdome.
My grandfather passed away suddenly a couple months ago, but I’d really love to share his recipe with everyone. We tend to double it since we’re animals. We also usually have my vegetarian aunt visiting, so we’ll make a portion without the sausage and replace the chicken broth with water.
Amanda’s Grandfather’s Thunderdome Stuffing
1 bag of Pepperidge Farm herb stuffing or any other bag stuffing – needs to be in chunks, not ground into a fine dust.
1 pound ground mild or hot sausage
1/2 cup chicken broth
8 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 cup finely chopped celery
2 eggs
salt & pepper (add to taste)
Brown sausage with onion and celery. Once done, drain. Take all ingredients listed and mix together very well.
Put in baking dish (or aluminum disposable pan). Cook at 375 degrees for about 1 1/2 hours or longer. Depends on how crisp you want the top layer to be.
RHG:
I haven’t been with my family on Thanksgiving for 12 years (they’re in Minnesota, I’m in Boston, and I fly home for Christmas, and plane tickets are expensive, yo), and I’ve been at various friends and chosen family dinner that entire time. Sometimes I help cook, sometimes I bring the wine, but the real meal where I take over the kitchen is Christmas.
I’ve been cooking Christmas dinner for five years now, ever since the Christmas a blizzard kept my mom in Wyoming. My sister ran up to me (having landed during a lull in that same blizzard, and it was a scary landing) and said, “TELL ME YOU KNOW HOW TO MAKE THE SWEDISH MEATBALLS LIKE MOM DOES” and I did, and she flung her arms around my neck and said “THANK GOD CHRISTMAS ISN’T RUINED.”
Now, you may be thinking that I’m about to give you a family Swedish meatball recipe. I’m not, because we get our mix from the local Scandinavian Supply Store. This year, I was chatting with my mom about dinner, and she said she wanted some kind of potato, and I was like “but I already was planning on barley risotto” and she made a, “Well, I guess that’s okay” noise which if you listened to the podcast Elyse and I did on midwesternisms, you know that it is not okay at all.
So I guess we’re having potatoes.
Sarah: Here!
RHG: SARAH. What did we tell you about Velveeta.
WHAT DID WE SAY.
Sarah: *cackles*
CarrieS:
We had Thanksgiving early with my family last weekend, and then we have it again with my husband’s family. For the latter, we give thanks to Marie Callender’s. For the former, I’m in charge of pies. It’s a lot of pressure, because McGowan women are insane and we all base our worth and the worth of others on baking. Swear to god, if one of us became President of the World, the others would say, “Oh, she’s so wonderful, we are so proud, but you know maybe she should roll her pie crust a little thinner.”
Having witnessed the annual pie meltdown again this year, the Bitches have put me on pie probation and I have informed my family that they can make their own pies from here on out and I will make cookies. My cookies are great.
Sarah, RedHeadedGirl, Elyse & Amanda: You don’t understand. She got up in the middle of the night to make another pie. We had to do something.
Carrie: Luckily this year I went out in a blaze of glory by mastering my nemesis, Sour Cream Raisin Pie.
Sarah, RedHeadedGirl, Elyse & Amanda: AT THREE IN THE MORNING.
Carrie: Details.
Anyway.
It looks easy. Don’t be fooled! McGowan women have wept over this pie for many generations! But oh, wow, it is so good.
Crust:
Hey! You don’t have to roll it out! This will make you complacent and you’ll put in too much oil or not enough. CONCENTRATE.
1 ½ cups flour
1 ½ teaspoons sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup oil
2 Tbsp milk
Mix it up, dump it in the pie pan, and press it out with your fingers until it looks like pie crust. Bake for 10 min at 425. No, you can’t buy a premade crust, are you crazy? Your great-grandmother would roll in her grave!
Filling
You will think that you can assemble these ingredients one at a time but you are wrong. Once the sour cream goes in the pan, you cannot stop stirring. So have everything lined up ahead of time. Also, get a book that you can hold in one hand while you stir with the other, because you will be here for a long time.
Our ancestresses did not tell us what heat to use so I adjust as I go along. Too hot and it burns; too low and nothing happens. I usually go for medium-low.
1 ½ cups sour cream. Scald one cup, then add the rest. Stir continuously.
2 egg yolks – add one at a time.
Dry ingredients – dump them all in at once.
Here are the dry ingredients:
1 cup sugar
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp cloves
¼ tsp nutmeg
4 Tablespoons flour
Once that’s mixed in add ½ cup raisins.
Stir until thick, remove from heat, and dump into pie crust and cool.
I regret that I haven’t timed this process, but it takes forever. There’s also no magic way to tell that the mixture is thick enough. Make it as thick as you can stand to make it because it will firm as it cools but only so much. Knowing when to stop is the most stressful part of this procedure.
Pour the mix into the pan. It will look ugly. Don’t worry – you are about to cover the whole thing with whipped cream and it will taste divine. Let it cool.
Cover with homemade whipped cream. One time I brought over Cool Whip and my poor mother actually turned pale. Don’t sully the memory of your great-great grandmother with something easy. Real women buy a small carton of heavy whipping cream and then they whip it. It’s our legacy.
Invite me over, because this is really good pie and I’m never making it again.
So what about you? Are you cooking things this year? Are you bringing your marvelous self in elastic waist pants? Got a recipe you love, or a link you want to share? Please do!
Amanda’s stuffing is my MiL’s stuffing recipe that I now make. I use turkey broth (made from the baggie contents and veges) and once the baking dish is in the oven I baste it a couple of times with turkey drippings from the pan. If you can get some of the sticky brown part even better. Those are the bits of stuffing that don’t make it out of the kitchen.
I make this apple pie except with Lingonberries, since I live in Sweden. It is zomg tasty. I am sure it is tasty with cranberries too. http://www.skinnytaste.com/2011/12/apple-cranberry-crumble.html
I also makes fudge. Mmm. This is also adapted and cobbled together from different recipes(=lactose free milk and half the sugar), still very tasty. Anyway. Here is the recipe. Feel free to use it, if you want to surprise someone w food allergies. 🙂 ( I am not certain how it would work w dairy free stuff.) 2 dl milk
3 dl sugar ( I used extra fine grained)
60 g butter
1 (150 g) bag of chocolate chips ( preferably dark)
150 g mini marshmallows. ( One bag.)
Flavorings ( mint, walnuts, vanilla)
Mix milk, sugar and butter in a saucepan. Let it boil on mid high heat, with constant stirring, until the candy termometer show 234 F. Pull it away from the heat and mix in the chocolate. Stir until the chocolate have melted. Dump in the minimarshmallows and stir until the marshmallows have melted and there are no white traces left.
Add whatever flavoring you want, stir until it is evenly mixed in.
Cover a form w baking parchment, before pouring the batter into the form. Smooth out the batter and put in the fridge for a couple of hours. Or outside if you have a balcony.
My refrigerator water line leaked and unfortunately we didn’t discover it until the hardwood floor heaved. Part of it had to be ripped out, including some drywall and one of my cabinets, so my dining room table is covered in the pots and utensils stored in that cabinet, and my refrigerator is in the middle of the room, next to the island, creating a wonderful maze. Cooking has become painful, but at least I am walking more steps for my FitBit. Thanksgiving should be ok. My husband will cook the main course, and I will make some apple crisp (I like apple pie, but it is always too liquidy) and buy a pumpkin pie for my son, who is the only one who likes it.
I hope the kitchen will be fixed before Christmas, because I love to bake cookies, specifically sugar and shortbread, and it will be a pain if the kitchen is still messed up. Both recipes are family heirlooms from my mother and mother-in-law, and since they have both passed on, it is like having a visit from them as I make their traditional recipe. If the house ever catches fire, I will grab those recipe cards, because that handwriting is irreplaceable.
I made au gratin potatoes from scratch last week because I had a craving, and all I could think as I was eating them was “The boxed ones with dehydrated potatoes and powdered ‘cheese’ are better.” Scratch didn’t have as much (artificial) flavor, took four times longer to prepare/cook, and probably had six times the calories because of the (real) cheese. Total bust.
I’m in charge of sweets at any time of the year. Two things I only make around the holidays because they’re too much of a pain if there isn’t An Occasion: sugar cookies (my ancient family recipe uses powdered sugar and makes a thin, crispy, melt-in-your mouth cookie, only enhanced by a smear of buttercream frosting) and apricot kolache (which looks like ground fruit wrapped in pie crust, but the dough is a sticky yeast monstrosity I’ll only wrestle with rolling out if I really, really love the recipient).
I’ll also be making a ton of cheesecakes (only a slight exaggeration, given the suckers weigh six pounds apiece and everyone I’ve ever met expects to get one).
Thanksgiving is “MY” holiday in the family – picked for the very little fighting that seemed to happen growing up (vs. Christmas, which had drama to infinity and beyond). When I first moved away I couldn’t afford to go back home on both holidays (at least, that is what I told the folks), so they picked Christmas as the holiday I would return home. So Thanksgiving was and always will be my happy holiday, no expectations and low drama and FOOD. So I go out to eat – a nice brunch at a premier hotel with lovely holiday decorations up (I don’t mind the decorating so much, since it is somewhat “after Thanksgiving”) and no cleanup. I still get dressed up like we did at Grandma’s, and enjoy a huge amount of food, but no stress (unless it snows a lot). Since my sister and Mom moved down, they join me for my peaceful Thanksgiving and then we all fight over the turkey, rolls and stuffing at Christmas. Memories….
I’m on the third iteration of my shopping list and still haven’t hammered down the vegetable dishes. Aside from the green beans with caramelized onions and bacon which has become a staple. I’m thinking of these: https://www.yahoo.com/food/19-thanksgiving-dinner-recipes-traditional-131726414/photo-pot-stuck-brussels-sprouts
The middle brother has a new job which gives out turkeys at Thanksgiving so I’m having to relearn the art of cooking the whole bird without drying out part of it. Also the whole stuff the bird/don’t stuff the bird argument has been raging. Then I came across a suggestion for baking the stuffing in muffin tins, and I thought I could do this in my mini bundt pan, fill the middle with cranberry sauce and put them around the turkey. Wouldn’t that look amazing!?!
Then I remembered who I’m cooking for.
My mostly meat, potatoes and plain vegetable family really cramps my style.
My mom used to get me up at the crack of dawn to make the pumpkin pie before the turkey went in the oven because my crust was better than hers. These days I am wiser and make pie the night before. Pumpkin for me and the baby bro (this year with whipped cream flavored with Cinnabon Liquor. Honest to goodness CINNABON LIQUOR!! You have no idea how much of my subconscious mind is devoted to ways to use this so I can justify the purchase.) and chocolate for the rest of the family.
Can I just say I love group posts from The Bitchery?
@DonnaMarie try spatchcocking the turkey – I know it sounds like some weird sex act, but it flattens the turkey out, making easier & quicker to cook. It also means everything cooks consistently, so less chance to have dry parts. There are lots of videos available showing how to do it.
Because we lived in Bavaria for several years in the 80s, Spätzle are a non-negotiable part of Christmas in my family. We make two kinds, from scratch: traditional with Gruyère (or Emmental), and sour cream and Parmesan. A few years ago my mother suggested maybe not having Spätzle on Christmas Eve and my brother and I just stared at her in silence until she backed down and that was the end of that nonsense.
So glad you asked this question because I am hella stressed about Thanksgiving and I need to share. We are moving this Saturday. And we are hosting Thanksgiving for both my husband’s immediate family and my own. On Thursday. After we will have lived in the house for LIKE FOUR DAYS. OMG you guys. We have delegated some of the food prep and have adopted the following attitude to keep some sanity about us: there are going to be boxes, and things that are wonky, and things that are still packed and we can’t find them. And if anyone doesn’t like it well, they are related to us so they can feel free to host Thanksgiving next year! That is working to an extent. But this is our “forever home” in our dream neighborhood and the first time that most of our family members will be seeing it, so at the same time I really do want it to look nice. I might be up all night on Wednesday. Or I might start drinking wine before noon on Thursday. Or both, even. Unfortunately I have no great recipes planned for this year–I am usually in charge of dessert and sides while my husband is on bird duty. I’m planning to make apple crisp because you can make a lot and it’s super easy. Last year I made Alton Brown’s pumpkin pie recipe which you can find here. It was a giant pain to roast the pumpkins but the pie was DELICIOUS. The ginger snap crust was so, so good. Highly recommended if you feel like a project.
I’m Canadian, so Thanksgiving has come and gone. My son was out of the country this year, so my husband and I went to a local steakhouse.
We’re not big fans of turkey; our usual festive meal is roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes (I am famous for my roast potatoes; people send texts from my table bragging that they are eating my roast potatoes), brussel sprouts with browned butter and chestnuts, green bean casserole, mashed carrots and turnips and creme brulee and a pavlova for dessert.
Im making pecan pie despite having no thanksgiving plans. It was always my grandma’s Holiday and after she died last month it’s a little sad that my loved ones managed to all be traveling or working. Wish I had an excuse to make chocolate chip muffins too but there is only so much baking I can do for a casual dinner with my parents. I will miss them the most cause they’re not an American tradition but a family one.
I’m with Lammie on the spatchcocking. I thought it was too advanced for me but I’ve had amazing success the past 3 years.
I only cook for 3 (husband, aged MIL, me) but I have to make everything. One year I used the holiday as an excuse to try a non-traditional labor intensive menu. MIL was not happy. She’s in her late 80’s and has paid her dues. Since then I cook the traditional for her.
A couple of years ago I threw a fit because I was stuck by myself all day cooking and washing dishes. So last year we outsourced a lot of the sides to a local fancy food store and most of them were a disappointment. I’m doing the full meal deal alone again. But it’s going to be good.
This is the second year I’m not going to be with the rest of my family (Hallelujah!) and will be making my own Thanksgiving dinner for my dad and me. Since I don’t eat turkey, I’m making a lasagna. It is my favorite food and my dad loves it too, so it is perfect.
Last Christmas, I posted the recipe on my blog: http://thefictionvixen.com/2014/12/25/romance-and-recipes/
I also want to make a pie, but I’ve never done that and it doesn’t look easy at all.
We’re eating pretty much the same meal we’ve been eating for my entire life: turkey with cornbread stuffing, candied sweet potatoes with baby marshmallows, Ocean Spray, Waldorf salad, “relish tray”, mashed potatoes, corn casserole and some sort of green vegetable that no one will eat. And there are only 4 of us. But we’ve lost dad and 2 siblings over the past few years, so we are clinging to comfort and tradition.
Sarah, I was in the grocery store last week and a woman shared her Velveeta fudge recipe. Half a pound of Velveeta and 4 sticks oleo(margarine to most of us), melt that together slowly. While that melts, sift 4 pounds of powdered sugar. Slowly beat the sugar into the cheese mixture and then pour into a casserole and let it set.
I can’t even.
@Laura:
VELVEETA FUDGE. Oh my God. Velveeta Fudge.
@Lammie, this has been a consideration. I was watching Alton Brown the other night and he had a bit of brilliance going with a pan of vegetables underneath the spatchcocked bird which was placed directly on the oven rack above. I just keep imagining the look on the SIL’s face when I open the oven door and there’s a panless turkey. Then there’s the whole issue of I don’t own anything heavy duty enough to cut through the breast bone of a turkey, soooo….
@scifigirl, do not fear the pie!! People make it harder than it is. That whole Mom rolling me out of bed at the crack of dawn thing started when I was 12. Just remember cold fat, half butter half shortening, no matter what your recipe says. Stop mixing before you think you need to. Let it rest in the fridge at least 15 minutes before you roll it, put it back in the fridge for 15 minutes after you put it in the pan before baking it off or filling it. Put the pan on the floor of the oven if you’re baking it filled. Remember to cover the floor of the oven w/tin foil in case of bubble over. And for goodness sake, invest in a decent rolling pin. DO NOT buy the one with the jiggly grips that weighs half a pound. Your shoulders will be burning before you finish rolling. The more your pin weighs, the less effort on your part.
If you want to experiment to get the technique down before going all in, you can roll out your dough, lay it on a cookie sheet (chill) spread/dab butter on it sprinkle w/cinnamon & sugar, bake. Even if your crust is a little tough, it’s cinnamon & sugar, so how bad could it be? This was our favorite leftover dough treat when we were kids. Who am I kidding, my brothers still scope out my kitchen for it when they know I made pie.
@KB: Congratulations on your dream house, and welcome home!! I think everyone will be thrilled and no one will care about the boxes as long as there’s apple crisp. I hope you enjoy Thanksgiving!
@bookworm1990: Thank you! I’m glad you like them!
Thanksgiving and Chistmas day in our family are pretty traditional turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, a cousin’s cranberry relish recipe, the can cranberry jelly stuff ’cause I LOVE it, etc.
Christmas Eve is our Swedish dinner, although it’s really a poor Swedish immigrants dinner so I expect most actual Swedes would be like “you’re having what?” Green beans, rice pudding (with hidden almond of course), and potatis korv (potato sausage), with snow pudding for desert. Since my brother no longer eats beef we now make the sausage ourselves with pork only, thank heaven for the Kitchen Aid sausage attachment!
Other holiday food traditions include rye bread, julekaka (Swedish Christmas bread), spritz cookies, and springerle and pfeffernusse from the German side of the family. Although cookie making might be imperiled this year by the recent disappearance of all the damn cookie cutters.
This year I’m making the mashed potatoes, which is actually a pretty sweet gig. My mother’s family of six kids (plus all their kids)requires at least 15 pounds of mashed potatoes. I cook them ahead of time and throw them in a crock pot to reheat the day of.
The secret behind the mashed potatoes is that you add cream cheese, which allows them to reheat amazingly well. I cut them into chucks and boil them in water like normal, but when it’s time to mash them I add a brick of cream cheese, milk, and butter (how much cream cheese depends on how much potatoes I have, I start with one brick and work from there. I also don’t actually mash them, I have an old kenmore handmixer that gets the job done without giving myself tennis elbow.
Also, RE: spatchcocking, I did that to a turkey and it was one of the best things I’ve ever done to a bird. I didn’t have poultry shears, so I ended up using a combo of kitchen shears and a filet knife, and then gave up and just ripped the rest of the spine out of the bird with my hands like I was in Mortal Kombat. And then I told everyone about it all weekend. It was great.
I do so much baking during the holidays. I’ll make at least three kinds of cookies, probably four this year, bourbon balls, chocolate bourbon bundt cake, and this year I’m making the pies for Thanksgiving (my mother-in-law asked me to, which is both awesome and faintly terrifying). I’ll also make eggnog once. One of the kinds of cookie will be ginger snaps, from my great-grandmother’s recipe. I’ll probably end up making three batches of those, because they’re very popular. One will come with me for Thanksgiving, another will be taken to my parents’ for Christmas, and the third will be used in the tins I mail to friends and for the small holiday party I throw in December. Also, for us to eat ourselves. I have to do a separate batch for Christmas because there will be seven people in the house and my father can easily eat half of one by himself.
@scifigirl Pie basically just requires a delicate hand for the crust. It’s surprisingly easy, although I don’t recommend using a food processor. I use this recipe/tutorial: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/11/pie-crust-102-all-butter-really-flaky-pie-dough/
Make your dough drier than you think it needs to be. The water will distribute through acceptably when you chill the dough before rolling it out, and too much moisture will make it sticky/make rolling it out a pain. A pastry cutter and a bench scraper are a huge help. I trim my crusts after they’re in the pie plate, using a pair of kitchen shears and my finger as a guide. Since you’re rolling the edges under anyway, they don’t need to be perfectly even, and that eliminates an annoying step.
And when you’ve baked a test the way donna.marie suggests, pie crust freezes, so any raw dough left from failed attempts can be frozen for a time when you’ll be willing to use a crust that isn’t perfect, say for hand pies or a quiche for a weeknight dinner or something similar.
Oh god you guys. I can’t. Ever since my dad died. Holidays. Cooking. Everything. And my MIL is going through chemo and she wants the whole deal so I have to. And it’ll be great. It will.
Thanksgiving is turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, greenbeans, gravy all as dad did, plus corn pudding and tsimmis from my MIL, three different types of cranberry relish because no one can agree, and two pies plus pumpkin cheesecake, all (obvs) from scratch.
Xmas is roast beef, gravy, Yorkshire pudding, brusselsprouts and roast potatoes. I bake 12 different kind of cookies, and a fruitcake, and a bûche de Noël. And glögg. Thankful god for glögg.
I have a cold and thinking about this is not making me feel festive. It doesn’t seem like a labor of love so much as labor.
My husband and I go stay with my parents in Phoenix, and so does my brother. A few days ago my mom suggested that maybe we’d do more store-bought things this year. It didn’t take long before we were saying things like, “but we can’t do canned sweet potatoes. They’re not that hard to make….” So we’ll see.
I loved reading the post/comments. Ya’ll are hilarious. But I also get the warm fuzzies reading about everyone’s different traditions and experiences.
As stressful as they used to be at times, I miss the big family get togethers sometimes. OTOH, I’ve been going out to eat for most holiday meals for over a decade now and, frankly, I love it. 🙂 I can’t even describe how wonderful it is to not have to worry about any of it. But I may still have to try making the Sour Cream Raisin Pie and Velveeta Fudge sometime just for fun. That Velveeta Fudge is vegetarian fare, yo! (But, Laura, I’m sorry about your dad and siblings. I’m sure you all reminisce about them over food and fudge.)
However you celebrate, I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.
@Laura, what did you do to that poor woman that she would inflict such a thing on you? Velveeta fudge? I think I just threw up in my mouth a little!
I always make cranberry sauce. It’s my big contribution to Thanksgiving. Beyond that, I’m looking for side dish recipes. I think that’s where we need ’em. We have Turkey and desserts covered, so we’ll see.
The first time I ever experienced “Wait, marriage is a disaster” was when I discovered that the family I married into makes a radically wrong kind of cranberries for Thanksgiving. It’s not BAD, but it’s totally and completely wrong. I had to go into another room to silently weep to myself and be all “what have I done?!?”
They do however have the genius idea of making huge quantities of stuffing from scratch and plopping most of it into a giant Crockpot where it slowly gets delicious all day, freeing up oven space. So I suppose they are forgiven for their cranberry transgressions.
Our Thanksgiving is fairly stable–two turkey breasts and a package of thighs (since only one or two people want the dark meat), my mom’s cranberry freeze and my aunt’s sugar cookies that require a special vanilla extracts. It’s on the guests to bring the sides so there’s a lot of variety.
Hubs LOVES pecan pie. Here’s my favorite recipe (no corn syrup!). Despite abhorring white chocolate (which, c’mon, isn’t even real chocolate), I’m also making oatmeal cookies with cranberries and white chocolate chips to take to a friendsgiving. As for Thanksgiving proper, I’m trying one of the fancy dips I saw in this Buzzfeed article as well as making my standard deviled eggs.
I cannot wait until the day after Thanksgiving, though, for the turkey/cranberry chutney/stuffing sandwich made from leftovers. I’m sneaking some tupperware to Thanksgiving dinner to make this happen!
I LOVE Thanksgiving so much. I basically took over the meal preparations for my immediate family about six years ago and the menu is pretty consistent: Turkey (brined and oven roasted), my mom’s sausage stuffing made just like Amanda’s grandfather’s but without the eggs, mashed potatoes, and this year cauliflower cheese. My mother also insists on making her mother’s cranberry “salad” which has cranberries, apples, oranges, celery, and pecans ground in a food grinder and then suspended in strawberry jello (surprise! We are from the Midwest).
Here is to hoping that I don’t repeat last years fiasco of slicing open my right thumb on Wednesday night in the middle of preparing the apple pie.
I’m super enjoying all the comments about spatchcocking because I don’t have the slightest clue what that is and I’m sure my imagination is more interesting than reality.
For thanksgiving, I’ll probably be useless because there will be A LOT of people this year and it’s easier to stay out of the way.
For friendsgiving, though, I’m thinking brussels sprouts, potatoes, or cranberry orange relish. It’ll be interesting because we have a lot of diets to get around.
Up until two years ago we lived far from both families. So we always got a group of similarly stranded families together and we made some great traditions ourselves. I loved it because we got to host every other year and since it was so rare, I loved doing the big traditional meal.
Now we are closer to my family, which is mostly great but I don’t get to host anymore:( It’s not the same and I do admit to being oddly disappointed about that. Normally we would go to my mom’s but she and my stepdad are going to my stepsister’s and our invitation has been apparently been lost! That’s probably for the best. Instead we’ll crash my BFF’s Thanksgiving on Thursday and do it all over again at my mom’s on Saturday. I love to bake and always do a pumpkin pie but I was just talking to my mom and I think I talked her into letting me make the most awesome pumpkin cake with salted caramel frosting. It’s to die for. Just made it last week but I’ll gladly make another.
Like RedHeadedGirl, my family is in the Midwest, and I live in Boston, and plane tickets are expensive. So Thanksgiving is with the in-laws, and Christmas is with my family.
My MIL makes really good apple pie. The rest of the food… meh. It’s better than Thanksgiving at my husband’s aunt’s house, though, that we used to go to. Somehow auntie can make a turkey that is moist, tender, AND flavorless. Still haven’t figured that one out. But it is what it is and it makes my husband happy to spend the day with his family, so okay.
We just moved this year, so I’m not hosting, but I’ve made noises that maybe next year we can host Thanksgiving, because it’s mean, but true that I am a better cook that my husband’s family.
As for Christmas, we used to do a traditional wigilia on Christmas Eve, but after my grandmother died, my mother decided she wanted prime rib. So now we have prime rib on Christmas Eve, although we still do the oplatki (oplatki are… basically communion wafers, but special for Christmas. Everyone gets a wafer, then before dinner, you go around exchanging wafer pieces with everyone while wishing them Merry Christmas and all that jazz. Then you eat your handful of wafer. They’re even in wikipedia! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_wafer)
Christmas Day is still traditional, with the traditional three meats of Polish sausage, barbequed ribs, and roast beef, along with sides such as mashed potatoes and jello mold (hi! Did I mention we’re from the Midwest?) We also do a lot of baking. Butter cookies (which use the fancy cookie gun! I have one of my own), prune cake, kolacky (which are the Polish cousin of kolaches and don’t involve yeast), cherry nut loaf, which is all traditional. Then we make whatever else my mom and I find that sounds good. Oh, and we make our own turtle candies.
Usually I’m drafted in to baking and cooking as soon as I get home. Since we’re driving to Chicago, I’ll also make a couple batches of cookies for the road. We play Christmas music all day, loudly, drink spiked egg nog, and now I make homemade Irish cream, so we have a little of that too.
I am somewhat crazy, and I cook all of thanksgiving. By myself. I might let someone else chop carrots, if they do it the proper way.
Since I have allergies, I make everything from scratch, including the bread for the stuffing.
This year, I’m making a turkey, duh,
Gravy, mashed potatoes (with extra for cheesy waffles, and black friday bread), stuffing (pioneer woman stuffing ftw) cranberry sauce, biscuits (jp big daddy on all recipes. Best biscuits ever), glazed carrots, snow peas, creamed corn, and sweet potatoes with marshmallows.
For dessert, pumpkin pie, apricot pie, cheesecake, chocolate chip cookies, and fudge.
Everything made from scratch. Then I collapse at the end of the day and prepare myself to stalk online black friday deals.
Someone gave me 20 pounds of lentils, so I’ve been trying out lots of ways of cooking them. So far my favorites are Braised Lentils with Brown Rice and Sunflower Seeds which is surprisingly savory for being so simple, and which has a nice chewy texture; and Turkish Green Lentil Soup With Noodles and Mint.
We celebrate Thanksbirthday every year (my bday is the 25th, so we celebrate it with Turkey and my tiara), and Mom used to make pumpkin creme brulee for me. The last two years before I moved, I got to make it. Last year I was laid up with a broken leg, but I’m bringing it this year to a friend’s dinner since I live across an ocean from my blood family now.
You guys: pumpkin, eggs, heavy cream, sugar and spices… topped by burnt sugar. SO GOOD.
My sister’s birthday is the 25th, so we’re having her birthday dinner Wednesday – ham, macaroni & cheese, fancy Brussels sprouts, and brownies – followed by the full turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie on Thursday. At least we’ll have plenty of leftovers.
Also, I made hotdish last week. I blame RedHeadedGirl, since I more or less made the Minnesota version. It was just all right day one but really bloomed as leftovers. I have ideas for modifications.
I’m an American in Holland, so I don’t get the day off. >:-( I host a dinner on Friday evening. A local poulterer has learned to cater to the expats by preparing whole roast turkeys, with stuffing and gravy optional. The first year I indulged in this luxury, I felt quite Dickensian: I swept into the shop and handed over a tidy sum of money while a spotty apprentice carried the bird out to my car.
Two years ago I repeated the process, preparing all the fixings but outsourcing the bird. This time, however, something went wrong with the order (probably my Dutch). 5:45, everything ready except the mashed potatoes, tired and stressed, I went to pick up the roast turkey: and the poulterer brought out a raw bird. I burst into tears, he promised to deliver some roast thigh meat to my house in less than an hour, and I drove home with all the stress miraculously lifted. So what if there wasn’t going to be a turkey? I still had lots of good food and good company coming–and a good story for the rest of my life. It really was a useful lesson for me, and a wonderful evening in the end.