I offered to cook for my family this year... what was I thinking? Anywho, just wanting to do a poll and maybe make something super yummy this year by looking for ideas.
I just do the standard turkey, cranberry, homemade mashed, Stovetop, and Homemade pumpkin pie.
ETA: After thinking it over we decided we're bored with this. Plus, we only cook for ourselves and have all those left overs. I'm gonna make a homemade chicken potpie with puff pastry crust instead.
I spend thanksgiving with my family in Key West so we do a mix of seafood and traditional. One thing my grandmother makes that I LOVE is cranberry chutney instead of the canned cranberry sauce, it goes well with turkey and fish! I found a recipe similar to what she does:
Cranberry Orange Chutney
Ingredients 1 bag of fresh cranberries (1 pound) 4 oranges peeled and roughly chopped 2 tablespoons fresh ginger chopped ½ cup cider vinegar 2 tablespoons brown sugar 1 cup orange juice
Directions Sauté ginger in a little oil until soft.
Add oranges, cranberries, vinegar, and orange juice until almost all liquid is reduced.
you guys are going to laugh at me, but I get this every year:
it's all Amish made and 100% natural. You still have to cook everything, but the prep work is already done. The turkey is just a standard frozen turkey. It's excellent, and no one has been any the wiser that I didn't buy all the ingredients and chop them up or mash them myself! I also always select the pumpkin pie
the one item that does get prepped with my own two hands is sherried sweet potatoes:
Sherried Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients:
~ 4 lbs. or 4 large sweet potatoes
~ 1 stick butter
~ 1 cup sugar
~ ¾ cup cream sherry
~ ½ cup whipping cream
~ 2 eggs
Directions:
Boil sweet potatoes until tender. Let sweet potatoes cool, then peel. In a large bowl, combine peeled sweet potatoes with remainder of ingredients, and blend until smooth. Pour mixture into a 2 quart greased baking dish. Bake for 45 minutes in a 350° F oven.
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"Fashion can be bought. Style one must possess." ~ Edna Woolman Chase
We are going to my mother's for thanksgiving this year. She makes the most wonderful apple pie ever...I can't wait for pie...and then pie for breakfast on Friday morning! But, for the last few years, we've done it ourselves out here...so I make a teeny turkey, apple pie, cranberry juice and champagne cocktails, bread stuffing, cranberry sauce, butternut squash and spinach, blue cheese and cranberry salad.
Hubby and I are having both our families over to our house this Turkey Day, so we don't have to do the double-dinners like we have in the past! I Thanksgiving and always make the whole meal so we can have the leftovers, anyway ! I make the same thing every year:
Turkey (we scored a 25 pounder for $5.50!)
Stove Top stuffing
Mashed Yukon Gold potatoes
Sweet potatoes fried in brown sugar & butter
Fruit Salad
Candied yams w/ mini marshmallows
Cranberry sauce (from the can )
Relish tray - dill pickles, sweet pickles, green olives, black olives
Turkey gravy
Sourdough rolls
Pumpkin muffins
Apple Pie
Sparkling cider
Cranberry champagne cocktails
I might even be able to pawn a couple of those dishes off on our families to bring! I'll probably be able to get out of making the sweet potatoes and the apple pie, and maybe the fruit salad .
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To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment ~ {Ralph Waldo Emerson}
ok, now I feel really inferior with my thanksgiving dinner... greendiamond? can we come to your place for thanksgiving? it's just me, my husband, and my dad
...kidding, of course
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"Fashion can be bought. Style one must possess." ~ Edna Woolman Chase
Sunshinegirl - I'm jealous that you do a less traditional Thanksgiving. It's my SIL's favorite meal, and my sister at Caesar salad last year at her boyfriends, so she really looks forward to the traditional dinner. So, that's what I make. Except we all get drunk an martini's before dinner. That's new since hubby and I started hosting.
Come on by, D, we'll have enough food! And Beaujolais Nuevo!
Come on by, D, we'll have enough food! And Beaujolais Nuevo!
-gd
it's tempting... but I guess I'll just settle for my dad getting drunk on whiskey and talking over me, his madly shedding welsh corgi peeing on our carpet, and me getting drunk on wine and hiding in the kitchen, while the football game is on and my husband grins and bears it all with beer... ah, family memories...
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"Fashion can be bought. Style one must possess." ~ Edna Woolman Chase
So far, I've only been able to think of appetizers: apricot and brie toast rounds, sausage tartlets, and spinach dip. But it's just me (I'll meet friends after dinner) so I'm actually thinking of just making appetizers to eat all day in front of the tv.
Sunshinegirl - I'm jealous that you do a less traditional Thanksgiving. It's my SIL's favorite meal, and my sister at Caesar salad last year at her boyfriends, so she really looks forward to the traditional dinner. So, that's what I make. Except we all get drunk an martini's before dinner. That's new since hubby and I started hosting.
Come on by, D, we'll have enough food! And Beaujolais Nuevo!
-gd
Greendiamond, Thanksgiving is a great excuse to cook and try different things. I'm a huge foodie and it's just fun.
d - we have a large Amish and Minnonite population here and their restaurants are the best for "homecooking". So that dinner will be fantastic.
Also, I didnt mean to sound so dramatic - "I'm taking the week off". It's really not that tragic
I'm spoiled rotten and DH does ALL of the cooking on Thanksgiving. It's his favorite holiday because he loves to cook. The menu so far includes:
Turkey (he gets a kosher turkey because it's been brined)
Apple and sage stuffing
Cranberry onion relish
Garlic mashed potatoes
Braised greens
Pumpkin cheesecake (courtesy of the BIL)
Cranberry pear pie
I also want to do some sort of festive drink with pomegranate juice. Maybe something with sparkling wine. And of course we'll go through a few bottles of Beaujolais Nueveau.
Nothing too fancy ... well, it looks fancy, but it's easy, which is why I do it! All it is is 1/4 to 1/3 glass cranberry juice (I prefer the all-natural actual juice kind for this), the rest champagne, and a fresh cranberry tossed in for garnish. Yummy, and a little more festive than straight champagne.
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To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment ~ {Ralph Waldo Emerson}
This year we are going to go to Kansas City for thanksgiving (probably going to the game), which means either a restaurant or maybe a relative that lives close by. I do think that I'll cook a traditional dinner on Saturday when we come back, mainly so we can have the leftovers