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Happy Thanksgiving: What Is Your Dinner Menu?
The LW and I hope everyone enjoys a fine meal and a safe Thanksgiving celebration. We are all very fortune and should count our blessings given all the terrible strife in the world. The kitchen in our cabin should start to smell real good tomorrow as the LW and some crazy relatives start putting a huge feast together. I’ve been relegated to chopping fire wood, digging up potatoes and onions and salting down the turkey I shot this morning. It’s going to be a real “let out your belt” dinner with way too many carbos and sweets, but so be it. Tis got to be done! Tell me what you plan on having and I might revise or add to our menu which has a slight European theme this year: STARTERS Shrimp Bisque Zucchini Fritters with Pistou SALADS Fruit Salad with sour cream Mixed Green Salad with mandarin oranges and pine nuts SIDES Hot German Green Beans (bacon, onions) Creamed Onions Garlic Mashed Potatoes Glazed Carrots Asparagus with orange sauce Wild Rice Turkey Gravy Broccoli & Cheese Casserole MEAT Roasted Turkey BREAD Grandma’s Biscuits DESSERTS Crème Brulee Pumpkin Pie Pecan Pie Homemade peach & vanilla ice cream |
Well degas, I'd like to make............reservations! Gotta seat open? Your menu sounds great. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Peg |
I only have to do a small part of the mean, but my contributions will include one old standby and one France-inspired dish.
Cranberry-walnut-orange dressing Endive salad with Roquefort, toasted walnuts, and pears with a green apple vinaigrette. |
apparently my fingers are already on holiday - I meant menu, not mean.
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Nothing quite as elaborate as degas' feast. We're having the traditional turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie.
Dinner is at my parent's house and I'm in charge of bringing the sweet potatoes (from my Alabama cousin's rot-your-teeth-out recipe - no marshmallows) and the cranberry sauce (this will be my first attempt at making it from scratch - no cans this year.) :) |
Its a potluck with my group...the Host and Hostess will supply the turkey and stuffing. Her sister will make the gravy (best gravy maker I know!) and cole slaw (seems to be a tradition in their house); One of the single gents wants to bring dessert, he said tiramisu and a pumpkin pie; I'm bringing two potato dishes, a mushroon/potato gratin with gruyere and then regular mashed and a pear/cranberry conserve; another lady is bringing sweet potatoes and a squash recipe. The niece, and a youngun, is coming up from Baltimore and bringing "brown n' serve" rolls and fresh string beans. One of my friends broke her right leg and her left arm in a sailing accident in September, she's bringing canned cranberries.
So that's nice. No starchy foods. But I too want to wish everyone a happy, groaningly satisfied and safe Thanksgiving... and I'm thankful for a lot, not the least of which is this wee forum. |
I knew we forgot something - got to have cranberries!
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I'm "getting off easy" this year as only taking Brussels sprouts with chestnuts (jarred, from France), shallots, and blue cheese to my SIL's--and butterflake rolls from local bakery.
However, having friends over next evening for casual dinner, and I'd love to get your recipe for green apple vinaigrette, St. Cirq. I do an endive (Belgian, bien sur!), walnut, and roquefort salad with olive oil and lemon juice vinaigrette but green apple sounds new and good! Merci, if you're sharing it! |
If you are only cooking for two, send your address = I am sure you don't want too many leftovers!
Ours is standard turkey and potato filling, copes corn, cranberry sauce, harvard beets, pepper cabbage and green beans. Happy Thanksgiving |
Degas, your menu sounds heavenly. It's a good thing the path to your cabin is a well-guarded secret or you'd have hordes of Fodorites beating the door down Thanksgiving day!
We're off to our friends' house to a feast. My responsibility, as it is every year, is to do the vegetables. I can't make a dessert worth beans but my veggies will make you sigh with satisfaction! Here's this year's lineup: <i>Sweet Potato Spoon Bread</i> (Martha Stewart recipe), <i>Broccoli Supreme</i> (made with creme fraiche, parmesan cheese, and nutmeg and piles of butter, from Southern Living mag), <i>Mushroom and Onion Gratin</i> (Gourmet), <i>Honey Ginger-Glazed Carrots</i> (Southern Living), and <i>Brussels-Sprout Chiffonade with Poppy Seeds</i> (this month's Bon Appetit). There are never any left-overs. ((L)) |
Cream of mushroom soup
Green salad with a vinagarette dressing Roast Turkey Gravy Corn Pudding, baked squash, green beans almondine, mashed potatoes as side dishes Stuffing with apples and dried cranberries Cranberry sauce Dinner rolls Pumpkin cheesecake with a gingersnap crust I do all the cooking, but let everyone else clean up! And everything, including the cranberry sauce, is made from scratch. Happy Thanksgiving (Buon Ringraziemento a Tutti!) to all, BC |
I'll be having something German, probably in tje restaurant of my Dusseldorf hotel--I have a flight the next morning to Chicago (and I'm VERY thankful to be flying business class!). Hopefully, they'll have "puten" on the menu.
My family is small and my father didn't like turkey, so we always had capon on Thanksgiving, served with "filling" (not stuffing), Cope's creamed corn and salad with Pennsylvania Dutch hot bacon dressing. My husband's parents are vegetarians, so definitely NO turkey on their table :-) I haven't had a Thanksgiving turkey dinner since 1998 when we cooked two turkeys for a homeless shelter and were told to keep a portion aside for ourselves. |
Oooh that broccoli sounds divine! Please share dln :-). Our very small family of 3 will have turkey, stuffing, creamed cheese mashed potatoes, corn souffle, asparagus with Hollandaise, pan fried sweet potatoes and apple pie.
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Three standards - - new and old, that make our family's Thanksgiving stand out:
from my grandparents (both sides), since as long as I can remember - - Scalloped oysters, also known simply as "oysters" or oyster dressing - - chiefly, oysters, saltines, cream and butter. I'd have to look up the exact proportions, though as I understand it any number of Kentucky variations on this were recently published on www.courier-journal.com (the Louisville newspaper). from my wife's family, for decades, apparently: persimmon pudding. I actually don't know how you make it, but no one in the family seems to be quite able to duplicate the way my mother-in-law makes it. and a new tradition I keep trying to push, because I personally enjoy it a lot: baked acorn squash with pineapple and jalapenos. Exceptional, if I do say so myself. A grown-up alternative to the sweet potatoes and marshmallows on top that everyone insists is "so Thanksgiving". Best wishes, Rex |
Grandmere: I am only able to do the green apple vinaigrette thanks to a specialty food store in St-Rémy the name of which escapes me. I bought a bottle of green apple vinegar when I was there in October. The bottle says it's made of alcohol vinegar, green apple pulp, and apple pectin, so maybe you could concoct something yourself? Anyway, I mix it with a bit of olive oil and it's ready to go. I sometimes add sliced pears to the salad as well.
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I'm flying down to Atlanta at the crack of dawn tomorrow to spend T'giving with my sister, family, and lots of friends, as we do every year. This year the head count is 32!
Everything is cooked from scratch pretty much, except unlike Degas we don't shoot the turkey. We like to think that our two 25-pounders committed suicide. Menu, very unfancy, is hors d'oeuvres: cheese and crackers, Rowena's fabulous spinach dip, and Sheila's meat balls Turkey Stella's stuffing (my sister's mother-in-law's recipe) Suzi's sweet potato casserole (Suzi brings it) rolls Elaine's Cranberry-Orange bread (we make extra because everyone wants to take some home, she modestly said) From-scratch whole-berry cranberry sauce and also the slimy stuff from the can Mixed green salad with nuts and orange sections Mashed potatoes--I do those, and I ought to start NOW for 32+ servings) Green beans with carmelized onions Mom's jello mold (she's no longer with us, but her jello mold lives on) muffins that someone makes and nobody eats Wines, chosen carefully by winey (like a foody, get it?) brother-in-law Suzi's pumpkin pie Elaine's dessert--this year carrot cake Sister's dessert (probably brownies this year) Coffee and digestifs This year I'm breaking Georgia law and bringing down a bottle of Italian Mandarin (tangerine) liqueur--this elixir puts limoncello to shame I subscribe to a lot of cooking magazines, and every year Sis and I have the same conversation: I say I want to try some new recipes, and she says no one wants surprises for Thanksgiving So all we vary are the desserts We too are among the fortunate. |
In the French manner, only nuts and olives to start, along with California sparkling wine and French cider.
Then roasted free-range turkey with stuffing made of bread, onions, celery, mushroom duxelles, and walnuts; mashed potatoes; candied sweet potatoes; Sicilian carrots (made the previous day); green beans with bacon and shallots; cornbread twists; cranberry/raspberry sauce; jellied cranberry sauce; cabbage/pecan/green pea slaw. With that we'll drink a Viognier from California and a Beaujolais. Dessert will be homemade pumpkin pie, Trader Joe's apple pie, and pecan pie. Haven't decided yet on the dessert wine. |
We will have the traditional Thanksgiving foods, plus a plate of Phillipino eggrolls and a few of other Phillipino foods, as my stepmom is Phillipina. It makes for an unusual looking Thanksgiving table, but tasty and a great reflection of our family, which is half American, half Phillipino. I am the child of Dad's first marriage so I am not Phillipina, but I love my relatives from that country. They are more thankful to be American than most people I know.
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PS
Dishes from above that I would like recipes for: Shrimp Bisque Asparagus with orange sauce Mushroom-potato gratin Squash with pineapple and jalapenos Broccoli Supreme Cream of Mushroom soup |
Elaine, my soup recipe is right out of the cookbook, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. (It may be called Hungarian mushroom soup, or something, but I use sour cream in it, and it goes over quite well.) It appears on our Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Years menu every year. We had it at New Year this year, and I figured, what the heck, why not Thanksgiving this time around.)
BC |
Similar thread on the US board to which I replied:
For Thanksgiving (aka The Great Food Orgy), I always bring corn pudding, my sister makes the turkey (deep fried), gravy and dressing, my mother brings sweet potato souffle and mashed potatoes, my aunt brings a cranberry salad, and my sister-in-law brings rolls. Desserts are a free-for-all. Bring whatever you wish. Except for my cousin and his wife. We ask them to please not cook. :) |
Per elaine's request - - well, not really, since to tell you the truth, I don't really use recipes - - and I doubt that I have ever made this stuff the same way twice.
But the better results seem to have relied on a product like this (a gift to me from someone once - - and this is where I got the idea, sort of...) http://www.geocities.com/justysjelly/retailorders.html I have never ordered nor used this particular brand; it was just one of the first things that sounded close when I (just now) did a Yahoo search. Using a jar of that, it's as simple as cut the squash in half, "dot" <i>liberally</i> with butter and some brown sugar (and any spices you like) before baking in a medium oven "until done" (I think that would be about 350 F for an hour). Five pounds of squash would feed 6-12 people (more if you have fifty jillion other dishes from which they are loading up their plates!) - - that would yield at least six cups (maybe more like 8 or 9?) of scooped-out baked squash. Mash it coarsely as you scoop it out. Obviously, you could use any ratio of the squash to the pineapple-jalapeno jelly you want, but I would say be generous with the jelly (i.e., don't push the squash above about 5:1). Typically, bake again after coarsely mixing the two together. Crushed gingersnaps and a little more butter on the top makes for a nice finishing touch. Starting more from scratch, here's a recipe that might be a substitute for the jelly: http://www.cooksrecipes.com/sauce/sw...sh-recipe.html Enjoy! |
Wow - that's some mighty fine food you folks are planning on making.
Elaine, here is one recipe, will post the other one when the LW gets in from milking our goats: Asparagus with Orange Sauce 4 lbs. asparagus 1/2 cup butter 1/2 cup minced shallots 2 1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard 2 2/3 cups fresh orange juice Bring 1" of water to boil in a frying pan. Add asparagus, reduce heat and simmer uncovered until tender. Place asparagus on serving platter and keep warm. Melt 2 T. butter in a sauce pan. Add shallots and cook stirring for 1 min. Add mustard and juice, and boil, uncovered until reduced to 1 1/3 cups (about 4 to 6 min). Reduce heat and add remaining butter all at once, stirring constantly until butter is melted and sauce is smooth. Pour sauce over asparagus and garnish with strips of orange peel, if desired. Serves 10-12 |
Great thread...this reminds me of last year's Thanksgiving which I spent in Florence during a study abroad program. The program hosted a Thanksgiving feast at an Italian restaurant and vowed to serve us all the traditional T'giving food...well, almost. You see, the program provided the ingredients but the staff at this Italian restaurant prepared all the dishes. Obviously, T'giving is not celebrated in Italy so the program coordinator did an 'in-service,' a sort of crash course on cooking a Thanksgiving meal. So, everyone arrives at the restaurant, excited to have a Thanksgiving meal...in Italy! (others even more excited as they lived in apartments, vs a homestay, and hadn't had a decent meal in 2 months).
One by one, the food started coming. Everyone was rowdy and hungry. They brought out the mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, turkey, then...this weird brown sauce thing. Everyone simply stared at it, afraid to taste it or even imagine what was in it. Finally, a brave soul dipped a piece of turkey in it and declared, "Hmmm...this stuff's good!" With that, everyone followed and agreed. As it turns out, our Italian cooks mixed gravy and stuffing creating this strange but tasty concoction. I must say, this was one of the most memorable Thanksgiving celebrations I have ever had! (When it comes to food, those Italians can't go wrong) |
Wow. Sounds like a sumptuous meal at the degas household.
The only dish that somehow intrigues me more than any other is the turkey that's just been shot. I don't recall ever eating anything that's been shot (at least, not that I know of). Happy Thanksgiving. |
If it was shot, I'm assuming it was a wild turkey. Or, is wild turkey the beverage?
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We'll be at our son's home, along with his family and in-laws and our daughter and her family--12 in all.
In spite of the excitement of reading the fall issues of Bon Appetit and Gourmet, we always have many of the same things. This year, our daughter is in charge of hors d'oeuvres, and I hear that she's creating some little cheese tarts, among other things, and is bringing cranberry daiquiris. Then we will have shrimp with our daughter-in-law's mom's wonderful spicy sauce. Rex, we always have scalloped oysters, too. I thought it was a southern tradition, but maybe it's universal! I make it by layering oysters, crumbled crackers, chopped green onions, lots of butter, and adding a little Worchestershire and just a touch of Tabasco, with cream poured over all. (It's baked, of course.) That goes along with smoked turkey, cornbread dressing (not stuffing), spaetzle (some of us have German ancestry), squash casserole and asparagus with cheese sauce (both of which have been on every Thanksgiving table I remember), sweet potatoes,cranberry salad, and mashed potatoes and green beans for the little ones who don't like "mixed up" food. Dessert is always pumpkin pie, apple pie, and something different and new and extragavant. Byrd |
Let me assure you Byrd, "Kentuckiana" (Louisville, and at least a 30 mile circle across the river here in southern Indiana) is PLENTY "suthren".
Or so say all the brethren here. |
Whatever Bob the Nav and Momma Nav are serving. Should be a treat!
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I will have my usual 20 or so guests - I will do a 30 lb turkey with stuffing and a 10 lb ham, I will also do the sweet potatos (yea I can't spell) everyone will bring something with my cousin bringing her to die for pumpkin pies - I have it at my house every year because I want the leftover (after everyone takes home a doggie bag) turkey carcass for my killer soup I make every friday after thanksgiving - of course we will embibe in irish coffees - one of the times I let my daughters partake of my Miltown Irish - excuse the spelling and you all have a great turkey day
lizard |
Craisin, that gravy stuffing concoction sounds mighty yummy :-) IMO. I imagine that dinner was very memorable.
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Hi Degas. I'm not cooking---I'm coming to YOUR house! Sounds delicious, and when is Fodor's going to get up to speed with "scratch and sniff" posts?
It's just our "nucular" family this year, with a pardon to Jimmy Carter. Last year I did Thanksgiving for my mom's extended family of 35, and Christmas for my in-laws and that side, also 35. This year DH is on call for two hospitals and we're staying right here with him. Older son and daughter coming home for the holiday from colleges. I am also bribing all three kids to help me decorate the house for Christmas as my garden club brunch is right around the corner! |
Weightwatchers point-system dinner -- one of my periodic "gotta reduce" weeks, to regain my fighting trim.
We had Thanksgiving in mid-October here in Canada -- but I missed it as I was gorging in France. Hence the Weightwatchers. |
I expect our daughter will provide the traditional fixin's. I'm in charge of cranberries and pumpkin and apple pies. I'll use my grandmother's recipes; our daughter will use her grandmother's china and silver, and my faithful traveling companion and I will celebrate our 45th Wedding anniversary. We were married on Thanksgiving Day in 1959. His parents and mine were also married on Thanksgiving Day.
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My family,12,in all,is now racing over to Degas who rules, after seeing his menu.
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Hi - Happy holidays to all. It seems mashed potato is a big part of all your Thanksgiving Dinners. May I ask if anyone has a "killer" recipe for mash. I'm Australian and I generally steam the potatoes and then mash with equal quantities of cream and sour cream, adding butter with salt and pepper until really creamy and smooth. But I'm always open to ideas from anyone who has something better. I had some once with truffle oil which was really special.
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Hi Daneille--my family likes them rather plain:
I boil them, then place them into the largest container I have for mashing, often have to divide into two or more batches. I salt first, quite a bit more than I salt most things, and then beat in the softened butter with an electric mixer, trying to get all the lumps out. Then I slowly beat in very hot milk until the consistency is right. I keep large batches of mashed potatoes hot in an electric slow cooker ("crock pot"). Before I put the potatoes in there I melt some butter for the bottom and sides of the crock interior to keep potatoes from sticking, then scoop in the potatoes, then float some additional hot milk and butter on the top before covering. If a lot of time goes by I keep checking to make sure they're not drying out, and if they are I add more hot milk. The only variation I've tried over the years is adding in some chive-flavored cream cheese, reducing the butter. |
Lasagna, homemade by my 92 y.o. grandmother who still kicks butt in the kitchen. Meatballs, sausage (maybe braciole) with the lasagna, then salad. Then a little later, the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, and vegetables. We have the turkey because it's traditional, but we really look forward to the first part. That's the deal in our family.
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I'm one who loves fresh food and wants to feel their flavor not altered so I bake my potatoes in halves, preferring, yellow fin or Yukon gold and top a different fresh herb on each half and a dab of butter and bake. The look and smell as you take it out of the oven is wonderful. This is also a great party appetizer.
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I realize many of you have been preparing for turkey day for at least a week. But since I am only having three and serving a turkey breast, my shopping begins tomorrow...
I'll baste the breast with white wine while it roasts :) Probably seasoned with sage and garlic. I think I'll make fennel/sausage/cornbread stuffing How about sweet pots with orange juice/bourbon and cinnamon? And then I'll see if Trade Joe's has any frozen haricots verts left. I'll buy another bottle of pinot noir and call it a day. [A friend is bringing the dessert :D] |
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