Creeping Up Upon Us - Thanksgiving

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I already bought a few of the items I’ll need for Thanksgiving dinner. We will probably spend it by ourselves this year, and thats fine with both of us. David alread asked me on Saturday if we were going to have his beloved “Turk Bird”, to which I replied, “Of course, what else!”

But since neither he or I like dark meat turkey, I just get a nice, large Turkey Breast. The rest of the meal is traditional, Dressing, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Yams with Brown Sugar, Butter and Pecans, Peas with Pearl Onions, Lime Jello Salad (a family tradition) Cranberry Sauce, Rolls, and I’ll make a Pecan Pie.

I love Thanksgiving Dinner, because nowadays, ( for the last 35 years, what am I talking about!) with the Microwave Oven, the leftovers taste as good on the third day as the first. And I don’t have to cook again for a while, LOL.

I’ve made this dinner so many times now, I could cook it in my sleep. I made my first Turkey Dinner when I was 13 and the adults got toasted on Martinis and I took up the slack, so I’ve been doin it for the last 54 years now!

Eddie
 
Have a Butterball boneless breast in the freezer.  Will probably fix cajun green beans, creamed potatoes, macaroni & cheese, and Sister Shuberts rolls.  I have to work Thanksgiving, black Friday, and Saturday so we will probably do ours Wednesday. 
 
We are going next door

To Donalds cousins, I as usual, must make dressing, everybody wants it, its not complicated, just different, something my Granny Craig started making many years ago, She has been gone 49 years, so you know this recipe is OLD, .I bake a large cake of cornbread, 1 small bag of Pepperidge Farms blue bag stuffing, 1 pound extra sage sausage browned and drained, 1 big onion chopped and about 5 or 6 ribs of celery chopped, saute these in a stick of butter, mix all of these , use poultry seasoning and sage to taste or I use about half a box of Bells Seasoning, add good rich turkey broth until very moist, bake either in muffin tins or a large dish 375 until brown...Aunt Mable added 2 boiled eggs but I don't boil eggs in my house so I don't, She always used raw celery and no onion,those are my additions.Of course, salt and pepper to taste.
 
Upper Midwest traditionalist, here: Turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, bread-based sage stuffing, yams topped with marshmallows, homemade dinner rolls, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pies.

Non-traditional Additions: Lasagna, in honor of my Italian mother, who served it almost as a side dish with nearly every dinner she ever made; ham, because one of the holdovers from my catering days dicatates at least two meat options; one cherry pie for my sister, because it’s her favorite.

Attendees: My sister and her husband, their two boys and families, and yours truly. Sixteen all told.
 
Not sure what we're doing yet. Last year Dad & I were invited next door to our neighbors house, but this year we may go out to eat. Quiet frankly, it does not appeal to me to cook a huge meal anymore, and fight the crowds at the grocery store. I am going to make my mothers buttermilk pies though.

I'm with Laundress on this one, throw a chicken in the oven and be done with it.

Barry
 
I’m with you Hans

NO hard boiled eggs in the dressing, yuk! One year my ex sister in law made the dressing and she put oysters in it, I almost hurled at the table. She was a very good cook most of the time, but that was disgusting.

I like sausage in the dressing sometimes, but since Thanksgiving is so rich anyway, I usually just use generous amounts of celery and onions, and a small can of sliced water chestnuts for a little extra crunch. And I do like a good amount of poultry seasoning too. And I agree, you need to use plenty of butter too for sauteing the celery and onions, it does make a big difference. I also like the Pepperidge Farms Blue bag too. The dressing is almost my favorite dish for Thanksgiving.

Eddie[this post was last edited: 11/2/2018-02:06]
 
I’ll be making my usual items to take to Thanksgiving dinner.
I make halupki, mashed potatoes, and for dessert I’ll take a lemon meringue cheesecake this year.
I despise pumpkin anything so you’ll never see a pumpkin dessert here.
 
I too miss Thanksgiving @ grandmothers house!

 

 

We are hosting this year for family and some extended family (first time in 16 years), I'm told the headcount will be 16, including us.   But I'm not going to kill myself by preparing the entire feast, I'm only planning to cook the bird, gravy, cranberry sauce, roasted garlic mashed potatoes and possibly the dressing.  Guests will bring the remaining dishes, a ham, yam/sweet potato dish, veggies, dinner rolls, desserts, etc.  
 
ARGHHHH!

Holidays means the family is going to want to come snooping around, and you know my policy with family. We should only have to see them at arraignments, trials, and funerals.

I guess I will just have to tell them. "Oh we just can't see you this year, dear." "We will be doing our holidays in the Hamptons."

You think they'll buy it? If so I will be safe, because their parole officer won't let them leave the state.
 
Holidays with friends & family are history

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">I really enjoy reading about all the plans and food items members are making for the holidays. Like Tim/wayupnorth most of my family, my partner and friends are all gone now. During the past few years I celebrated  with a group of friends here in the Desert. They'd invite me to their home for a nice dinner. Last year at this time we were eating at a very good restaurant/bakery. At the end of the meal I offered to order a cake for Thanksgiving. I was in a lot of pain from my back and sat down to wait my turn. The woman behind the counter decided to allow someone who had just walked in to place a large order for take-out food and he proceeded to give detailed instructions on how each item was to be cooked. I was impatient (without making a scene) and told my group I wanted to leave at which time they said some pretty nasty things to me. I offered to call and place a phone order but no luck. Fortunately I drove my own car and left. Since that episode I have been excommunicated from their Thanksgiving and Christmas to-do's. </span>

 

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">I'll be spending both holidays with Maggie & Holly, my two Springer Spaniels and I'll be very happy. It's difficult for me to stand for more than a minute or two so cooking is not a good idea, but there are tons of alternatives. I think Swanson still makes a TV Turkey Dinner. I hope members post lots of photos of their food creations, banquets, as well as their decorations too. </span>

 

<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">A couple of these in or around the kitchen and you'd swear there's a bird in the oven...</span>

twintubdexter-2018110211171104903_1.jpg
 
Joe,

that story makes me sad. Your friends certainly must know what your condition is. Why couldn’t one of them waited to order the cake and you could have paid for it? If this is the way they treat their friends, then who needs them.

You know, there are now many grocery stores and restaurants that sell nice, prepared Thanksgiving dinners, hopefully you can find one online that will be able to sell you enough for just yourself, and maybe leftovers for a day or two.

Or better yet, maybe there is a community center near you that provides a Thankgiving meal for people by themselves. At least that way you’ll have some company.

Your friends should be ashamed of themselves.

Eddie
 
Thanksgiving

I will be going to my brothers house this year. There will only be 8 of us and we can all get along for an afternoon(not much longer!). We are all different in our views politically, socially, ect. but usually can get along and have a good time in short intervals. Since we are about all that are left of the family everybody really tries to get along so getting together a few times a year is a good thing. The "fly in the ointment" will be sports-I am not into sports at all, like the rest of them and I know there will be a football game on the big screen T.V. all afternoon. My sister-in-law will at least make everyone eat at the table but you can hear the game during dinner and everybody heads back to the family room as soon as they are done. I'm trying something new instead of green bean casserole . Fresh green beans, boiled in vinegar with freshly fried bacon. It doesn't work with canned/frozen beans or precooked bacon, but it's light and a little tangy with all the heavy foods.
 
In my area sure the Butterball turkey farms are busy!All of those ghost white turkeys!Then they are pumpted full of chemicals to make them grow!Too me turkey tastes like stringy white cardboard!No wonder why it has to be slathered in gravy and cranberry relish!
 
This year there will only be 5 of us in town for Thanksgiving.  My wife and I decided that since we always host Thanksgiving that this year we're going out for dinner.  We're going to a local supper club that does a buffet every year.  There will be turkey, ham, kielbasa & kraut, and all of the trimmings.  Also, a large salad bar & dessert table.  They do seatings at 10:30, 11:30, 12:45, 2:00, and 3:15.  We are doing the 12:45 seating.
 
Tim, that restaurant sounds good!

Since my sister, her husband, and my oldest nephew and his family are going to Florida (Disney) that week, I'll probably go to Cracker Barrel for Thanksgiving dinner. I've done this for several years (sister away most years), and always been pleased with the food.
 
Am going to a friend's house and was asked to bring Cornbread Dressing, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans and a Cranberry Congealed Salad.

I don't like Sage and use it very sparingly in my cornbread dressing. I do use eggs in the recipe, but not hard boiled eggs.

I have cheated with the cornbread used in the dressing and live near a Cracker Barrel where the manager will save two dozen cornbread muffins for me.

I love a Thanksgiving dinner.
 
My wife works on Thanksgiving (she's a cardiac CCU RN). I should be off but I am on my on call rotation, so if somebody has no heat at home or a store loses a refrig unit then I am one of the first to be called, so Thanksgiving this year will be short and sweet. As for the meal, my wife and I are going to have French dips and au jus with steamed baby red potatoes and a nice chef salad (roast beef instead of ham). Quick and easy. Dessert will be whatever appeals to us at the bakery tables at Safeway or Costco.

My wife knows that I *hate* turkey (and ham) and she's not too fond of it either so we are going for something simple and delicious and we both LOVE French dips. However, when I suggested a taco bar or a pizza buffet (order a bunch from Papa John's) for Thanksgiving last year, which hosted about 12 people, my wife looked at me like I was crazy. She wouldn't have cared if it was just "us" like this year but she wanted to stick with tradition because of the fact that we had guests. I never understood the tradition of a Thanksgiving turkey or Christmas ham.

If I am not dispatched, I will start hanging Christmas lights at home after wifey leaves for work.
 
Chicken Cutlets with Lemon and Parsley, Organic Short Grain Brown Rice Risotto, Steamed Green Beans with Olive Oil and Garlic, and a Romaine Salad with Italian Dressing.

Put the Turkey Down about 7 years ago. Too much Heavy Food for me. I don't like the stuffed gorged feeling anymore.
 
I'll be alone as always.

 

In the background, we hear the sobs of Lord Kenmore, as he ponders his lonely Thanksgiving fate.

 

Right now, I'm thinking I'll probably treat it like "just another weeknight dinner."

 
 
The traditional dinner with the friends I grew up with. So in addition to the roasted turkey, the fried turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, peas, squash and turnips that the host prepares, I will be bringing the sweet potato casserole (no marshmallows), sautéed broccoli rabe, corn pudding, spinach gratin, hot sausage dip, rolls and of course the knives, cutting board, extra paper towels (my big job is to carve the turkeys - you would think the other 7 men at this dinner never saw a knife before.... I also have to bring the coffee. Interesting thing about this dinner - I truly enjoy visiting with all these folks - our parents were friends for many years and we were children together. However, there are two things that irk me. The host insists that every TV in the house are tuned to football and since the dining room opens on to the living room, even during dinner he and his teen age son insist on facing the TV and talking between themselves about the game not participating in any other conversation. The rest of us have resigned ourselves to conducting our own conversation and ignoring what they are doing. Last year it got really fun when he actually told his wife to stop talking so he could pay attention to the game. But since there are 18 of us at the table, we just ignore.

The other thing is that no one believes in serving coffee and dessert. Most of the guests are content to leave the table after the dishes are cleared and go to the living room and drink wine for the rest of the day. - and red wine to boot. I get a headache just thinking about that. Desserts are set on the kitchen island and if anyone wants coffee, they have to make it themselves, cup by cup in the Keurig... one reason I stopped bringing a dessert when I was asked to.

So I gather a group to go for a long after dinner walk. A good way to work off the "turkey torpor"...
 
That is so true...

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">It's very sad that after-dinner coffee seems to be a thing of the past.</span>

 

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">Harriet Craig (Joan Crawford) to housekeeper Mrs. Harold..."Don't you ever intend to serve the coffee? My guests are still waiting!" She was dismissed shortly afterwards.</span>

[this post was last edited: 11/11/2018-17:45]

twintubdexter-2018111116473509647_1.jpg
 
After-dinner coffee is sadly a thing of the past.

I didn't know this...but then the difference between Big Foot and my social life is that Big Foot might actually exist... (And so much for the justification I might use for buying a coffee pot: "I can use it for after dinner coffee if I ever have a candlelight supper!" LOL)

 

I have fond memories of evening coffee on a special occasions. My mother mostly made drip coffee as a during day thing, but on, say, Christmas, we might have a pot of French press coffee in the evening. (It was after dinner in the sense it was after dinner, although not immediately after.)

 

 
 
Not in Our Home

it isn’t! We still have after dinner coffee when we have guests, and for ourselves too. And there’d be snowballs in hell before we’d have the TV on during Thanksgiving Dinner, let alone the damn football game. It doesn’t hurt anyone to observe social graces during a hoilday dinner.

So many people live just like wild animals anymore. They will eat a holiday dinner off of paper plates with plastic utensils. And start to eat before everyone is seated, especially the host and hostess. Thats a no go in our casa!

We have our neice, her husband and their 3 sons for dinner on holidays and a few times throughout the year, and those nephews have perfect manners. They know when they are at Uncle David and Uncle Eddie’s house you put on their best manners. They are now grown up ages 25, 24 an 19, but they’ve always been polite. It’s up to the parents and other relatives to make sure that young people know what good manners are. If the older generation doesn’t care, neither will they and these old niceties will die with us.

Rant over.

Eddie[this post was last edited: 11/11/2018-18:03]
 
The comment about football games reminded me of another annoyance which hit the last time I had a Thanksgiving dinner to go to. (And given how unlovable I am, it could, indeed, be the last time ever I have a Thanksgiving dinner to go to...)

 

In the background, we hear the sobs of Lord Kenmore, as he ponders how unlovable he is.

 

This annoyance was how the dinner was rushed. It had to be over, fast! Because people had to get going and be at some big box retailer when they opened Thanksgiving evening so they could perhaps be one of the lucky 5 people to get the door opener special!
 
Eddie,

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">I meant to imply that serving after-dinner coffee was a nice thing. The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee is comforting and satisfying after any meal.</span>
 

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