It's That Time Of Year Again! Who's Cooking And What ?

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launderess

launderess

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T minus eight days before Thanksgiving cooking starts in earnest. Who's making what and or where are you having dinner?

We're going to family in New Jersey, but will be baking a few things to take along for dessert. Might stop at Cheesecake Factory on way down (don't have a location in Manhattan yet), since everyone loves cheesecake, and theirs beats Junior's hands down.

Every year we "kids" try to convince our moms/aunts and others to just let's go out and or have things catered. Looks we get back are "wash your mouth out"! *LOL* God Bless their souls; long as they have an ounce of strength these ladies are cooking Thanksgiving dinner for their families, end of story.

Saving grace is they all know it is us "kids" that will be doing the washing up and so forth; as we have done since able to reach the sinks.
 
Going to my nephew's place in Minneapolis. His brother's family will be there as well as my sister, brother-in-law and myself--fifteen all told. We'll have turkey, ham, all-the-usual-suspects side dishes and, in honor of my mom, who served it with every Sunday/holiday meal, lasagna. My sister jokes that she considered lasagna a side dish.

I'm bringing the lasagna and several dozen homemade dinner rolls. Gotta have buns to make sandwiches with the leftover turkey and ham.

And, fortunately, there will be no awkwardness. Through some miracle of genetics and disposition we all get along, LOL.
 
Like Frigilux

I'm fortunate that my large and extended family all gets along.

For food--the usual turkey, ham, cornbread dressing with and without oysters, green beans (not the casserole), sweet potatoes with the marshmallows, probably yellow squash. Rolls. A whole lot of different finger foods, deviled eggs, celery with various stuff in the trough. Ambrosia salad. No cakes, but several pecan pies with pecans off of our own properties, maybe a fruit pie. A particular strawberry-and-cream cheese cold dish with pecans in it. Lots of sweet tea and hot coffee.

Regardless of who's hosting, menu stays about the same. Sometimes a gumbo thrown in to remind us we're from Louisiana.
 
Everybody's scattered or has to work this year.  We have no plans. 

 

I might do something here for a friend or two that may join us.  Either the smallest turkey I can find, done to perfection in the vintage GE roaster oven like my first experience using it last year, or I'm also thinking of ordering a small capon and putting it on the GE rotisserie.  I think its motor, gearing, and cavity are perfectly capable of handling a 7 lb. bird, or maybe even one a little larger.

 

With the big oven freed up, I could easily do a dozen popovers in it, along with some side dishes.
 
I’ll be cooking Thanksgiving dinner for David and I and my brother will be joining us. My sister lives about 400 miles away and won’t be here. I miss the holiday dinners at Moms. She cooked and my brother and i would do the dishes, our sister would always find some way out of helping. It’s been 15 years now since we had a Thanksgiving with Mom.

I always prepare the same things that we all like. Traditional and not adventurous. Since we don’t like dark meat turkey I’ll be roasting a whole turkey breast instead. And we’ll have mashed potatoes, gravy, dressing, yams with brown sugar and pecans, NO MARSHMELLOWS, peas with pearl onions, cranberry sauce (jellied out of the can) rolls and Lime Jello Salad. It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without this jello salad. It was my Dad’s favorite that his Mom made and when he married my Mom she learned how to make it, then I learned. My family has had this salad at every Thanksgiving of my life. I know, many people equate jello salads with “low rent”, but its delicious and when David and I got married he loved it too and looks forward to it.

I’ll be making an Apple Pie and Pecan Pie too for dessert.
Eddie

ea56-2017111500271006956_1.jpg
 
Eddie!  That's not exactly the same lime Jell-O recipe my mom used to make (I think hers called for cream cheese), but I know what you mean.  I love that stuff and could eat the whole mold in short order.

 

I've adapted it for a cranberry version (instead of pineapple) that uses lemon Jell-O instead of lime, which is also tough for me to stop eating. 
 
I know Ralph! While most people will go for a turkey sandiwich latter on in the evening, for me its a dish of Lime Jello Salad. Its the only time all year that I make it. It’s rich, so a small seving is plenty. I cut the 9”x9” dish of jello salad into 12 or 16 squares, so it goes a long way.

And we eat the Thanksgiving dinner leftovers for at least 3 or 4 days after Thanksgiving, thanks to the wonders of the microwave oven, leftovers can taste almost like the first time around.
Eddie
 
I'll almost certainly be alone...like usual.

 

In the background we hear the sounds of Lord Kenmore's sobs.

 

It will almost certainly be a meal like I have most nights.

 
 
I know, many people equate jello salads with “low rent”

 

Who cares what others might think of that salad?!? You like it. You want it. That's all that matters.


 

Plus...that recipe has family history. I'm sort of envious of that sort of history!
 
Luby's Cafeteria if they're open. My Dad is coming off of his treatments this week so it will be a celebration. If not Lubys, I'll fix ham and beans with cornbread, onion on the side. My Dad won't hardly eat turkey. Will definitely fix a couple of buttermilk pies, one for us and one for the neighbors.....diabetes in a pie tin, only make it once a year.
 
"don't car^ve de turkey vitdhout me" (Avalon)

oh, no need, I'm cooking.

Roast Turkey, brined in apple cider, cloves, oranges, cinnamon stick, bay leaves, etc.
Sourdough It.sausage/sage/onion/butter/celery stuffing
Fresh green beans with almonds
Mashed potatoes, home made gravy with dry marsala or sherry
Cranberry sauce, whole, and jellied
Home made rolls
A trifle made with pumpkin, Lotus Bischoff ginger cookie buiscuts, and fresh whipped cream
A guest is making cheesy potatoes because they want them, and a yam dish of some sort.
Of course anyone not invited somewhere is welcome.
One year our daughter drove clear out to Dearborn to pick up her date. That was thankfully a short lived relationship. You have to let them error on their own at times. He was a very young guy without direction yet. She was a college junior.
 
Avalon!

Was up until wee hours watching Avalon on MOVIES! last night. Such a great film.

Thanksgivings as one remembers of old; plenty of family, tables set up everywhere to accommodate including the "kid's table".

And of course the *ahem* spirited debates between family members. We kids paid that action no mind, we were just happy getting our bellies full on the one day we could eat all we wanted without being lectured.

Avalon was robbed by not getting the Oscar that year. One of the best American films showcasing family life and dynamics. Especially for those who were first or perhaps second/third generation immigrants.

Have also been meaning to take a trip to Baltimore and see those streets of row houses.
 
LordKenmore...if I didn't have my dad I would have no family. Your post made my heart sink. I hope there are friends you can be with.

I will probably cook the usual. Turkey breast, mashed potatoes, stuffing and other assorted veggies. It's always a good excuse to fire up the Whirlpool portable quietwash afterwards. Dessert will be some sort of pie or pies.

Without mom and my brother it doesn't hold the same significance anymore....but at the same time makes me appreciate all the more what I do have left.
 
I'm planning to go to my sister's near Toledo, as they are going to be home this year (they usually travel). They've redone the kitchen, dining room and family room, so are staying home this year. She says she's having turkey, dressing and the other usual item. I'll probably take rolls I get at GFS, and perhaps a coconut cream pie if the restaurant I get them from has any when I'm there.
 
As usual, my sister, her partner and I will be with friends we have had since childhood. Our parents were friends and started the tradition of having certain holidays together - and were always included when we had our aunts and uncles. Now with all aunts and uncles gone, and my cousins scattered across the country, this is our new tradition.

The menu will be two turkeys, one roasted and one fried, and while the host family will make a few sides (bread dressing, mashed rutabaga and peas), other guests contribute. The host's sister makes mashed potatoes, carrots, squash and a homemade green bean casserole (actually quite good). I will make the sweet potatoes, broccoli rabe (I am Italian after all), creamed spinach, corn pudding, my mother's sausage and rice dressing (from her Neapolitan mother) and an apricot jello salad (from Cook's Country and excellent with turkey or ham), my sister's partner makes the cranberries and I usually get a panicked call from the host's sister on Tuesday that they need another pie and dinner rolls - so that's already ordered. Oh, and I also provide the hot sausage dip and Fritos Scoops for one of the appetizers. Very much in demand and very rich - a little goes a long way.
 
Ralph and I are going to our friends Joe and Mary Ellen for dinner. They invite an extended family for the festivities at Thanksgiving and Christmas and have been doing this for years. It's fun for everyone. Then a visit with other neighbors for a nice drink or two. I do have to come up with a unique appetizer.
Harry
 
LordKenmore...if I didn't have my dad I would have no family. Your post made my heart sink. I hope there are friends you can be with.

 

Unfortunately, no. I'm pretty socially isolated, and really don't have anything more than very casual friends. If I have even those...


 

More sobbing is heard in the background, as Lord Kenmore ponders his lonely existence.

 

 
 
What one does not like about the holiday season

Is the rushing about, and that includes Thanksgiving.

There is something to be said one supposes for being the hostess/host and thus not having to drive/hit the road. Even going into New Jersey is becoming a bother more and more. Don't mind drive down as much, it is just coming back. Especially late after one has had plenty of good food and drink. You want to just have a sit or lie down, not deal with the Garden State Parkway. *LOL*
 
I have to work

Thanksgiving, so I'm out of luck, Donalds family eats at 6 and I have to be at work at 6, so I think I will go to the K and W cafeteria on my way to work.Im not going to have time to cook .
 
Well Launderess those are the two times in the year in NJ I actually like to be on the road. Thanksgiving and Christmas day. The two days it becomes a virtual ghost town where I am. Wish it was the other 363 days also. LOL.
 
You can have it! *LOL*

Try to avoid Route 1/9, GSP or NJP are alright further away from Manhattan one gets. *LOL*

Coming back at night is when things get backed up. Try waiting until late as possible, but guess everyone else has same idea.... Oh well, at least there is good coffee from WaWa.
 
Great Peanut Butter Cookies!

We're having our annual bazaar this weekend in my parish. My contribution, for the past several years, has been around 300 or so peanut butter cookies. Though cakes are really more my pleasure, cookies are not only much easier to bake, but also easier to divide and sell in individual baggies.

Fannie Farmer's cookbook was sorely out of date when Knopf hired Marion Cunningham to update it for our time. She did, with new recipes and ingredients and turned it into a best-seller again. Ms. Cunningham followed it up with the Fannie Farmer Baking Book, from which this recipe is taken.

As it states, "My favorite peanut-butter cookie, thin and crisp, with the good taste of butter and peanut butter". I'll add that another plus for this recipe is that it's relatively inexpensive on a per-cookie basis. The recipe below states in the book that it makes about 120 cookies. Because I have a Bosch Universal, I triple this recipe and it works equally well. This also freezes very well. If you don't have a powerful mixer like the Bosch, the single recipe is just as tasty!

"16 tablespoons (2 sticks or 1 cup) butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
1 cup peanut butter, creamy or chunk-style
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 350F. Beat the butter until creamy, then slowly add the brown and granulated sugars, and continue beating until well blended. Add the eggs and beat until smooth and light, then add the peanut butter and mix well. Pour the flour into the peanut-butter mixture, then sprinkle on the baking soda and salt. Beat until all ingredients are well mixed.

(I'm assuming you know how to form PB cookies on the sheets). Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the edges are slightly brown in color. Remove from the oven and transfer to racks to cool."

johnrk-2017111522511902681_1.jpg

johnrk-2017111522511902681_2.jpg
 
" Donalds family eats at 6"

Our family has had standing sit down time of 3PM ever since can remember. By 6PM am getting my second, third or fourth trip around the table, that and or maybe hitting the dessert/coffee table.

As a teenager, young adult 3PM suited (it seemed to be rather unanimous in our street), as wanted to head out to visit with friends or "hang out" so an early meal was fine.

It was also accepted practice for myself and peers that later in the day on Thanksgiving was ok to pay calls on friends. Something one never did of course when they were likely to be having a meal. Family together was likely to be discussing events of the day and other matters not fit for outside ears. So well brought up people steered clear until "cake and coffee" time.

Being as all this may am hearing more and more people are either catering or just going out to eat. Maybe this is a NYC thing, and or reflects the smaller families and or single/two person households that are a growing trend.
 
Growing up, Thanksgiving was always--always--at more or less regular dinner time. I was really surprised when I found out about having it in the afternoon--at that afternoon might be more common than dinner time. I have no idea why we did the way we did it for so many years.


Being as all this may am hearing more and more people are either catering or just going out to eat.

 

It's probably not just NYC. I'm not sure how many people go out here...but I sure know some restaurants are open, and some of those are actively trying to get Thanksgiving business.


[this post was last edited: 11/16/2017-01:05]
 
Hans, if you want me to fix you a plate I will bring it to you. Can't imagine having to endure the nursing home food at the "Cane and Walker".
 
My parents, youngest sister & brother-in-law, oldest sister & nephew will be at our house.  There will be 8 people at the table for 5pm supper.  We usually have ham & scalloped potatoes because my wife dislikes turkey.  Mom brings the pies, and my sisters will bring various sides and /or salads. 

 

We started having Thanksgiving at our home in 2000 when my Grandma Baumann was no longer able to do it.  It gives me a great opportunity to haul out the Cunningham & Pickett "Norway Rose" dinnerware that I love so much.

 

All of the grandparents are gone now, but the great memories will always be in my heart. 
 
Norway Rose

is beautiful--a friend of mine has it.

I ended up doing the same thing after my mama died and I ended up hosting about a half dozen of her surviving siblings after she passed in 1999. I kept that up until the last of them died in their nineties.

But aren't we all so very blessed to have memories! I treasure mine.
 

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