degas

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

minimn

Well degas, I'd like to make............reservations! Gotta seat open? Your menu sounds great. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Peg

StCirq

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.

StCirq

apparently my fingers are already on holiday - I meant menu, not mean.

Kayb95

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.)

SuzieC

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.

degas

I knew we forgot something - got to have cranberries!

grandmere

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!

zee123

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

dln

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.

bookchick

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

BTilke

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 &quot;puten&quot; on the menu.
My family is small and my father didn't like turkey, so we always had capon on Thanksgiving, served with &quot;filling&quot; (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.

Judyrem

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.

rex

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 &quot;oysters&quot; 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 &quot;so Thanksgiving&quot;.

Best wishes,

Rex

StCirq

Grandmere: I am only able to do the green apple vinaigrette thanks to a specialty food store in St-R&eacute;my 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.

elaine

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.

Underhill

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.

P_M

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.

elaine

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

bookchick

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