Thanksgiving: anything new this year?
November 12th, 2012 | 
Author: I am starting to think about our Thanksgiving menu and was wondering what you have planned to serve.
At this moment I know we will have:
some type of nibble foods: I only know it will not be very rich so as not to fill up
turkey
bread dressing or stuffing,
fiery sweet potatoes (went over well last year),
mashed potatoes
cranberry relish
some type of veggie
beet, fruit and greens salad or, I am toying with the idea of trying a raw kale salad (I have never had it, but have read great reviews)
pies and/or cake
any suggestions?
Posted in * Recipe Requests
Oooh, Fruffy! What time is dinner?? LOL! Sure sounds good. I’m still trying to decide desserts, too. Definitely pumpkin pie. And I don’t make it. We get a Marie Callendar pie. They’re delicious and I don’t have to do anything but stick it in the oven. I’m trying to decide on apple cake, raspberry trifle or something chocolate. Or my mother’s graham cracker pudding. To tide people over before dinner, I’m thinking of a relish tray with a dip and some sweet and spicy nuts (cashews and pecans).
There will only be 5 of us this year. Our menu is:
Turkey
Dressing (new recipe made in a crockpot)
Mashed Potatoes
Gravy
Noodles (homemade)
Corn Casserole (new this year)
Carrots, glazed
Pineapple Casserole
Cranberry Sauce (new recipe)
Yeast Rolls (my mother’s recipe)
I can make most of the side dishes up ahead of time and stick them in the oven while the bird is resting. I just can’t wait. I love to smell the turkey roasting.
Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Everything sounds delicious, Fruffy and Patti! I am hosting 19 this year so will stick to my traditional menu, with everyone bring a little-bit-of-something. I however, am toying with adding a Sweet Potato Casserole with a brown sugar-pecan topping. The recipe uses yams rather than sweet potatoes, which I think is interesting, considering it is called sweet potato casserole! LOL For appetizers I am simply doing a block of cream cheese with a red pepper relish on top (with crackers) and a veggie tray, because I’ll use the veggie tray for the rest of the weekend! My mom is the amazing pie gal, so she is bringing pumpkin pie and apple pie… I can’t wait!
Well I only found out today that I will be hosting Thanksgiving dinner. It’s going to be an Orphan’s dinner for anyone who’s alone. So far it’s my niece, a couple of her college friends (I expect that number to go up), my Dad and 3 others. I haven’t thought much beyond buying a turkey so this list will grow. I’d be really interested in the fiery sweet potato recipe and the crockpot stuffing if Fruffy and Kristen would share them.
Nibbles: Cheese/crackers, relish tray
Turkey
stuffing
potatoes
green bean casserole
at least two more vegetable type dishes
pumpkin lust pie
I think at least one guest is a vegetarian so I’ll make mushroom thyme gravy.
My list will probably grow and if someone offers to bring pie I won’t make any. LOL
here is the recipe for the Fiery Sweet Potatoes with my comments and modifications. The first time I made them they were NOT fiery, but had an intriguing spice combination.
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Fiery Sweet Potatoes NYTimes November 10, 2009
Time: About 2 hours
THE Thanksgiving sweet potatoes
5 pounds sweet potatoes (generally called jams in the USA)
1 cup coconut milk
1-3 tablespoon Thai red curry paste
1/4 to 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, divided
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
1 teaspoon salt.
1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Bake potatoes on a baking sheet until very soft, about 1 hour. When cool enough to handle, peel and mash.
2. In a small saucepan, heat coconut milk with curry paste over low heat. Mix coconut milk mixture, half the sugar, half the butter, and salt into potatoes. Keep warm until ready to serve, or cover and refrigerate up to two days.
3. At least 30 minutes before serving, heat oven to 425 degrees. Put potatoes in a baking dish, cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Uncover potatoes, dot with remaining butter and sugar and broil until brown and crusty on top, checking often to prevent scorching.
Yield: 10 to 12 servings.
First time I made them I used 1 generous tbsp. red curry, but could have used more. Skipped the topping: butter and brown sugar.
Oh well I thought I had figured out how to copy and paste without getting all that strange stuff to come along, but obviously I did not. May be our webmaster might tell us how to do it so we don’t get all these extras
Golly, I think I’ll track you folks down and show up for dinner! Sounds great! We may go out again this year since there will only be the three of us. My body has just not been cooperating the past couple of weeks. That could change in the next week though. Love the house smelling like roasting turkey, baking rolls, etc. We always have homemade noodles on Thanksgiving too like Patti. Mom was always the best noodle lady, but she refuses to even try it anymore so I now do the homemade noodles. Here is the Crockpot Stuffing recipe that we like. I do leave out the mushrooms as too many are antimushroom…
Moist Poultry Dressing
Really good and moist! Will use again and again. I did not use the variations, halved the amount of pepper and used only one can of chicken broth, which was plenty. Oh, and I used some dried parsley since I didn’t have fresh and forgot to buy it.
Ingredients
4 1/2 Ounces -2-cans Sliced Mushrooms, drained
2 Cups Celery Ribs, chopped
2 Medium Onions, chopped
1/4 Cup Minced fresh Parsley
3/4 Cup Margarine(1/4-3/4 C)enough to flavor bread
13 Cups Cubed day old bread
1 1/2 tsp Salt
1 1/2 tsp Sage
1 tsp Poultry Seasoning
1 tsp Dried Thyme
1/2 tsp Pepper
2 Eggs
14 1/2 Ounces Can of Chicken Broth( enough to moisten bread) might need another can
Directions
In large skillet, sauté mushrooms, celery, onions and parsley in margarine until vegetables are tender.
Toss together bread cubes, salt, sage, poultry seasoning, thyme and pepper. Add mushroom mixture.
Combine eggs and broth and add to bread mixture. Mix well.
Pour into greased slow cooker. Cook on Low 5 hours or until meat thermometer reads 160 degrees. (Gail uses a crock pot liner and so did I)
Variations:
Use 2 bags bread cubes for stuffing. Make one mixed bread ( white and wheat) and the other corn bread cubes
Add ½ tsp. Dried Marjoram to Step 2
Made the stuffing again this morning for a dinner. Thought it was a bit spicey this time. Not sure if I mismeasured something or what. I generally don’t add the full amount of pepper in this kind of recipe, but I thought it was a bit much. Everyone else thought it was great, but I will cut back on something next time…just have to figure out what. I think it was either the poultry seasoning, sage or thyme….. None left anyway! The homemade noodles are always a hit anyway. Glad I got up early and got them together.
Thanks so much for the recipes. I like to stuff my bird with vegetables to add moisture and flavor so an easy stuffing is a must. The yams sound good, sweet but not too sweet. For anyone faced with vegetarian guests this year here is a recipe for vegetarian gravy anyone will love. I think I got it from Food 52 website. It was very popular last year so I plan to make it again.
Mushroom Thyme Gravy
Serves 6
1/3 cup dried mushrooms (shitake or mixed)
2 cups vegetable stock
3 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 tablespoon minced shallot
3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 cup light cream
1 tablespoon sherry
1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme
salt & pepper
Bring vegetable stock to a boil. In a small bowl pour stock over mushrooms. Let soak for 20 minutes.
Remove mushrooms from bowl, setting the stock aside for later. Mince or thinly slice the mushrooms.
In a medium saucepan melt the butter. Add the minced shallot and saute for 5 minutes over medium heat until softened.
Add the flour to the butter/shallot mixture stirring constantly. Cook for a 2 minutes.
Gradually add 1 1/2 cups of the reserved vegetable stock(leaving mushroom sediment out), stirring well to incorporate after each addition. Cook over medium heat until thickened.
Add the reserved mushrooms, soy sauce, cream, sherry & thyme to the gravy. Cook for a few more minutes until heated through and thickened to desired consistency. Season to taste with salt & pepper.
Fruffy, thank you so much for posting the sweet potato recipe. I love anything with coconut milk and make a sweet potatoes recipe using it too, but I just love the “kick” your recipe has. Not having sweet potatoes for T-giving, but I sure will be making your recipe for Christmas, if not before.