I do like the getting together with family and friends but the over abundance of food seems out of place in our modern society. When this country was founded people were hungry and pulled all their resources to make a feast. I know there are some poor people who this tradition means alot too ..for they may have even more reasons to be thankful which would enclude a special meal that isn't always available. As for the rest of us it is just an other excuse to eat. I'd rather eliminate the eating and just hang with friends and family.Traditionally As a family we either pull together and do potluck style or the job falls to the one who isnt working. As far as food I am thinking less could be more. I havn't figured out what that is suppose to look like because that damn turkey is so ingrained in our psyche. I could I NOT want a little turkey?

For me...to provide a service such as handing out food boxes to the poor would give me a much better appreciation of the occassion. That's the way I would mess with him. ( the turkey)
That said I think I would like to try a deep fat fried turkey someday .:yum:


http://www.fabulousfoods.com/index.html

http://www.fabulousfoods.com/cards/thanks/tg10sm.jpg

I'm usually in charge of Thanksgiving when we're with my family, even though we're at my parent's house. This year, I think the menu will be:

Turkey (done on the grill, by my husband and father)
Gravy
Mole sauce
Mashed potatoes
Cornbread dressing with garlic and jalapeño
Cranberry-walnut relish
Green beans with almonds
Roasted brussel sprouts
"Squashage" = sauteed butternut squash with raisins, pecans, fennel, sage,
chili flakes and garlic & onions

Pumpkin pie or sugar-free pumpkin panna cotta

My mom and I have to watch the sugars and starches. Mom is also a vegetarian, so everything but the turkey and gravy is meat-free.
I'm debating internally whether to just do two boneless breasts, or a whole turkey. There will be five adults and two kids eating meat, and leftovers aren't really appreciated. I guess we'll decide when we get there.

We're very traditional, I think the kids would revolt if I changed anything on the menu. The only thing I mess with is the stuffing, I still haven't found a keeper. I make it all myself. While we eat, everyone talks about what they are thankful for.

Roast Turkey w/stuffing
Turkey gravy
Green bean casserole (usual thing with cream of mushroom soup and onion rings)
Mashed potatoes
Candied yams (steamed, then sliced and broiled with a syrup of brown sugar and orange juice drizzled over)
Green salad
Cranberry sauce (dumped straight from the can)
Dinner Rolls
Pumpkin and apple pie w/whipped cream if desired
Ice cream
Sparkling cider


Now on Christmas Day, we do something totally different but it has also become a tradition. I only cook one meal, so we start out with munchies early in the day.

Munchies - assorted olives, cheeses, sausages, chips, raw veggies and dips

Steaks (marinaded with my patented soy sauce/garlic powder/celery salt marinade) on the grill - filet mignon and/or T-bones
Caesar Salad w/aged parmesan
Mushrooms sauteed in garlic butter
Corn on the cob
Dinner rolls
Pie - usually pecan and pumpkin
Whipped cream
Sparkling cider

My family usually ends up having the traditional Thanksgiving meal (turkey, jello salad, yams, all that), but afterward... the Iranian part of us comes out and the leftover turkey gets shredded up with peas and olives and mayonnaise and made into this DELICIOUS lumpy stuff called... salad olivea? I think that's how to spell it.

It's basically Persian turkey lumps with olives on top. Yummm. :)

That salad sounds yummy Novae. :yum:

My ukraninan friend would make Perogies for sure. Probably potato and cabbage rolls along with the turkey. :)

That would be no debate for me. The dark meat is the more tender and flavorful meat. No contest. Do the whole bird.

That does sound good. Do you have the recipe? Or, an idea of how much of this and how much of that to use?

I would agree, but I am also feeding a vegetarian who doesn't like to see a whole bird being carved... and doesn't want too many leftovers in the fridge.

Can you carve it in the kitchen and bring a platter of meat out to the table?

It's an open kitchen, leading right to the dining table. :neutral: Perhaps I'll do a whole bird, but break it down to parts first. That will also make the cooking time easier -- put the dark meat on the grill first. What do you think? Anyone ever cooked a turkey in parts?

Now, don't get confused here folks, but this sounds awfully like what we Brits call Russian Salad, and the Russians call "Olivier" ... (we got it from the Russians who got it from a French chef called Olivier, I think). Anyways ...
Use leftover cooked vegetables (or dice (small) cooked carrots/potatos, cook peas/sweetcorn, spring onions (syboes), whatever you can get your hands on for the veg. Dice the turkey (or ham, or beef, or garlic sausage, you get the picture) small, mix the lot together with enough mayonnaise (or garlic mayonnaise or salad cream). It's lovely. Don't use beetroot or it'll all go very red.
Cooking is my forte as you can see :3_eyes:

Thanks, limey!

Thanksgiving dinner is always a bit different b/c my mother doesn't follow her recipes exactly and often forgets how she does things. We're pretty open about tryin new stuff but there has to be the turkey, cornbread stuffing (mostly my g-ma's recipe and then whatever changes mom makes), giblet gravy (even the year my parents and nanny got drunk and ate the giblets, they went out the next morning and scrounged for some), the contents of the rest of the meal fluctuates depending on what we want to cook.

Oh, man, this is going to be my first meatless thanksgiving...


Being a southern family, we always have DRESSING, not stuffing... typical southern thanksgiving dinner 'n all.

We're none too rigidly fixed about our menu, so long as it is, sine qua non, a feast.

We once hit an Indian place a couple Thanksgivings ago for tandoori turkey. It was plenty good, but somehow for me didn't quite hit the spot; it didn't seem Thanksgiving-ish enough somehow.

But a whole roast turkey is best for carcass-pickin' to make turkey & dressing sandwiches until you're tired of the things a week later, with a good tablespoon's worth of cranberry jelly laid in. These work best with bread-and-sage dressing, and we always use whole wheat bread for this.

The stripped turkey carcass is used to make chicken stock. I often concentrate this stuff well enough for it to be softly gelatinous.

We like cornbread dressing just fine, and could probably do something pretty marvelous based on quinoa, but sage/bread dressing still tops them all. Chopped pecans can go well in cornbread stuffing, if you have any left after a good'n'proper pecan pie. A large enough turkey can have a worthwhile amount of two kinds of stuffing, one in each cavity, with any extra baked, covered in a dish. Stuffing is best when it is quite moist with butter and broth.

Our family likes both kinds of cranberry jelly, and served 'em both together. The canned stuff -- and we like to lay it on with the can's rings visible on the jellied burgundy-colored cylinder -- suits sandwich-making best for obvious reasons.

The wife thinks candied or marshmallow-topped and candied yams/sweet potatoes should be a dessert dish. For me, they're just how you have them done up extra special. She, uh, rather lacks a sweet tooth, from my point of view.

She won't have anything with mayonnaise in it. Mmmmmooookayyyyy.... it's a quirk. Sounds like carrot-and-raisin salad is not a likelihood, then. I think real mayonnaise isn't the stuff to use to make C&R salad, anyway: it's better using Miracle Whip. Unless the secret with the mayo is to add sugar to sweeten.

Soups we don't usually do for this meal, as we'd rather fill up on something more chewy; it being a feast, favorite vegetables are used, which usually means peas unless somebody just has to make green bean casserole, roofed with Tater Tots. You can get more Tater Tots into a casserole if you peg 'em into it endwise rather than just pouring them on top. The garlic-flavored kind are worth using. Doubtless some minced garlic mixed into the concentrated cream of mushroom soup and the green beans would work as well.

Mashed potatoes, of course. Baked sweet potatoes one way or another, those too. Bread and butter, or dinner rolls, and probably as special and nice as may be -- King's Hawaiian Rolls, or something.

Among the crudite`s, celery sticks and black olives are perennial.

Desserts could be anything, and usually several things to choose from. Of pies, there should at least be pumpkin. Mince is usually a given. I've gone as far as lemon meringue pie with graham cracker crumb crust (homemade is the only way proper for a great feast!), making it at the friends' house we'd come to Thanksgiving dinner for, as its meringue does not travel well -- vibrations break it down into a sweet, egg-white fluid again -- a bit of this does nice things for the crumb crust, but too much turns pretty sloppy and the sugar content makes it sticky too. Favorite cakes may also put in their appearance. Chocolate Vienna Torte, or a rather formidable thing with a coffee-flavored cream frosting that I haven't made recently enough to recall the name of, but oh so delicious.