Thanksgiving!

Baked Acorn Squash.

Cut the squash in 1/2, scrape out the squishy stuff and rinse well. Turn cut side down in a baking dish with 1/2 in water...bake for 1 hr @375F Take from oven, drain water, flip acorns and fill hollow with butter & brown sugar (as much or as little as you want) Bake again at 350F until everything is melty and mushy.

Yummmmmmmm.......

Thanksgiving

I took Thanksgiving as my family holiday about 5 years ago. I do make a wild rice dish that's very yummy. I did it to add more to the vegetarian dishes cause we have 1 vegetarian in the family. The recipe calls for wild rice, slived almond, green onions, mushrooms and chicken broth. Very easy, but needs to bake for a long time til all the chicken broth is absorbed. I usually do it the day ahead to free up the oven. Everything else is pretty ordinary I like it having the staples. Turkey Stuffing not in the turkey Wild Rice Pilaf mashed potatoes gravy (I make the best gravy) Grandma's Oklahoma State Fair rolls (I make these ahead too) Steamed broccolli and carrots Jellied Cranberry sauce pumpkin pie apple pie chocolate cake (leftover usually from husband's birthday on the 25th) the family loves having the cake option Sometimes carrot cake

I'm sure I forgot something there's always a lot of food... like it should be right?!

Lynne

Thanksgiving

Oh that sounds wonderful! When I was a kid my Dad always had an acorn squash around, now that I am an adult and living in the South I never see them! Well, I went to a pumpkin patch Friday with my playgroup and they had acorn squashes there I didn't know how to cook it so I didn't buy one :( Now I will go back and get one! Thank you for sharing!

Lori K.

OK Here is our tradition: a mix of my Southern husband and my Yankee upbringing!

Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, sweet potato casserole to die for with pecans, brown sugar and marshmallows (email me for recipe), cranberries, cornbread stuffing, yeast rolls, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, banana cream pie and for the Yankee side of me we have shrimp cocktail, chips and onion dip, pickle plate, nuts, cheese and crackers, fruit and nut or pumpkin bread for hors d'oeuvres. And of course I scrapbook the pictures of the table etc. hehee.

Hope this gives you some ideas! :)

Lori K.

Jenn, we are pretty traditional around here. Turkey, dressing,gravy,mashed potatoes and some yams for those who like that,green beans,corn and rolls,cornbread. Cranbery sauce is a must and I have a good cranberry relish recipe. Our biggie I guess, is my Great-grandmother's sausage dressing. We always have pumpkin pie and a jello salad. We have the white grape juice instead of wine and everyone goes into a stupor after that! LOL My DD has a SO that dosen't care for pumpkin pie so I have been having (for the past three years) a hommade cheesecake for him. (Susan W, that recipe is in your book from the getaway , absolutely the best I have ever seen. Came from one of my patient's grandmother years ago.) As you can see, we do get into the eating part! LOL I love the way the house smells of baking all day as the Macy's parade is heard throughout the house and then later, the football games. We do love the holiday get togethers

Sabrina :-)

My mom does most of the cooking, but I personally am not allowed to attend family dinners without bringing a Banana Split Pie that was a recipe handed down to me by my grandmother. I'm not usually a big banana person, but this recipe is delicious (and fattening!) Everyone loves it!

Selena Louisiana

That sounds wonderful!!

Yea, I like the staples too. My brother's vegetarian so I've tried adding a lot for him but he's not always gauranteed to show up.

Thanks that all does sound wonderful. Can you send me the sweet potato recipe? I also want to try pecan pie if anyone has a good recipe for that... :-)

I know. I love the house on Thanksgiving too. I've started a 'Thanksgiving Journal' since taking over and I make everyone present write something they're thankful for. Then I recap with everyone who was present, what we had, and the movie we watched after dinner.

I LOVE the holidays!! :-)

OK, I've been working in the kitchen all day with DH (trying to finish painting and touch-up of the cabinets, installing knobs and handles, putting up new lighting - fixtures & recessed) No cooking for me today - bologna sandwich for lunch and fish sandwich and fries from the golden arches!! All this talk about Thanksgiving is making me hungry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My brother and his wife asked us a couple months ago about doing something different for Thanksgiving dinner this year. We are going to have a seafood extravaganza!! We will have fried fish, cheese grits, hush puppies, fries, shrimp, scallops, oysters, etc.....

But I'll be thinking about Christmas dinner by the time Thanksgiving comes - Turkey, ham, dressing, mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, squash casserole, giblet gravy, cranberry salads, apple salad, pumpkin pies, meringue pies, pecan pies ---gotta go to bed before I start defrosting that turkey in my freezer!!!!!!!!!!

who started this??

--

**Patty H in Florida**

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.comTRASHTRASHmhetrick@se.rr.comTRASHtake out the TRASH

Pages done in 2003: 31

Very traditional here, turkey, homemade gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn with butter sauce, peas with butter sauce, rolls, whole cranberry sauce, black olives, sweet potatoes, baby carrots with ranch dip, chex mix, deviled eggs, pumpkin pie, chocolate pie with graham cracker crust, and chocolate cheesecake.

Amy :) AZ

Thanksgiving

Oh I can't forget the black olives for the kids to put on their fingers!

Lynne

OH .. my favorite.. I liked the recipe from Mommy Razz.. but I have also fixed them in my microwave.. I cut them in half, scoop out the stuff... butter the cut side and a little in the hollow, and salt and pepper... micro on high for about 5 to 7 minutes... I test them with a fork.. if the fork goes in easily they are done............yum yum. Hugs, Neets, Memere Neets, Anita Connecticut, USA

Thats me too!! Hubby is from WV and I am from MA....mom is french so we have french meat stuffing with Turkey.... and all the rest!! Hugs, Neets, Memere Neets, Anita Connecticut, USA

Ooohhh... i"ll respond to this one! Here's a writeup I did for an email group I'm on about our Thanksgiving... Hope some of you find it useful :)

-CC

• Exported from MasterCook *

Christi's Thankgiving

Recipe By : Serving Size : 0 Preparation Time :0:00 Categories :

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method

-------- ------------ -------------------------------- TEXT ONLY TEXT ONLY

Well, while I'm waiting for the cornbread to cool I thought I'd share our Thanksgiving menu with you. It never changes from year to year, although new traditions always arise with each new year. So, here it is:

Appetizers: Veggie tray (carrots, stuffed celery, red pepper and cauliflower with curry dip) Dried beef rolls

Dinner: Turkey (done my special way, which has only been the past 4 years) Oyster dressing Plain dressing (for those who don't like oysters) Pecan/bacon cornbread dressing Grandma's special potato rolls Bourbon or candied sweet potatoes (bourbon this year, candied next) Green bean casserole Turkey gravy Mashed potatoes

Dessert: Pumpkin, Pecan and Mincemeat pies

Then, after all that we roll home :) No wonder I have so much weight to lose! :)

Anyway, my only contributions to the meal are the cornbread dressing and the pecan pie, but I know the rest of the recipes and when my dear grandmother gets too old to do it anymore, I'm next in line (my step-mom is NOT a good cook! :) ) I am thrilled to be learning these recipes from Grandma as most have come down through the generations to us (the Bourbon sweet potatoes, for example, have been passed down from mother to daughter since the first of our family came to the US in the 1600's!) Anyway, here are the recipes:

Hmmm, I don't have the curry dip recipe (will get it Thursday!) but the dried beef rolls are really easy. Take 1/2 block of cream cheese and mix with about 1 tbsp (more or less, to taste) horseradish. Spread on slices of dried beef and roll. YUMMY!

Now the turkey... this is a little unusual of a recipe, but it makes, by far, the best, most juicy turkey I've ever had! Choose your turkey of desired size and wash well. Remove the giblets and neck pieces. Dry with paper towels, salt the cavity with kosher salt inside and out and coat the outside with olive oil and sprinkle with a little rosemary and thyme if desired. Put the turkey, breast side DOWN on a poultry rack in a roasting pan, uncovered. Bake in a 350 degrees oven for one hour to destroy surface bacteria. Then adjust the temperature to 200 degrees (yes, that 200 degrees ) for any sized turkey. Now, roast it for 3x the normal cooking time. For a 20 lb unstuffed turkey (that's what our is) the normal roasting time is 6 hours (7 for a stuffed turkey). With this cooking method, it goes for 18 hours (at the 200 degrees temp). An 11 lb unstuffed turkey cooks 3 1/2 hrs (4 1/2 stuffed). With this method, it takes 10 1/2 hrs (at the 200 degrees temp) (13 1/2 stuffed!! ). Also, the turkey can be left in for up to 6 extra hours if need be and WILL NOT BURN!!! :) That means that our 20 lb turkey will go in the oven at 5:00 pm Thanksgiving eve at 350 degrees and be turned down to 350 degrees at 6:00 and will cook all night long (unwatched as at this low temperature it won't burn or anything) and can be served the next day as early as noon and as late as 6:00pm. We usually eat at

1:00pm so this is great for us. Because of the low temperature, the turkey will shrink little and will be the most moist, delicious turkey you've ever had. Plus, there is no "tending" to do, no basting, checking, etc. I absolutely love this method and will never do it any other way. BTW, you can cook it with stuffing in it as well, but I prefer my stuffing separate.

Here are the dressing recipes again (posted them before, but here they are again): For Thanksgiving it's traditional for us to have two kinds of dressing, but in the past four years we've added a third kind... the one that I make :) (Guess that's what happens when one grows up and gets a place of one's own!) Every year the two kinds my grandmother makes (and her mother before her and her mother before her...) are regular bread dressing and oyster dressing. My hubby, who is a Northeasterner, had never had oyster dressing (nor had his folk) until we married. Two years ago my in-laws came down and we had an early Thanksgiving at my folks house with them and now they can't wait until Thanksgiving so they can make oyster dressing (they live in DC)! Now, neither of these go into the turkey (I'll send our turkey recipe if anyone wants it as well), but are done next to the bird while it's baking. Neither of them really have a "recipe" either (which is hard for those of us who have ! ! never made it before!) but I'll post the general ingredients for you here:

Celery Onion Butter Day old bread torn into cubes

3 eggs, beaten Turkey broth

Cook the celery and onion until translucent in butter. Mix egg with bread cubes, then add vegetables. Stir in enough turkey broth to moisten (and if there's not enough broth, add instant/regular chicken broth). Dot top with butter. Put in oven.

For oyster it's the same thing only you put in 1 quart (? two of those little containers from the grocery :) ) of oysters plus the broth from them.

And that's it for the ones that have been in the family forever... For mine, it's pretty easy too. It's a cornbread dressing with bacon and pecans (if you don't like sage, you won't like this).

CORN BREAD STUFFING

You will need to bake the Buttermilk Corn Bread and allow it to cool before you begin preparing this stuffing. (I use jiffy mix but add buttermilk instead of milk)

Buttermilk Corn Bread 8 bacon slices 5 tablespoons butter 3 cups chopped onions 2 cups chopped celery 1 cup chopped green onion 4 teaspoons dried rubbed sage 1 tablespoon dried thyme 1 1/2 cups pecans, toasted, coarsely chopped 2 cups turkey or chicken broth 3 large eggs, beaten to blend

Preheat oven to 325 deg. F. Cut corn bread into 3/4-inch cubes. Place corn bread cubes on baking sheet and toast until dry but not hard, about 15 minutes. Cool. Transfer to large bowl.

Butter 8x8x2-inch baking dish. Cook bacon in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat until crisp, about 6 minutes. Using tongs, transfer bacon to paper towels; reserve 1/4 cup bacon drippings in skillet. Cool bacon and crumble.

Add butter to bacon drippings in skillet and melt over medium-high heat. Add onions, celery and shallots; saute just until pale golden brown, about 10 minutes. Stir in sage and thyme. Add to corn bread cubes in bowl. Mix in pecans and crumbled bacon. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

Stir 1 1/2 cups chicken broth into stuffing. Season, to taste with salt and pepper. Mix in eggs. Reserve 9 cups stuffing for turkey. Moisten remaining stuffing with remaining 1/2 cup chicken broth. Transfer to prepared dish. Bake stuffing in covered dish alongside turkey for 1 hour. Uncover stuffing and bake until top begins to crisp, about 5 minutes longer.

12 Servings

Eveready Rolls

2 Cakes yeast 1 1/2 Ts Salt 1/2 c Warm water 1 c Mashed potatoes 1/2 c Shortening 1 c Scalded milk 2/3 c Sugar 2 Eggs

Flour to make a stiff dough. Cool milk a bit. Mix ingredients. Roll into 3 balls and stick together. Bake at 375 for about 15-20 minutes.

Bourbon sweet potatoes

3 1/2 lb canned, sweet potatoes (or equivalent fresh, peeled and boiled tender) 1 c Sugar 1/3 c Bourbon 1/2 c Butter or margarine 1/2 ts Vanilla extract 2 c Miniature marshmallows

Put sweet potatoes in a large heavy saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until heated through. Mash sweet potatoes. Add sugar, bourbon, butter and vanilla; beat until well blended. Turn into a 2-quart, shallow baking dish. Sprinkle marshmallows over top. Bake, uncovered, 30 minutes at 350 degrees , or until marshmallows are golden.

Pecan Pie

1 c Light corn syrup 1/3 Ts Vanilla 1 c Brown sugar Pinch of salt 1/3 c Margarine 1 TB Plain flour 3 Large eggs 1 c Pecans

Bring corn syrup, sugar, and margarine to a boil. Remove from stove and allow to cool completely. Place in mixing bowl, eggs, vanilla, salt and flour and cream for 3-4 minutes. Slowly add boiled sugar mixture and mix for 2 minutes at slow speed. Place pecans in bottom of

9 in raw pie shell and pour mixture overtop. Bake at 360 for 40 minutes or until firm.

And that's it. Nothing special about the mashed potatoes or the gravy other than using a ricer to ensure lumpfree potatoes. Hope this helps out some on the list!

Christi

S(MasterMixes): " snipped-for-privacy@satx.rr.com on 30 Aug 2002"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- -

Here ya go...

• Exported from MasterCook *

Mrs. Rich's Pecan Pie

Recipe By : Serving Size : 0 Preparation Time :0:00 Categories :

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method

-------- ------------ -------------------------------- 1 cup Light corn syrup 1/3 teaspoon Vanilla 1 cup Brown sugar 1 pinch salt 1/3 cup Margarine 1 tablespoon Plain flour 3 large eggs 2 cups Pecans

Bring corn syrup, sugar, and margarine to a boil. Remove from stove and allow to cool completely. Place in mixing bowl, eggs, vanilla, salt and flour and cream for 3-4 minutes. Slowly add boiled sugar mixture and mix for 2 minutes at slow speed. Place pecans in bottom of

9 in raw pie shell and pour mixture overtop. Bake at 360 for 40 minutes or until firm.

From Betty Wood Calvert

Christi's notes: Two changes I make to this: I add 1 tbsp bourbon to the sugar mixture as it's boiling (for additional flavor) and I also lightly toast the pecans prior to using. Not too much toasting as they toast somewhat in the baking, but enough to release the oils and crisp them up a bit. I've also done this pie adding chocolate chips to it (placing in the bottom with the pecans about 1 cup) and it's really yummy!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- -

Your turkey cooking method sounds intriguing. I've never quite unstood the problem with cooking a turkey. I thaw it, make sure to remove all the pouches from the turkey. I salt it, oil it and put the same herbs you do except I cook it the 6 or so hours. Always turns out great. What I don't like every year is the worry "Is it going to be done on time?!!" I really want to try your method sounds like there are no worries as to whether or not it will be ready.

Lynne

Yeah, that's why I like this method too. I don't have to baste it and I don't have to worry about it being done on time, AND I don't have to get up at o'dark 30 to put everything in the oven. Plus, you get the smell all night and all morning long :)

-CC