What's on your Thanksgiving menu?

[usmbguest5318]

Going hoity-toity French this year. There will be snails.

Love snails. That said, I don't know that they'd ever land on my Thanksgiving menu. About as exotic as T-giving is going to get, at least when I'm cooking it, is a "bizarre" fruit, venison, squab, quail, pheasant or rabbit, but for the most part, I save those items, along with lamb, for Christmas dinner. I think of T-giving as a "comfort food" day, so I don't push people's culinary limits with the menu.

"During the year" dinner parties, however, are a wholly different matter. A few times a year, I engage a chef to make a variety of exotic desserts, appetizers and finger foods, and I do "sophisticated" versions of comfort-food-themed mains and sides. For those meals, snails, organ-based dishes, and game are sure to appear.

Since my kids largely live on their own (more so than when they were in middle and high school) and are coming home, I wanted to cook everything to ensure the flavors and dishes were what they know and love from years of family meals. Too, since it was just me cooking, I went for "forgiving" foods as goes cook times and flavor profiles. Snails for thirty can very easily, if I have to cook them in a casual "family and friends" gathering where distractions of all sorts happen, turn into "rubber bands for thirty." LOL

 

[usmbguest5318]

Going hoity-toity French this year. There will be snails.

Oh I could throw up!

I eat everything edible except peas. Hate effing peas.

Can't say there's much I absolutely won't eat other than fermented tofu. I can do without artichoke and asparagus, but I'll eat them if someone serves them.

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

Going hoity-toity French this year. There will be snails.

Love snails. That said, I don't know that they'd ever land on my Thanksgiving menu. About as exotic as T-giving is going to get, at least when I'm cooking it, is a "bizarre" fruit, venison, squab, quail, pheasant or rabbit, but for the most part, I save those items, along with lamb, for Christmas dinner. I think of T-giving as a "comfort food" day, so I don't push people's culinary limits with the menu.

"During the year" dinner parties, however, are a wholly different matter. A few times a year, I engage a chef to make a variety of exotic desserts, appetizers and finger foods, and I do "sophisticated" versions of comfort-food-themed mains and sides. For those meals, snails, organ-based dishes, and game are sure to appear.

Since my kids largely live on their own (more so than when they were in middle and high school) and are coming home, I wanted to cook everything to ensure the flavors and dishes were what they know and love from years of family meals. Too, since it was just me cooking, I went for "forgiving" foods as goes cook times and flavor profiles. Snails for thirty can very easily, if I have to cook them in a casual "family and friends" gathering where distractions of all sorts happen, turn into "rubber bands for thirty." LOL

We're usually traditional, but since the boy is at his GF's family dinner this time, we'll just go out. We get them Christmas.

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

Going hoity-toity French this year. There will be snails.

Oh I could throw up!

I eat everything edible except peas. Hate effing peas.

Can't say there's much I absolutely won't eat other than fermented tofu. I can do without artichoke and asparagus, but I'll eat them if someone serves them.

Tasty grilled.

 

[Manonthestreet]

No stuffing? what the hell is going on!?? Its not Thanksgiving without stuffing.

 

[Likkmee]

I'm Choctaw / Costa Rican. Probably just pussy and some gallo pinto....maybe a sliced tomato.

 

[Disir]

Hmmm....I have been home almost an hour and a half and I came real close to jacking up the brine for the turkey. At the rate this is going, not sure if I should even attempt the menu until it's on the table. I am making an antipasto platter, obligatory deviled eggs, turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, apple and cranberry dressing, green beans, rolls, and sweet potato pie.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Going hoity-toity French this year. There will be snails.

Love snails. That said, I don't know that they'd ever land on my Thanksgiving menu. About as exotic as T-giving is going to get, at least when I'm cooking it, is a "bizarre" fruit, venison, squab, quail, pheasant or rabbit, but for the most part, I save those items, along with lamb, for Christmas dinner. I think of T-giving as a "comfort food" day, so I don't push people's culinary limits with the menu.

"During the year" dinner parties, however, are a wholly different matter. A few times a year, I engage a chef to make a variety of exotic desserts, appetizers and finger foods, and I do "sophisticated" versions of comfort-food-themed mains and sides. For those meals, snails, organ-based dishes, and game are sure to appear.

Since my kids largely live on their own (more so than when they were in middle and high school) and are coming home, I wanted to cook everything to ensure the flavors and dishes were what they know and love from years of family meals. Too, since it was just me cooking, I went for "forgiving" foods as goes cook times and flavor profiles. Snails for thirty can very easily, if I have to cook them in a casual "family and friends" gathering where distractions of all sorts happen, turn into "rubber bands for thirty." LOL

We're usually traditional, but since the boy is at his GF's family dinner this time, we'll just go out. We get them Christmas.

Totally understand.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Going hoity-toity French this year. There will be snails.

Oh I could throw up!

I eat everything edible except peas. Hate effing peas.

Can't say there's much I absolutely won't eat other than fermented tofu. I can do without artichoke and asparagus, but I'll eat them if someone serves them.

Tasty grilled.

True enough. Grilling, like frying and sauteeing, can make many things more palatable than they otherwise might be were they merely steamed or boiled. As any cook will say, "brown food tastes good."

I grill; therefore I am.
-- Alton Brown​

 

[ChrisL]

We usually stick with traditional Thanksgiving meal. Turkey and/or ham (sometimes lasagna too), my famous pork stuffing, which I am up early starting right now (along with some other side dishes like my also famous cranberry salad (actually it's my grandmother's recipe so I guess she is the famous one), the usual veggies (which we like to keep simple) just boiled and mashed with butter, salt and pepper (squash, turnip, carrots, sweet potatoes, regular mashed potatoes), and then there are things like breads and rolls and pies and stuff. So, nothing really fancy or anything. Just good home cooked food. I'm already hungry. As soon as I have some coffee, I will be starting to cook! Yeah!

 

[ChrisL]

No stuffing? what the hell is going on!?? Its not Thanksgiving without stuffing.

Stuffing is a Thanksgiving staple!

 

[ChrisL]

After seeing snails slime around on the ground, I couldn't bring myself to eat one of those yucky things! Just say no to snails!

 

[ChrisL]

I've got all of my side dishes done. All my dirty dishes are done. I am just having a light breakfast (cereal because I don't want to ruin my appetite) and then will be getting ready to head out for Thanksgiving festivities.

 

[strollingbones]

i have no clue other than yule log and pecan pie.....this is the first time we have had thanksgiving with these folks

 

[DrLove]

Wow - your menu looks amazing! You must be feeding a small army. Man, i hear ya on the exercise required as you get older to avoid turning into Fat Bastard. I'll be adding at least two days a week of either cardio or weights at the gym - from 4 days to 6.

I've already cooked two turkeys this fall and was turkeyed out, so my Honeybaked Ham arrived yesterday right on cue. We used to have a store but the owner got tired of the franchise fees and switched to another spiral-cut which isn't nearly as good.

So going with the sweet and savory:

HB ham with their famous honey mustard
Sweet potatoes
String bean casserole
Cranberry stuffing from Costco
Pecan pie from Honeybaked

So it's essentially a heat & eat without much cleanup since this year it'll just be my daughter and me.

Trade ya a pound of ham for a few of your Maryland crab cakes?

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

 

[DrLove]

Pie

 

[Jackson]

I'm having a fairly large number of people for Thanksgiving, so there's a lot of stuff on my menu, but most of it is fairly conventional.

• Seafood soup
• French onion soup
• Turkey -- one roasted and one deep fried
• Pork shoulder
• Beef short ribs
• Roast duck
• Crab cakes/balls (Maryland style) -- fried into balls for appetizers, broiled as cakes for the main meal
• St. Andre mashed potatoes
• Butternut and acorn squash
• Truffled mac and cheese
• Candied sweet potatoes
• Homemade rolls
• Apple, caramelized onion, bacon, Stilton and spinach salad with a choice of champagne or balsamic vinaigrette
• Collard greens
• Sauteed haricot verts and carrots with morels, bacon and onion
• Sauteed cabbage
• Pound cake
• Apple pie
• Homemade ice cream and sorbet
• Fruit tarts
• Assorted sliced/balled fresh fruit and shaved chocolates folks care to top with whatever liqueur-flavored whipped creams (I set up a "station" next to a small sink with the booze, sugar, chilled mixing containers, a couple blenders, and let folks make the whipped cream of their choice) -- Chambord, Cointreau, calvados, Pastis, mint, sloe, Frangelico, amaretto, coconut, Domain de Canton, Mathilde, Prucia, coffee, and Agwa Bolivia -- and drizzle accordingly with whatever liqueurs suit the individual eating it.
• Various wines, aperitifs, champagne, beer and liquor
• Jelly Belly jellybeans

Of course, having all that food makes for great leftovers for the next few weeks, and there's no way I'm not going to enjoy inventing new things to make from the leftover T-giving meal. Hell, doing that is half the reason I offer to host holiday season gatherings.

Of course, for every joy, there is also some pain; nothing comes for free and without consequences. As goes eating comfort food for six weeks or so, the pain is the extra aerobics one must do to keep fit while eating that kind of food. To do that, from this week to the end of next January, I have to increase my aerobic activity from about 30 minutes of daily running to an hour of rope jumping daily and 30 minutes of swimming laps. I like to eat what I want when I want and my regular exercise regimen isn't designed to burn as much fatty and fattening food as I will be eating between now and New Years. I didn't have to push quite as hard on the aerobic thirty years ago when my metabolism ran much higher, but this holiday season is not the one from thirty years ago, so I gotta do what I gotta do. As I said, nothing's free.

Happy "Turkey Day" everyone.

Are you having a family dinner or opening a restaurant?

 

[usmbguest5318]

I'm having a fairly large number of people for Thanksgiving, so there's a lot of stuff on my menu, but most of it is fairly conventional.

• Seafood soup
• French onion soup
• Turkey -- one roasted and one deep fried
• Pork shoulder
• Beef short ribs
• Roast duck
• Crab cakes/balls (Maryland style) -- fried into balls for appetizers, broiled as cakes for the main meal
• St. Andre mashed potatoes
• Butternut and acorn squash
• Truffled mac and cheese
• Candied sweet potatoes
• Homemade rolls
• Apple, caramelized onion, bacon, Stilton and spinach salad with a choice of champagne or balsamic vinaigrette
• Collard greens
• Sauteed haricot verts and carrots with morels, bacon and onion
• Sauteed cabbage
• Pound cake
• Apple pie
• Homemade ice cream and sorbet
• Fruit tarts
• Assorted sliced/balled fresh fruit and shaved chocolates folks care to top with whatever liqueur-flavored whipped creams (I set up a "station" next to a small sink with the booze, sugar, chilled mixing containers, a couple blenders, and let folks make the whipped cream of their choice) -- Chambord, Cointreau, calvados, Pastis, mint, sloe, Frangelico, amaretto, coconut, Domain de Canton, Mathilde, Prucia, coffee, and Agwa Bolivia -- and drizzle accordingly with whatever liqueurs suit the individual eating it.
• Various wines, aperitifs, champagne, beer and liquor
• Jelly Belly jellybeans

Of course, having all that food makes for great leftovers for the next few weeks, and there's no way I'm not going to enjoy inventing new things to make from the leftover T-giving meal. Hell, doing that is half the reason I offer to host holiday season gatherings.

Of course, for every joy, there is also some pain; nothing comes for free and without consequences. As goes eating comfort food for six weeks or so, the pain is the extra aerobics one must do to keep fit while eating that kind of food. To do that, from this week to the end of next January, I have to increase my aerobic activity from about 30 minutes of daily running to an hour of rope jumping daily and 30 minutes of swimming laps. I like to eat what I want when I want and my regular exercise regimen isn't designed to burn as much fatty and fattening food as I will be eating between now and New Years. I didn't have to push quite as hard on the aerobic thirty years ago when my metabolism ran much higher, but this holiday season is not the one from thirty years ago, so I gotta do what I gotta do. As I said, nothing's free.

Happy "Turkey Day" everyone.

Are you having a family dinner or opening a restaurant?

LOL...The former.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Wow - your menu looks amazing! You must be feeding a small army. Man, i hear ya on the exercise required as you get older to avoid turning into Fat Bastard. I'll be adding at least two days a week of either cardio or weights at the gym - from 4 days to 6.

I've already cooked two turkeys this fall and was turkeyed out, so my Honeybaked Ham arrived yesterday right on cue. We used to have a store but the owner got tired of the franchise fees and switched to another spiral-cut which isn't nearly as good.

So going with the sweet and savory:

HB ham with their famous honey mustard
Sweet potatoes
String bean casserole
Cranberry stuffing from Costco
Pecan pie from Honeybaked

So it's essentially a heat & eat without much cleanup since this year it'll just be my daughter and me.

Trade ya a pound of ham for a few of your Maryland crab cakes?

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Wow - your menu looks amazing!

Thank you.

You must be feeding a small army.

I planned the menu to serve 30 people. Turns out I'll have 27.

my Honeybaked Ham arrived yesterday right on cue.

There ain't nothing wrong with delivered food! "Room service" has long been among my favorite dining options. LOL

HB ham with their famous honey mustard
Sweet potatoes
String bean casserole
Cranberry stuffing from Costco
Pecan pie from Honeybaked

So it's essentially a heat & eat without much cleanup since this year it'll just be my daughter and me.

Were I cooking for myself and immediate family (Momma and my four kids), something like that would be about what my menu would be, for I'm not about to entertain my family. My kids bringing "plus one's and an odd," colleagues/staff coming and my housekeeper's family coming (I wouldn't try to be a "gracious host" to my housekeeper either; we know each other way too well for that), makes the day take on something of an event-hosting character.

 

[The Professor]

I've had elaborate Thanksgiving meals in my life. Now, at 78 years old I tend to keep it simple. Roasting a whole turkey for just my wife and I didn't make sense, so I purchased some sliced turkey breast from the Winn Dixie deli. I will make a gravy using a prepared roast turkey gravy and some cream of mushroom soup. I have some left over cornbread dressing which will do just fine. I will also roast some acorn squash. There will be cranberry sauce of course. I made mine with whole-berry cranberry sauce and pink grapefruit. For my wife, instead of using pink grapefruit I used chopped celery and chopped walnuts. For dessert I made a pumpkin pudding. It may not sound like much to you guys and gals, but my wife and I will enjoy the day in our own quiet and simple way.