Post your Thanksgiving recipes here!

[mommd]

OK, I know it is a little early, but I am bored with Thanksgiving. I always make the same traditional stuff every year. So, post your recipes and inspire me!

[mommd]

Anyone have any recipes to share? Pie crust? Pie? Unique side dishes?

[octmom]

I don't have any great recipes, but I wanted to bump this up so that we might benefit from others' expertise in the kitchen. Oh, how I LOVE Thanksgiving dinner! Yummy turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, mmmmm... I'm getting hungry just thinking about it! :)

Jerilyn
DS, Sean 10/03

"Baby makes days shorter, nights longer, home happier, and love stronger."

[bostonsmama]

I was looking at my grandmother's recipes (she was the famed excellent family cook), and she had a hilarious recipe for in-turkey stuffing. She put uncooked popcorn kernels in with a standard dressing w/ cranberries and commented that around the 4 hour mark you'll start seeing stuffing pop out of the bird's *ss! I almost died laughing when I read it, and it was good to know that Nana had a sense of humor. :) Sigh, I miss her.

I have the best way to make mashed potatoes that don't get cold.

Cube 3 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes and boil in salted water until fork tender. Press spoonfulls of potatoes through a potato ricer. Transfer to a 9x13 glass baking dish. Pour 3/4c hot half n half over top of riced potatoes. Place 8 Tbsp-sized pats of butter into potatoes (all around). Lightly salt and pepper, then use a spoon and press/fluff potatoes gently. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 1-1/2 hours at 350 degrees. These potatoes will stay hot for hours and gone are chilly hand or mixer-mashed potatoes!

I also have a signature hors d'oevres that I like to make: Olive Puffs

Thaw a sheet of Pepperidge Farm puff pastry in the fridge. Roll quickly out on floured surface to a square. Use pizza roller to cut long 1-inch wide strips, cut to 6 in long ea. Place a green pimento-stuffed olive 1 inch from the top of the strip. Pipe a dollop of chive-flavored cream cheese under it, then roll up the dough. Pinch the sides and place on a nonstick baking sheet. If desired, brush with egg/water wash and sprinkle with cayenne pepper or paprika. Bake in 375 oven for 8-12 minutes (check for lightly blonde crispness).

HTH

[wagner36]

I hate COLD mashed potatoes, so I am very excited about this one!

One question, though - when you say hot half n half, do you just heat it in the microwave? Also, do you think whole milk would work? I ask that just because I think maybe I'll make this tonight (it's cold here!) and I only have whole milk, and I'm too lazy to go to the store.....

[redhookmom]

I love watching Rachel Ray's 30 minute meals. On Thursday night she is doing Thanksgiving in 60 minutes. I will post my recipes after! LOL

[candybomiller]

Renee,

I totally know what you mean about being bored with T-giving. It's really rough for me because the only things I eat are mashed potatoes and Butterball cornbread stuffing. Well, stupid Butterball doesn't make the cornbread stuffing anymore, so that leaves me with mashed potatoes. :(

It's going to be a boring meal for me!

[Tondi G]

Those mashed potatoes sound good but the way we avoid cold mashed potatoes is the crock pot... make up your potatoes... we put in butter, a little milk and salt and pepper..... then just put them in the crock pot on low.

sometimes the bottom layer will brown so just don't scoop real deep!!!!

~Tondi

[alkagift]

Actually I was going to try a couple of things from the Cooking Light magazine this month that has some yummy things to try.

Allison
Mommy to Matthew Clayton, 5/19/03

[bostonsmama]

Yeah, whole milk works great! Half and half will "break" if you microwave it too long, but 40-90 seconds to take the fridge chill off keeps your taters toasty. I just love to get that "rich" creamy texture of HnH around the holidays. The rest of the year I use 1% milk with a couple tablespoons of half n half. But I always use real butter (or at least try not to use watery margarine).

And the crock pot thing probably works wonders (and it frees up the oven), but I've never browned potatoes in the oven. It's so funny because my mom called me up and asked me to make some last weekend. Four hours after dinner, I went to pick up the 9x13 and I darn near burned my hand. The potatoes had retained their heat remarkably. The science behind it is that when you mash potatoes in a pot and serve immediately, you are stirring cold air into the spuds, and it cools very quickly. When you do all your stirring/ricing, then keep adding hot ingredients, and allow it to heat in an oven from the outside-in, it creates surface tension, which traps heat within the potatoes. I picked up this great tip from a Thanksgiving article in my daily newspaper a couple of years ago.

[bostonsmama]

I love that magazine. I just let my subscription lapse, though, because some of the meals were too complicated and not very good. Last year, for the first time, i tried their light cranberry sauce. It sounded good, it had an orange base with fresh cranberries and splenda, and NO ONE touched it at the meal. It was too bitter, too funky tasting. Not a winner. But, I did have luck with their glazed green beans (fresh beans tossed w/ olive oil, soy sauce, pepper, canadian bacon) put under the broiler. Yummy.

[mharling]

This sweet potato recipe has become a standard:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/4668

I am salivating just thinking about them!! :9

Mary
Lane - April 2003
Little sister on the way!!! March 2!

[alkagift]

Yep, I'm going to try the shredded brussels sprouts with bacon this year. I live in the south so if I even attempted to try their low-fat pecan pie I would be banned from the house. But I'll post it if anyone wants the recipe.


Allison
Mommy to Matthew Clayton, 5/19/03

[pritchettzoo]

You should check this month's Gourmet. There are a ton of yummy-sounding (and not too frou-frou ;)) recipes in it! The pictures make me dream of a magical family occasion--not grumpy, tense people with tray tables...

Anna

[C99]

In my parents' house, we went easy on the starches (potatoes, corn, bread) and heavy on the veggies: green beans (I like them with olive oil and dill), peas, carrots, brussel sprouts (only god knows why, but my mom likes them), etc.

[Tondi G]

Have you ever tried the Mrs. Cubbison's stuffing??? My mom has always used the Mr's Cubbisons Dressing but I know they make a cornbread stuffing too! Our stuffing is always YUMMY! You might want to give it a try!
http://www.mrscubbinsons.com/


~Tondi

[starrynight]

http://pie.allrecipes.com/az/NCrstPmpkinPi.asp

This is an awesome and really easy pumpkin pie, it is the only one I will make now. I hate making a pie crust because the pie pans I have are 10 inch and almost all recipes are for 9 inch and it always comes up short. There is no crust to the pie, you put some bisquick (or any baking mix) in the batter and it makes it's own crust. This pie lasts maybe a day in my house, dh can eat the whole thing!

Dh's mom started this tradition and dh now makes them every thanksgiving (if we visit her for tday we all make them at her house together)

stuffed artichokes: (can be messy to mix up!)

This makes a ton of stuffing, dh refuses to mess with the recipe to make less so I just bake the excess in a cassorole dish in the oven. If you don't want that much I would just cut it all in half.

4-5 artichokes (if you want more then use more since there is extra stuffing)
1 bag of the pepperidge farm cubed stuffing mix in either the plain or herbed flavor- if you can't find pf then any cubed dry stuffing mix in a bag that is herb or something similar flavor. Do not use cornbread stuffing or the apple raisin or cinnimon one.
1 egg
2 lbs. ground hamburger
1 package (16 oz) jimmy dean original sausage, the kind in the rolls
bell turkey seasoning, about a teaspoon or so to taste
a few shakes of black pepper

Soak the stuffing cubes in some warm water for about a minute or two, in a large bowl mix the raw hamburg and sausage together with the egg and spices- this is best done with your hands honestly. Then take the stuffing cubes and squeeze the water out with your hands and then add it to the meat mixture, mix throughly.

Take the artichokes and rinse them and cut off the stems and any really prickly leaves. Take handfuls of the stuffing mixture and sort of shove it on top of the artichokes covering the top half and getting some of it down between the leaves. Put 4-5 artichokes in a large dutch oven or stock pot and fill with water around the chokes until you get to the "stuffing line" do not full cover the chokes. Bring the water to a boil and then let them simmer covered for awhile, usually this takes at least 45-60 minutes. You want to make sure all of the meat is cooked through, there will be a few pink spots, that is the sausage as long as the hamburg is brown you are good.

Any left over stuffing can go in a casserole dish in the over at 350 until cooked through. Or it can be put in loaf pans for meatloaf, it's really good like that but a bit more on the greasy side than typical meatloaf, I just drain off the fat.

[jubilee]

OOHHHH! Thanks for telling me that! I'm going to zip over to Food Network to check out the time it is on and then set the VCR! :)

[jubilee]

I was just wandering around Food Network and found they have a Turkey-free Thanksgiving section if anyone is interested!
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/et_hd_thanksgiving/article/0,1972,FOOD_9845_1753115,00.html