We have one of those large NESCO roasters. It lives on a shelf in our garage. I bought an insert accessory for it when we still had parties - it holds 3 separate pans and keeps things warm for hours. We don’t entertain much/at all anymore. We’re making reservations at a local inn for Thanksgiving dinner - taking a single friend of ours with us. We started doing that before Covid. Sometimes we will buy turkey parts on sale the day after Thanksgiving and roast them for sandwiches
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A few years ago, we decided that we wanted to try something different for Thanksgiving, so we “ran away from home”. The first year was kind of weird but now we go some place else for the week and have TG dinner out. This year we’re driving to Santa Fe from Northern California and will be having TG dinner at La Fonda Hotel’s La Plazuela. That was where we went our first year playing hooky and it was great! I’ll probably make a small dinner of all the favorites the week after we get back so we won’t miss out on the leftovers.
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When we stopped cooking Thanksgiving dinners it was just for the two of us and not worth the work. We started going to a local inn and treating a single friend of ours to dinner. None of us ever had turkey, because the small Cape Cod bay scallops are in season – we always ordered broiled scallops. They’re almost like sweet candy. So then we had the dilemma of no leftovers. And for me, Thanksgiving is always about the sandwiches and the stuffing and Stovetop just doesn’t fit the bill. So we cook a few traditional Thanksgiving things on the weekend after the holiday, just like you!
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I actually get pretty good results from Stovetop… starting with fresh onion, celery, garlic, finishing up with BTB turkey base, and then dehydrating it a bit in a low oven.
Leftovers are king for me and I use this on sandwiches with gravy and cranberries… and in biscuits/muffins/arepas which put together a variety of “Benedict” like assemblies with gravy-ed veggie toppings (spinach/green beans/asparagus).
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It’s too salty for me. I have added fresh onion and celery and parsley to it myself but it’s just a salt bomb.
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We did that almost 10 years ago… escaped to Marco Island, FL for the week. I spent Thanksgiving afternoon floating in the hotel pool and we went out for dinner; my then-4yo had a burger and fries. It was lovely. This year we’re escaping to London, but hosting my family at the end of Oct for an early Thanksgiving dinner. Menu is always the same, but this year will have some tweaks to accommodate some new dietary restrictions.
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Both Stovetop and BTB sell low sodium versions.
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We are going to be at an Air B n B in New Jersey across the river from Manhattan. I have no idea what we are going to do, but for the first time in DECADES, I m not cooking thanksgiving.
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There is no shame not cooking T-Day dinner. I miss the aromas and the steamed up windows and my beautiful table linens and china but my body started whispering to me “why the hell are you doing this to yourself?” Then my body started screaming at me. I just can’t do it anymore. So we make reservations.
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My parents used to roast chicken and veg in theirs.
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Happy Thanksgiving to our Canadian HOs!
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Thank you, Saregama! Just about to put the turkey in the oven. I’m heading out to the garden to harvest my celery and parsley for the stuffing, and Swiss chard and kale for my mixed horta spanakopita.
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So interesting - my friend’s family, also in PA, has used a NESCO roaster (actually 2) for their holiday turkeys since the beginning of time (or NESCO ;)).
She almost convinced me to get a “little” (6 qt) one when I was looking for a slow cooker years ago, then offered me one of the family’s extra NESCO monsters, haha.
Theirs live (and are also set up to cook) in the garage, which frees up kitchen space and oven space for everything else. Pretty sure they’ve got the separators for one of them.
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I never knew about the separators until yesterday.
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Goodness that’s farm-to-table! How many are you cooking for today?
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Love separators! I grew up with big pressure cookers that had vertical separators (that were pitched as a new innovation when Instant Pot became all the rage here).
Then earlier this year, I found the separators for one of my grandmother’s (I think – might need to be a great- in there, idk yet) original PCs that are side-by-side instead of vertical, and I went “genius!” and snagged them before my sis could throw them out.
3 people.
It’s a 12 lb turkey so we will have roast
turkey today and tomorrow , maybe a little
turkey avgolemono soup made with the carcass for lunch Tue or Wed , then Tom Kha Gai for dinner Tuesday , before the rest of the leftover white meat is frozen.
I have been dropping off spaghetti squash I grew for friends around town, so it’s a little like sharing the Thanksgiving meal even if we can’t be inside the same room!
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I love spaghetti squash!! Happy Thanksgiving!! I could easily eat a vegetarian Thanksgiving myself - I love all of the harvest vegetables but I do use pork sausage and oysters in my bread dressing/stuffing as well as an egg or two. My husband’s family is French Canadian and his mother used to stuff her Thanksgiving turkey with the same pork/potato mixture that she used for her tourtières. He never had bread and oyster stuffing until he met me when we were at Ohio State. We make tourtières for Christmas.
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I love oysters in the stuffing/dressing. My dad did it once in North Carolina in the 1970s. He and I were the only people who loved it. I try it now and again now that I’ve been in Boston for over 30 years.
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Imagine growing up in an old farmhouse on a pig farm in central Ohio with a father who loves caviar and buys cans of oysters for his Thanksgiving dressing and whips egg whites for eggnog and serves it with Ron Rico 151 proof rum to his kids. He used to make chutney and ketchup with stuff from our garden and we would groan and say “Dad, can’t we have Heinz like normal people”. Ha ha. He’s why I’m here on the Hungry Onion.
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