Same meal as every year for the past 50 years.
Whole turkey with bread stuffing
Mom’s giblet gravy
Mashed potatoes
2 veg (lima beans I froze earlier in the year, and glazed carrots)
Canned cranberry sauce
For dessert, a few years ago I started making a simple pumpkin mousse and everyone loves it, so I’ll stick with that. Sometimes I get fancy and crumble ginger cookies in the bottom of the dessert cups, top with mousse, and shave white chocolate curls on top. Delish.
That does indeed sound delish. I am making the key lime pie for Thursday with a gingersnap crust. I love ginger in desserts.
I forgot to mention; I use a little less sugar. I just made 3 batches for a friend. God does my house smell great! My daughter wants some too but I’ll have to buy more cranberries tomorrow.
That mousse looks so good!
I dry brined my 16 pound + turkey today! Here it is on not-my-counter next to the much more popular hardo bread
Anyone want to chime on the pros and cons of butter or oil on roasted turkey skin? I’ve read the water in butter makes skin more tasty but less crisp.
I found the F&W recipe you quoted quite appealing, and printed it out. I’m not doing cranberry sauce this year, but the idea of it on a bagel with cream cheese will prompt me to make when the holidays are behind us.
Same! Something a little sharp after a rich but bland meal really does it for me 
It’s easy, light and tasty. The first year I made it instead of pumpkin pie, everyone was like, “Yeah, this is what we want from now on.”
It’s so easy, so delicious. I’ve made it so many times that this year I didn’t even need to pull out the recipe, know it by heart. (Why do we say “by heart” and not “by head”? Just 5 ingredients not counting the black pepper at the end.
In my experience this is true, and in fact, the butter doesn’t even really contribute much to the flavor of the skin. The milk solids in butter can help contribute to browning, but turkey skin browns pretty well on its own in any case, particularly if there was a little sugar in its brine. I like to let turkey air dry for a day in the fridge uncovered, then rub with just a little neutral oil and salt - this gives me reliably crispy skin. In fact, I roasted my stock turkey’s legs for DH tonight and did exactly that, with excellent results.
I just found out my friend is not coming. So I’m headed to a great shindig.
Jessie who I do alot of work for . Real estate broker. Will be providing wonderful food and drinks. Also a great cook . Vegetarian and traditional.
Starting off with pomegranate martinis .
I’ll be bringing Belvedere and lemons . She will be using the lemons in the future for lemon drops.
Ok, you guys inspired me, doing Thanksgiving #2 at our Canadian house this week!!
Slow day at work (from home) so I’m getting a jumpstart on prep. My stuffing is the most labor intensive dish because I make the bread from scratch (did that over the weekend), plus there are a ton of vegetables that have to be prepped and pre-cooked, sausage to cook, etc. Getting all of that done ahead means all I have to do day of is dump the bowl of cooked stuff into the bowl of dry bread, add stock, herbs and seasonings, then bake. So, fennel, mushrooms and shallots are roasting in duck fat as we speak!
I also made pie crust and olive cheese balls (green olives wrapped in cheddar dough). Technically an appetizer but so good with mimosas that we usually have them for breakfast while we watch the parade!
My 16+ pound turkey is 70 cm/27.5 inches around and 42cm/16.5 inches from top to bottom.
Largest un- MacGyver’ed pan and rack is 43 cm/17 inches ×30 cm/12 inches
Today is Tuesday … my daughter decided to go to Costco to get one of the (small) Fresh Butterball turkeys for .99 lb. Line was too long to get into lot at SSF so she went to the Airport one, bad too. Anyway, no turkeys AT ALL left. This was just going to be cooked for sandwiches so not a great loss.
I’ve just saved this recipe…looks very good, especially with the crumbled gingersnaps!
The only thing it didn’t say was how many servings the original recipe makes.
A LOT. 8-10, maybe more. The k Oy reason I don’t halve it is it uses a can of pumpkin
The hummus has been made ~5 lbs
There are just amazing recipes and food combos on this thread! I have now got lots of ideas, not for Thanksgiving day itself, but for the 1-2 times a month I really put in extra effort in the kitchen. Thanks, everyone.
Well, I have started the cooking today.
We are driving a few hours tomorrow to a vacation place. This army (4 humans 2 dogs) marches on its stomach, so we (mostly me) are planning and precooking and carrying 4 days of provisions.
The Thanksgiving feast:
Appetizers:
Main:
Desserts:
We are hauling quite some kitchen gear - knife, tiny wok for frying the koftas, kitchen towels, baking dishes and trays, spices and stock, oh lawd. The kitchen there has most of the basics but we will need more than that and definitely a good knife.
Then we are hauling food for the other meals / other days: frozen parathas, yogurt, pasta and its vegetables and cheese, breakfast coffee, tea, sugar, milks … and on and on. Snacks for the road (Masala chips, namak paras).
Lots of things to drink: a bottle of wine, 2-3 bottles of seltzer, and some juice.
Dog food, meds for every one of us, and all our clothes and jackets and gear oof! Just a 4 day expedition and it feels like we are packing and transporting half the house.
