Reports of Thanksgiving day dinner...?

[Kayelle]

Ours was stellar on so many levels, and we're back home safe and sound before dark.

The Webber bacon infused turkey needed further cooking in the oven but that worked out fine, and gave us more time to hold the rest of the meal and give the family more time to interact..always a good laid back thing! I'm glad we met there just after noon..so the time was good. When everything was served, the meal came together like a family who loved each other with all the flavors unique to a specific family. I'm so thankful for so many reasons.

 

[Andy M.]

Our Thanksgiving was a little smaller than usual as my older daughter and her family had their own Thanksgiving at their home. Her preparation of dinner was interrupted by a power failure but fortunately it ended in time for their dinner to get cooked.

My younger daughter was here with us and we had a really good visit. We had time to talk about a wide variety of topics before and during dinner.

 

[bethzaring]

I enjoyed last nights Thanksgiving dinner much more than tonight's. Last night I cooked a turkey, the chile rellenos casserole, taters, and dressing for 4 of us at my house. I do better in small groups. As always the pot lucks at this community are outstanding, but there were 22 folks and it was held in the community house. Fortunately we do our own separate meals for Christmas.

 

[Steve Kroll]

No turkey here. We're actually having family Thanksgiving Day tomorrow. Today it was just Mrs. K and me. We had a nice dinner, though. Roast leg of lamb, cauli mash, rosemary cream gravy, caramelized Brussels sprouts, and a nice bottle of Italian Nebbiolo. For dessert, we had pumpkin spice bread.

 

[Dawgluver]

For the first time in years, we stayed home, so it was just the two of us. We had my beloved stuffing, ham, and mashed potatoes with gravy. We carb loaded. Nary a green vegetable in sight. We had CP Lil Smokies in chili sauce and grape jelly earlier. I'll have to restrict my sodium and carbs for the next few months.

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

We went over to Mr&Mrs DF's home about noon and stayed until about 7pm.
We had the feast-o-rama forsure.
Lunch-Dinner (we just kinda ate slow and easy through the day, course after course) started with three beautiful artisanal cheeses, salami, olives, assorted crackers and garlic humus.
Next course was a nice Kale salad;
next up was Lasagna with turkey meat balls and then the main event,
turkey breast, two kinds of stuffing casserole, mashed taters with sour cream and butter, green beans casserole, cranberries, gravy and King's Hawaiian Rolls (in our honor).
Mind you, there was only 4 of us.
Dessert was the two pies that I made the other day, Libby's Pumpkin pie and Apple Crostata, both with Reddi Wip on top.
I'M STUFFED!

 

[cinisajoy]

We went to the next town over for Chinese. We would have eaten at the one here but they got new chairs. I don't like my knees at chest level.

 

[taxlady]

Since we had Thanksgiving in October (Canadian, eh), we went out for date night. We went to the Jade Palace, the local Chinese resto. Cinisajoy, I must have been channelling your or vice versa.

 

[Bookbrat]

Just us, daughter, son-in-law and beautiful six week old grandgirl (!!). We went simple and mostly homegrown. On Tuesday husband salted the turkey that a friend raised for us and I threw a loaf of herb bread in the bread machine for dressing. Mashed part of our pitiful potato crop and cracked a jar of green beans. Cauliflower mash for SIL, who can't have potatoes and sweet potatoes with butter and marshmallows as per DD's request. Pumpkin custard (=crustless pie) with whipped cream for DD, who has found she's gluten intolerant.

And gravy with cornstarch, which was good but so not the traditional gravy I (and DD) grew up with. So I saved part of the drippings for reruns with real gravy. With Wondra. And all will be right in my world.

And I made cranberry sauce but no one remembered it was in the fridge until halfway through dinner.

 

[Caslon]

My sister in-law cooked us a big turkey dinner and as usual, our bellies were too full for pumpkin pie right afterwards. Same thing happens every year.

 

[Aunt Bea]

Every year I say it will be the last year I cook a turkey and every year I manage to drag one up three fights of stairs, from the garage to my little apartment!

Turkey
Mashed yellow turnip
Maple glazed carrots
Cabbage Salad
Cranberry sauce, pickles and olives
Pumpkin pie with whipped cream

The best item on the menu was the cabbage salad, I added a little sour cream to the dressing. The pumpkin pie needs work, I think I will try the creamy pumpkin pie recipe that uses cream cheese.

The most exciting thing for me yesterday was when I checked my blood sugar at 5:00PM, five hours after dinner, and it came in at 130!!!

This morning I will breakdown the turkey into meal size packages and make some stock to feed the freezer.

 

[GotGarlic]

DH and I had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving, just the two of us. I didn't get much done in advance, so we ended up skipping the green beans and cherry sauce. I did manage to make stock from the carcass of last week's turkey on Wednesday, so the dressing and gravy were delish, and we were happy.

I took a break at one point and sat on the porch to enjoy the lovely day with a snack and a glass of apple cider sangria. Mmmmm. And I had a bit of a fail - I put my pan of yeast rolls into the microwave to rise and they stuck to the plastic wrap I had covered them with. Removing the plastic caused them to deflate, so they weren't pretty, but they were still tasty! Ah well, you win some, you lose some!

 

[bakechef]

We had a little larger crowd than usual and it was fantastic. Our friend was coming because her husband had to work, but he surprised her at the last minute and got off work early, so their whole family was there! To top it off it was her birthday and he had a cake for her.

Dawgluver will be pleased to know that we had two types of stuffing and copious amounts of gravy made from drippings!

I may have overdone the eating a bit, but I'm still looking forward to leftovers!

Sent from my VS985 4G using Discuss Cooking mobile app

 

[Addie]

Well, it is a pleasure to hear that everyone had a good day. You know what mine was like. I am up today, but for how long, I don't know. I managed to get the Chickerina Soup into me. Then back to bed. Two and a half days in bed is about all I can take. I did feel well enough to clean up the dirty sink of dishes this morning. But I am not pushing it. Pirate is still pretty sick with a fever. My biggest worry is that I don't get the flu from him.

This has not been the best Thanksgiving I have ever had. But I am so happy that everyone else did. Nothing like being surrounded with the ones you love to make the day extra special. And all the good food is a great addition to make the day.

 

[jabbur]

We started off the day with DS and his wife over to watch the parade. I had cinnamon rolls and a breakfast casserole for us to eat. Then Son had to go to work (management at Walmart) and the rest of us went to my sister's. We met the rest of the family there and had smoked turkey, pot roast (with potatoes, onions, and carrots), dressing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole (yes that one but we all love it), broccoli casserole, gravy was canned since the smoked turkey doesn't leave many drippings. Pumpkin pie, Chief's S'mores bars, pecan bars, cinnamon almonds, cheese ball and crackers, holiday jelly beans. Quite a feast. We're getting really good about amounts and had few leftovers. We ate around 2 pm and snacked while we played games. We stayed and helped my sister get her house back together. She has to move furniture to fit us all. Came home and fell into a stupor in bed. Tonight, I'm cooking a ham with macaroni and cheese and green beans for DS who couldn't be with us yesterday.

 

[Whiskadoodle]

I would describe our family Thanksgiving as Chaotic Fun. A few people came over early, "just to pop in for a few minutes", and stayed for quite awhile, beginning at noon before going on to dinner elsewhere. Dinner was set for 4, which means 5 ( a given). Which meant that people that started their day elsewhere began arriving for dessert sooner than expected. Well, that's the way it should be if this is the family's gathering center. So, no, there was not enough seating around the dining tables as we had planned. I think some people found this most acceptable as they could continue sitting in the den or family room with football tv still on.

There was just barely enough gravy for first portions, no 2nd helpings. There was leftover turkey and there were enough potatoes, veggies salads, etc in total, though many empty bowls. It was also BYOA. Bring your own aprons- for clean-up detail. Somebody(s) washed the turkey roaster, potato kettle, platters, anything big, in the laundry tubs and we worked in teams washing and drying dishes. With our family, this isn't exactly a practice run.

There was much laughter coming from various rooms and the most fun part I think, was having 5 little ones under age 3. 4 boys and our DGDtr. The 2 3 yo cousins play together frequently and the 3 crawlers were like human wind-up toys.

It is a moveable feast, with more holidays just around the corner.

 

[GotGarlic]

Sounds perfect, Whiska. Just like the family holidays should be

 

[Cheryl J]

Whiska, that sounds like my idea of a great fun filled Thanksgiving!

We had a great afternoon! Small gathering - it was just me, my daughter, SIL, and grandson Tyler. Dinner was delicious. My daughter did a great job on the turkey - crispy browned skin and tender juicy meat. She made the bread dressing separately in a casserole dish, and I brought the rest of the sides.

Thanks to the make ahead gravy, there's more than enough left to go around for all the leftovers. We all stuffed ourselves, talked, laughed, and had a great time. While she was tupperwaring up leftovers, Tyler and I played a couple of board games.

They had a couple of other places to go that afternoon, so I left around 4. I came home, put away leftovers, kicked back in the recliner, and took a nap.

 

[Chef Munky]

I would describe our family Thanksgiving as Chaotic Fun. A few people came over early, "just to pop in for a few minutes", and stayed for quite awhile, beginning at noon before going on to dinner elsewhere. Dinner was set for 4, which means 5 ( a given). Which meant that people that started their day elsewhere began arriving for dessert sooner than expected. Well, that's the way it should be if this is the family's gathering center. So, no, there was not enough seating around the dining tables as we had planned. I think some people found this most acceptable as they could continue sitting in the den or family room with football tv still on.

There was just barely enough gravy for first portions, no 2nd helpings. There was leftover turkey and there were enough potatoes, veggies salads, etc in total, though many empty bowls. It was also BYOA. Bring your own aprons- for clean-up detail. Somebody(s) washed the turkey roaster, potato kettle, platters, anything big, in the laundry tubs and we worked in teams washing and drying dishes. With our family, this isn't exactly a practice run.

There was much laughter coming from various rooms and the most fun part I think, was having 5 little ones under age 3. 4 boys and our DGDtr. The 2 3 yo cousins play together frequently and the 3 crawlers were like human wind-up toys.

It is a moveable feast, with more holidays just around the corner.

Now that's the way Thanksgiving should be.
I think if you had added 4 more, minus the grand kids,added instead our sons friends dropping in We had the same thing going on.

Wasn't that fun? Loved every minute of it.Wouldn't have changed a thing.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

One sister and family couldn't make it because of road closures. Everyone else showed up for:
Turkey
Ham
Sage Dressing
Mashed potatoes with gravy
Mashed Cauliflower
Steamed Asparagus with fennel and a lemon butter sauce
Roasted Asparagus and fennel with a lemon butter sauce
Assorted crudites, pickles and olives
Pumpkin Pie
Low carb Pumpkin Pie

I forgot the rolls and the Cauliflower leek soup did not turn out well.

Lots of talking and laughter. Django had personal carriers for the whole day, I don't think he stepped foot on the floor while everyone was here. The Latté and Smudge hid in the box springs for the day.