Thanksgiving without a turkey

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rickell

Senior Cook
Joined
Mar 31, 2006
Messages
384
Location
Kansas City
hi everyone have not posted been in a bit. i have been very busy.:wacko:

this year we are having a traditional thanksgiving meal on the friday the day after thanksgiving. on thanksgiving it will just be my hubby and our kids.
i don't want to be all turkeyed out on friday my mil makes a wonderful
turkey. anyway i was wondering what others folks serve different
than turkey on thanksgiving??????
 
I guess I may be one that has taken a different approach in the last few years for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. This year, since it will be just my hubby, myself and maybe one daughter; I am making gumbo. It freezes well so that hubby can take some on the road if he wants and if the daughter shows up, she can take a lot of it back home with her, she loves it. Last year I fixed "surf-n-turf" for Thanksgiving. I've fixed all Mexican food, Chinese or whatever for holiday dinners ( I go with what people really want to eat). If I have a large bunch here and they want traditional, I am more than happy to fix that. One thing this has done is take off the stress of trying to out-do myself from the year before. And if it is just a couple of us here, it is just easier.
 
One year I went to a friend's home and she prepared an Indian feast, featuring Goanese Roast Pork and a plethora of ethereal vegetable dishes. I never missed the turkey! :D

I do have the pork recipe, if you'd like to have it.
 
I love the whole idea of Thanksgiving. I would have something that is a favourite. For example, we usually have either a turkey or a goose at Chritmas but last year we had beef......we both like it and don't buy a good piece that often so we did at christmas. Just have your favourite meal and enjoy giving thanks!
 
my mom's sisters often have the traditional t-giving meal... we choose to make a louisiana meal with:

gumbos - seafood and/or chicken & sausage
crawfish pasta
pan fried or grilled trout
seafood stuffed merlitons (veg. pears)
etc
etc.
 
We do Cornish game hens...
You could do that or do a roast with veggies
or a ham...
 
Make Thanksgiving traditions of your own. We have in a way, My family always had the turkey, DH's family always had the fried chicken and ravioli, now our children and grankids have what we've come to love within our family. While my kids love stuffing none of them is thrilled with turkey, they will have a small slice with gravey, but much prefer a ham, so we do both.
We have ham, turkey both small sized,stuffing, ravioli, artichokes cooked with evoo, butter,garlic,fresh flat leaf chopped parsley, garbanzo beans cold with evoo, parsley and garlic,homemade cranberry sauce, an antipasto platter, homemade foccacia,mashed potatoes and gravy, baked and mashed sweet potatoes with butter,and a little brown sugar,homemade rolls.Desserts are usually some pumpkin,apple and chocolate pie or we do good sized cream puffs have a liqueur and coffee and call it a day. I do think we could all get together and eat Kentucky fried and still be happy and thankful, the thanks being that we are all together and love each other, it's the family before the food. I hope your Thanksgiving turns out to be one of the best.

kadesma:)
 
If you are going to celebrate Thanksgiving on Friday instead of Thursday ... what difference does it make what you eat on Thursday? That's kind of like - if you're going to celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday, what should you want on Wednesday??? Or, I'm going to make meatloaf on Tuesday - what should I make on Monday??

Make whatever you want - and enjoy your celebration on whatever day you decide to do it.
 
ChefJune said:
... Goanese Roast Pork ... :D

I do have the pork recipe, if you'd like to have it.

sounds scrumdiddlyumptious! by all means, serve it up!


and as far as thanksgiving goes, it's about the spirit in which it's eaten, not what's on the table. the pilgrims served up turkey & squash because that's what they could get their hands on. i'm pretty certain that most of them would have prefered a more traditional (to them) roast goose.
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thanks for all your ideas. i guess maybe i worded my first post wrong.

the true celebration for us will be thursday with just the kids and my husband. i come from a very large family and when a spec holiday arrives,
seems for some reason the true meaning of the holiday gets lost, maybe
because trying to get on a small gathering 50 or so together it gets crazy.

on the other hand my husband's side of the family celebrate everything
so celebrating an occasion is not such spec thing, it happens all the time.

this will be our 3rd thanksgiving with just us and the kids started asking in
oct can we celebrate thanksgiving just us again? i am very thankful
the enjoy just being with us, even though they are with us everyday.

makes me feel all warm and cosy inside, i guess for them too.

well we are still making up our minds of what we will be making.

normally each one of us picks a part of the meal they would like to
make. we are going to do that again.

sorta leaning towards pork
 
ChefJune said:
One year I went to a friend's home and she prepared an Indian feast, featuring Goanese Roast Pork and a plethora of ethereal vegetable dishes. I never missed the turkey! :D

I do have the pork recipe, if you'd like to have it.
chefjune i would love your recipe.
thanks
 
During the year when I want to have the flavors and feeling of Thanksgiving, I have a pork chop recipe that utilizes a scaled down version of my stuffing recipe. It's great and I add cranberry sauce and a few of the sides I serve at Thanksgiving to "Thanksgiving" it up. I'll share the recipe if you wish.
 
Katie E said:
During the year when I want to have the flavors and feeling of Thanksgiving, I have a pork chop recipe that utilizes a scaled down version of my stuffing recipe. It's great and I add cranberry sauce and a few of the sides I serve at Thanksgiving to "Thanksgiving" it up. I'll share the recipe if you wish.
Please do share you recipe Katie. Would love to see and try what others do.

kadesma:)
 
Thanksgiving day menu


Both our boys ( 43 & 48) are over the road 18 wheeler truck drivers. I worry about them. (Ah! yes I digress), well anyway the only thing they want this year is my own home made from scratch
slippery Chicken Pot Pie. and my home made cole slaw.They both tell me that it is the eleventh commandant to have cole slaw with slippery pot pie.


 
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