Brag about what you're making (or having) for Thanksgiving!

[Lyric]

Tell us every decadent, mouthwatering detail. Why is your Mom's gravy so fantastic? What's that special thing you do to mashed potatoes that makes them even MORE delicious? How do you prepare your ham/turkey/main course? What's your SECRET? :D

A few of mine:

--I use a large, bone-in Sugardale ham, placed into the roasting pan with absolutely NOTHING else EXCEPT...a single can of Coca-Cola poured over the top. I loosely tent it with foil, bake it at 300 degrees for a few hours, and it comes out so juicy and tender and flavorful that I have to beat the menfolk off in order to slice it without cutting off any niblet-seeking fingers. ;)

--I make my mashed potatoes using Yukon Gold potatoes cooked in chicken stock; I use only real, salted butter; and instead of milk, I use buttermilk. It just gives the potatoes a lovely little "zip" without overpowering the natural potato flavor like sour cream can.

--I brine my turkey for 12 hours in chicken stock, dissolved kosher salt, brown sugar, minced garlic, onion slices, and several tablespoons of an herb bend meant for poultry. I take it out of the brine 2 hours before cooking time so I can rinse it and then soak it for an hour in cold water, and then I pat it dry with paper towels (inside and out) and rub it with a thick layer of room-temperature butter. I sprinkle more herbs on top of the butter, swirl it all around with my hands, and put it on a rack in my roasting pan with two cups of chicken stock underneath it and a foil tent over it. About an hour and a half before it's due to be finished, I take the foil off and let the skin get golden and crispy. It comes out so tender that you hardly need a knife to slice it. :)

Please tell me some of the special things that you and your family do! :hi:

[Bertha Venation]

1. Probably a whopper or a quarter-pounder and fries.

I'll be on the road for ten hours that day. :hi:

[Xipe Totec]

2. Another one of these...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6kluQggyf8

[femmocrat]

3. This is the first year in decades that I don't have to cook!

:woohoo: We were invited to a relative's house for a combination Thanksgiving/Birthday celebration! :party:

[clyrc]

4. Oh, Thanksgiving!

Love that holiday!

The family recipe for stuffing is simple but my favorite. It's made from sugar free cornbread, croutons, a whole bunch of celery and onions, broth, and sage. I've tried many other versions of stuffing over the years, and some of them I really liked, but none better than this recipe. The rest of my holiday meal is pretty simple, too, although I do use a brine for the turkey from a Martha Stewart recipe my mom told me about a few years ago. I was willing to do some experimenting on the turkey because, in the pre brine days, the turkey was the food most likely to be disappointing.

I got everything I need for Thanksgiving dinner, which is a relief because from year to year I never know if what I need will be available. For the first time in years, we will only have a few guests over to eat, and that makes me kind of sad. I like big groups for the holidays, but most of my friends who usually come to eat with us will be out of the country this year.

[denbot]

5. Alley and Mini-Alley are off to the Best Friends Animal Society Thanksgiving week.

I guess I'll see if Man-cub wants to hang out here. If he is going to have dinner at a buddies I'm not going to cook a full meal for just me.. I may brine and roast a turkey, just to have left over turkey sammiches.

On Edit.. Maybe I'll roast a duck. I did a cherry glazed duck years ago, and it was freaking delicious.

[HopeHoops]

6. Stuffed acorn squash, blue potatoes from our garden, and a shitload of other things.

[tigereye]

16. blue potatoes- heirlooms? I've never had such wonderful potatoes as all those

heirlooms, etc. we got from the local farm box subscription. Sounds very good HH!

[HopeHoops]

25. They make beautiful mashed potatoes.

We grow them every year.

[tigereye]

26. yum, i bet they do!

[elleng]

7. I ordered one of these!

:hi:

http://www.gobblegobble.com/

[Arkansas Granny]

8. My daughter and I prepare the holiday meals in our family. First and foremost,

we are the best cooks in the family plus, we both love to cook and enjoy making the big family dinners. The rest of the family is content to let us do this and happy to take leftovers home. We have settled upon a basic menu that we prepare every year, but it seems like each time we tweak a recipe a little bit or add a new twist to it and the dishes just keep getting better and better.

We have been roasting the turkey by Martha Stewart's method for the past few years and it makes a beautiful, juicy bird. Instructions here:

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/marthas-perfect-roast-turkey

We add chicken broth to the turkey drippings until we get the taste we like (the drippings are so concentrated after roasting they need to be diluted some) and use kneaded butter to thicken the gravy. I cook the giblets separately in a little chicken broth and mince them up fine to add to the gravy. If the gravy looks a little pale, we add a little Kitchen Bouquet.

I have played around with the stuffing over the last 45 years and have found that we prefer one made with half white bread cubes and half cornbread with lots of celery and onion. After it's mixed we just keep tasting and adding seasoning until we get it right. We don't add any raw eggs, so no problem eating it uncooked.

We pay no attention to calories for these special meals, so we use all the butter, cream, etc. that we need to really make the potatoes rich and creamy (and I might try your tip of cooking them in chicken broth, which we've never done before). Everything else is made from scratch, with the exception of the pie pastry. I keep trying, but have never mastered flaky homemade pastry.

My daughter-in-law makes refrigerator potato rolls that will melt in your mouth, so she gets to do the bread now.

[Lyric]

10. A tip about flaky homemade pastry

I don't know your method, but pie crusts and biscuits are something that I'm really, really good at, so I might be able to help. I'm sure you probably know most of this already, but I'm posting it all for the sake of anyone else who might need help making homemade pie crust. :)

First--are you keeping it cold enough while you handle it? My secret is to use ice water, and (more importantly) to work with the dough on a very, very cold surface. I usually stick my cast-iron flat griddle into the freezer for an hour before making pie crust, then take it out RIGHT before I handle the dough and cover it plastic wrap. Working the dough on a very cold surface will give you a much better end result, because ideally, you want all of the fat globules in the dough to stay cold and hard and separate. Also--add your ice water just a tablespoonful at a time, and don't "stir" it in--just kinda toss it around. Ideally, you want a dough that is cold and dry enough to be rolled out *without* adding any extra flour to your cold rolling surface, but not *too* dry (because too much flour = less tenderness).

And although butter has a superior flavor, shortening makes a more tender pie crust, so if you want a tender crust without losing that buttery flavor, try doing equal parts of cold butter, shortening, and cold rendered pork lard. I know it sounds unhealthy, but that combination really, really tastes good--and like you, I don't worry myself over fat and calories for holiday meals. I've even used butter-flavor Crisco in a pinch, and it actually tasted pretty good!

Additionally, I have found that the absolute biggest, most vital component to having your pastry crust turn out perfect is to hardly handle it at all. It shouldn't really be "kneaded"--just gently folded in on itself a few times to form internal layers. Don't worry that the fat isn't "mixed in" enough--if you cut it in well enough beforehand, it's perfectly okay for the fat to NOT be perfectly mixed in. Some larger fat globules here and there will help give you that tender, flaky texture.

A few other small tips:

Use a glass pie pan. I don't know exactly why, but glass pans just work better for pies.

Cover the crust edges loosely with aluminum foil--I just cut out a circular, pie-shaped "shield" and loosely drape it over the edges. I take it off about 10 minutes before the pie is supposed to be done to let the edges get nice and golden.

Here's a pic of the apple pie I made for last year's Thanksgiving. I use Granny Smith, Gala, and Golden Delicious apples all sliced and mixed together with sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, a splash of lemon juice, and a pinch of flour. :)

[jmm]

12. I was never good at using foil to shield crust so..

I always remove to bottom of a tart pan and invert it on top of a pie then remove it when I need to at the end.

[Arkansas Granny]

13. I think my biggest problem is overhandling the dough. I've also never used lard.

I keep saying I'm going to try it again. Maybe this will be the year. I could do a "test pie" and see how it goes. I'm sure it will get eaten regardless how the crust turns out.

[tigereye]

17. good advice- I've been thinking about trying to make scratch pie crusts

again.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

9. Hand-made honest-to-goodness

tortellini, traditional family recipe. Just did them this weekend. Spent nearly $100 on the ingredients (real prosciutto, mortadella, Parmigiano Reggiano, etc.) and making the dough. Then filling and shaping each tortellino by hand (ok, I lie... my SO helped).

Will be having them with capon broth (bought a capon and it was decently cheap) to my SO's parents who are country folk who have no idea what tortellini are. Hopefully, they'll like them. They're bringing corned ham and oyster stuffing (which is a delicacy here in SE NC by the beach). I will be making a few sides and a dessert - white chocolate strawberry cheesecake.

My family doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving (duh! We're Italian from Italy), but I love to cook for people and I like showing off :)

[Lyric]

11. I've never had homemade tortellini. Yum!

I've only ever had the frozen kind. Yours sound wonderful! How do you make the pasta dough?

:9

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

19. Simple...

unbleached all purpose flour (2 lb. bag), fresh eggs (about 8, but you may need more), a pinch of salt.

On a large clean surface, empty flour bag and form a volcano (that is, a large flour mountain, then dig a 'crater'). One by one, break the eggs into the crater. I like to use yolks because they make a nice yellow dough that is very flavorful and cooks super fast. I also like to use cage-free, free-range eggs (the better quality will definitely come through). Then add about half a teaspoon of salt.

With a lot of patience, stir the ingredients and slowly knead, turning and twisting the dough until it has a uniform consistency, is pliable, not too dry and not too wet.

You can then roll it out with a hand-cranked pasta machine or you can wrap it in a couple of layers of aluminum foil and freeze it for later use.

You cook it the same as other pasta - that is, in a pot of boiling water that has been salted using sea salt or kosher salt.

Because it has egg and flour, it cooks very fast.

[KamaAina]

14. A Baltimore tradition: sauerkraut.

Seriesly. It's a German thing (duh), which supposedly helps digestion of all that rich food.

Non-Baltimoreans, however, find it weird enough that Mom finally gave up bringing it a few years ago. But fear not, kraut-lovers: I have secured a two-pound jar of the stuff and am bringing same to our "People's Thanksgving" at work this hursday.

[applegrove]

15. I made my first Thanksgiving Turkey for Canadian Thanksgiving this past october. The gravy was

W O N D E R f u l! I'm so proud.

[tigereye]

18. roasted chestnut stuffing w/ french bread and Granny Smith apples, onions

and sage, all sauteed, add eggs and then baked. My mom always made the traditional sauteed old white bread kind with just onions and celery, cooked to crusty bits, and I never liked it. So I've been making my own since I took over cooking duties!

Also cranberry sauce mixed with honey and mandarin oranges instead of the basic cooked cranberries with sugar. Yum.


Another organic turkey from the farm share folks- the one we got last year was excellent. And my husband always makes a huge Greek salad. Wonderful. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.


And, I make a pumpkin with cream cheese pie for desert in a graham cracker crust.

[Biker13]

20. LYRIC!!!

I'm going to try this for my turkey this year! Thank you so much! I'll let you know how it goes! It sounds fantastic!

I know...I use too many exclamation points!

Biker13's Old Lady

[foxfeet]

21. I'll have to check with the chef.

My partner, Mr. foxfeet, is trained as a chef and does most of the cooking. We're keeping it low-key this year due to my surgery tomorrow, so I don't know exactly what he has in mind. (He has a hankering to try an heirloom turkey in lieu of the usual Butterball type. But probably not this year.) All I know is that we'll eat well and I'll enjoy it!

Happy Thanksgiving to you, Rhythm and Lyrickid! I haven't been home to West Virginia for several years.

[whistler162]

22. Going out to eat....

[Angry Dragon]

23. Do you have room for a Dragon??

[La Lioness Priyanka]

24. roast chicken, rack of lamb & salmon

Green beans, brussel sprouts with pancetta, cornbread dressing, pumpkin pie, chocolate lava cakes, scalloped potatoes, red potatoes.