Modern Vespa

My wife and I do up Thanksgiving big every year. This year there will only be seven of us for dinner, though my brother and (potential) future son-in-law will be able to enjoy leftovers.

Here's the menu:

I will be smoking a turkey in my Big Steel Keg. I have found that brining the turkey is the way to go - kind of like basting it from the inside. YMMV

I will also be baking my traditional Thanksgiving bread - white flour with added toasted wheat germ and wheat bran. I will be using the The Basic No-Knead Bread Recipe Adapted From Sullivan Street Bakery
Published: March 11, 2011 - New York Times

And I am making my traditional Mexican corn relish.

My wife will be making:

- crudites
- mixed artisan greens salad
- green chili tamale cups in hojas de maiz
- bread stuffing (dressing)
- homemade tofu-turkey with grain, caper, and mushroom stuffing
- turkey gravy
- veggie gravy
- mashed potatoes & cauliflower
- yams layered with brown sugar, orange juice, and margarine
- roasted root vegetables (potatoes, yams, turnips, onions, garlic, carrots, celery and chestnuts)
- braised Brussels sprouts
- Waldorf salad (if I can find good Waldorfs)
- homemade cranberry orange relish and traditional cranberry sauce
- homemade apple, pumpkin, and pecan p.i.e.s

To drink we will have gin and vodka martinis, Lamarca prosecco, Cupcake chardonnay, Trader Joe's Grand Reserve Meritage North Coast red wine, and sparkling apple cider.

Finally coffee to go with the p.i.e.s

Clearly my favorite meal of the year.

P.S. Almost everything tastes better the next day.

A total left turn in front of the thread, but the catharsis of finding a mate sharing the pain was worth it.

We have taken the easy way out for the past few years at Thanksgiving. Our local chain supermarkets offer a complete turkey meal that feeds 8 to 10 for $59.00. It includes a whole turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, squash, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls and a pumpkin cupcake. Everything is cooked and just needs re-heating. You pick up the box the day before Thanksgiving. This is an excellent meal and everyone has raved about it in the past. There are usually abundant leftovers which are nice to keep or send home with family.

This fits in very well with my work schedule, since I sign up for overnights Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, to give the young guys with families at home some much needed R&R without them having to cover third shift. The prep time in the kitchen is minimal and my wife doesn't have to get up at 5:00 AM to start a turkey dinner. I come home a bit after 7:00 AM, grab a few hours nap time and get up about noon to help set up for a 2:00PM meal.

Yeah, and we have an artificial Christmas tree, and I give Walmart gift cards instead of buying, wrapping and shipping presents all over the country.

Chain supermarket thanksgiving and an artificial Christmas tree? You sir are what is wrong with this world! Oh wait I have an artificial tree.

The bird gets stuffed at the parents' house first, because they usually buy it, and we are not afraid of a properly prepped and stuffed bird; then gets driven the .75 mile to my house to be convection roasted in my oven. It never fails to amaze me as to how many people have convection ovens but they never use the convection. The fowl always turns out perfectly. The finished product then gets chauffered back to the parents' house for prompt consumption. In the meantime my car smells like roasted bird for the next 6 weeks because the routine gets repeated at Xmas.

We'll also make the green bean cassarole from scratch on a foundation of bechemal sauce. And I'll make a scratch sweet potato cupcake, white not orange, complete with a stiff dose of bourbon...or cognac or scotch for me and the cupcake.

I haven't thought about doing bread yet.

I'm already tired.

I actually genuinely like that lazy-ass version of it. Tastes like home.

There will be only two items that come from a can on Thanksgiving. One of them is Campbell's cream of mushroom soup.

I bet you can guess what the other one is.

Pork roast with onions, apples, sweet potatoes, scallions and potatoes also corn bread. I will buy a Turkey after Thursday when the price will go down, there will be a very small gathering at my table. Some time in the following week the bird will come forth. Enjoy all! R

So that's how you get the p.i.e. in there. I am such a newbie.

The KBBQ will be serving dinner for 13. We will make a Turduken with all the trimmings. I expect there will be p-i-e.

Pictures or it didn't happen.

Corn bread is baked for the dressing. Turkey stock is made for the dressing and gravy. Dry brine ingredients are ready to be simmered and cooled for the turkey bath. Today the Beef Short Ribs get cooked. They taste better when all the favors have time to rest together then are slowly reheated. Cranberry sauce will be cooked and placed in a mold this morning.

The serving dishes will come out of the pantry today and get labeled with post-it notes. The table cloth and napkins are pressed and ready to go.

I still need to decide on an apple dessert. I don't want to do apple p.i.e. this year. Maybe I will do some sort of a cake with apples.

Happy Cooking

I have never been particularly fond of turkey. Fried in a deep cooker is tolerable. Chicken would be my choice if only one meat was available.

Then about three years ago I was given the breast from a wild turkey, killed by a friend. Absolutely delicious. I no longer hunt, but I have put out the word to my beard collecting buddies and occasionally get a free gobbler. If times got tough, hunting would resume.

The fact that I was involved as a youngster in the '60s in this sort of thing has nothing to do with not really liking turkey meat. Clemson University developing broad-breasted turkeys. Genetics, not silicone. Boss: "Go milk the toms with the red paint marks and use it on the hens with the blue paint. The toms lived together, totally segregated, and were frustrated and VERY aggressive. No success male/female as nature intended. Enjoy your Thanksgiving turkey! More fun facts available for those interested. Just ask.

The comments below this read are jewels. Most folks are completely out of touch with how food gets to the table.

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/freakonomics-radio/your-thanksgiving-turkey-probably-product-artificial-insemination

Jackie and I will be cooking the turkey and all the trimmings. After 18 years of family and trveling this our first Thanksgiving alone. Looking forward to it!! I'm a Christmes person, so bring on the parades!!!!!

Big southern families cook big southern meals for anything that resembles a holiday. My sister does thanksgiving, I do Christmas. Modifications will occur since we only have 11 for dinner and 17 for football. So, probably no ham, just turkey, dressing, green beans, creamed onions, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, relish tray, cruditees, rolls, pumpkin p.i.e., red velvet cake, and for my dad a mincemeat p.i.e. which none of us will touch with a ten foot pole. We will go to the bakery and get good bread, and have turkey sandwiches, leftovers, chips and beer for the football extravaganza that follows. About half the women split off for suicide shopping at some point in the evening. It honestly is my favorite holiday, we all chip in a little on the food, and we just hang out the rest of the day. Even clean up tends to be a genial affair accomplished by many hands.

Tues AM and my Thanksgiving cooking responsibilities are complete. My brother was over and we enjoyed our traditional coffee cake. One more time to bake it at Christmas and done until next year.

More than I wanted to know

Makes me think of the vegan turkey option with two dowels stuck in a chunk of tofu

As for us, it's off to my 81 year old mother's house for some free range turkey (don't really want to know any turkey family secrets ) Should be a low-key family affair with some great homemade pies. (My mom did pretty much all the cooking and baking at the local Woolworth's lunch counter for a couple of years in her late teens and hasn't let up much since). Not too many years of this left, I suspect.

It looks to me like sprouts are big this year. They've been part of our Thanksgiving for years, with and without bacon. This year, we'll be roasting them in olive oil with butternut squash. Still haven't decided whether we'll use bacon or not.

We are brining this year but sometimes we use a dry rub. I haven't decided yet whether to roast the bird whole, in pieces or spatchcocked. We'll most likely figure that out just before we preheat the oven. A cranberry-citrus mix will be prepared from scratch as will the giblet gravy. The star of the meal is always the andouille-chestnut stuffing prepared outside the bird. About 10 years ago, an in-law recommended portioning the stuffing by baking the mixture in a muffin pan. We've been serving "stuffin' muffins" ever since. Crisp on the outside, decadent on the inside. Can't wait...

im going to mpfrank....

May I suggest pancetta instead of bacon?

Just let me know when to pick you up at the airport.

Sunset online has a recipe for this. Shred the sprouts [food processor] chop up some panchtta, cook in skillet.
Very good. Might trick some anti sprouts people in to eating them.

My sister has a great recipe for sprouts I never thought I would eat them until she made them for Thanksgiving.

Here's my recipe. "Recipe" is overstating it though. It's some ingredients, and a general guideline for how to get the desired result. Quantities of everything are up to the individual to interpret for themselves.

I can now add Turkey Jerker to the list of jobs I hope I never have to do.

Thanks. Our recipe is more like Jess'. We trim and halve the sprouts like his recipe but tend to improvise based on mood after that. Typically, we'll use olive oil instead of butter and we'll roast at high heat in a shallow cast iron oval. Growing up, I'd retch at the smell of sprouts but roasted, browned and crispy on the outside? Great. We typically use shallots too but I'm not sure we'll use them with the squash this year.

And yes Jess, you may always suggest pancetta.

Thanks for the sprout recipet, I will try it soon. R

Boston Brown Bread? Mmm, wicked good.

Photos on Thursday night or Friday morning.

I am really looking forward to mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy. The rest of it is just fluff.

Turkey Day? The usual, T, S, MP, JS, PP, beer. We have a small family and always host Thanksgiving and Christmas at out cabin on the river. Its not a
big place but very cozy and a great place to spend with the ones we love.
My wife and I share the cooking duties and love every minute of it.

Agreed! Garlic mashed potatoes...with all the trimmings. Add to that a yam cassarole with marshmellow topping...pumpkin cupcake and a good cup of coffee and I'm done.

Completley laughed my ass off!....cupcake????
What gives? I know what I typed.....

Toasting up a nice roux in advance of T-Day. Should make the gravy that much easier to pull off at the last minute.

Mmmm! Nutty!

Test stuffing is in the oven. I'm trying out new recipes this year, as my old stuffing recipe was desperately in need of a tune-up. I've got a cornbread / spicy Italian sausage variety baking right now, should be done in half an hour or so.

I think you need to lay off the sauce, man.

Pie. Pie pie pie.

<voice="Grampa Simpson">
I don't like it. It's too spicy.
You kids get off my lawn!
</voice>

You've certainly got company on the GBC, it's doubtless risen to the level of comfort food, but no cranberry orange relish, and chunky fresh rummed cranberry sauce is almost criminal. I'm just barely old enough to remember seeing rivers run red with cranberries and all the varieties of sauce at northern county fairs. Many of the years away from the midwest with little or no access to fresh drypicked cranberries, made canned a treat. But living back home, not cooking several types would be sacrilegious. Now about that Brussell sprout recipe. Sharing?

We'll have several cranberry dishes, one of which is in fact cranberry orange relish. And for the nostalgic, we'll have canned cranberry jelly. See earlier in this thread, where I posted it. The recipe is somewhat informal, more a guideline than anything else.

I don't do much on Thanksgiving each year but this year we'll go all out.

I'm picking up 2 cheesecakes from the best on LA, my mom is cooking turkey and ham we'll buy the rest premade this is the last one for grandmom

I try to use the whole turkey. That means the "icky bits" that come packed in the turkey get turned into stock. I'm cleaning and brining one of the birds today, so that means I can get the stock made a day in advance and not have to worry about it tomorrow.

Read more than the first post? Now, there's a rule the other posts rule? WTF!

thanks



Nice to see the MV turkey! There's so many that could have been used, but not instantly linkable.