What's your favorite Thanksgiving recipe?

[Jennifer]

It seems we have a lot of epicureans here. I'm dying for some new ideas.

 

[Ms_Ann]

First time dry brineing my bird. Crosses fingers.

 

[Aquagal]

Bacon Carrots

Fry a pound of bacon and set bacon side. Pour out grease but leave a couple tablespoons in the large deep skillet. Cut a bunch of carrots thinly on the diagonal. You decide how much, carrots will shrink in size. Simmer them on med-low til tender. Crunch bacon into little pieces and throw back in with carrots once they're all cooked. Add 1/4 of brown sugar right before serving and melt into together, makes a yummy sauce. Season with Tony Chachere's Cajun seasoning.

 

[Jennifer]

Bacon Carrots

Fry a pound of bacon and set bacon side. Pour out grease but leave a couple tablespoons in the large deep skillet. Cut a bunch of carrots thinly on the diagonal. You decide how much, carrots will shrink in size. Simmer them on med-low til tender. Crunch bacon into little pieces and throw back in with carrots once they're all cooked. Add 1/4 of brown sugar right before serving and melt into together, makes a yummy sauce. Season with Tony Chachere's Cajun seasoning.

Sweet baby Jesus. I have all of those ingredients. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Noor]

Either chestnut soup or my favorite Texas biker lawyer's family's secret recipe for pumpkin soup.

 

[Aquagal]

Sweet baby Jesus. I have all of those ingredients. Thanks for sharing.

Yummy! I'll post a picture here in a few as soon as mine is done.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

The Brine (for an 18-22lb turkey)

1 1/2 gallon water
3 cups kosher salt
3 cups dark brown sugar
20 whole cloves
10 bay leaves
5 tablespoons whole black peppercorns
5 teaspoons dried rosemary
5 teaspoons dried thyme

Boil the water and add the salt and sugar to dissolve. Return to a boil and add the rest. Simmer 1/2 hr. Refrigerate overnight. Drop in the turkey for 24 hours.

Enjoy!

 

[BoyNextDoor]

Bacon Carrots

Fry a pound of bacon and set bacon side. Pour out grease but leave a couple tablespoons in the large deep skillet. Cut a bunch of carrots thinly on the diagonal. You decide how much, carrots will shrink in size. Simmer them on med-low til tender. Crunch bacon into little pieces and throw back in with carrots once they're all cooked. Add 1/4 of brown sugar right before serving and melt into together, makes a yummy sauce. Season with Tony Chachere's Cajun seasoning.

mouth watering.

 

[SCcouple1990]

The bacon carrots sound really good.

I made a pumpkin cheesecake a few years ago with a pecan bourbon glaze that people seemed to like. I'll try to find that recipe.

 

[Conager]

Turky and dumplings. There are very few cooking projects that my late father was in charge of but that was one of them along with pralines at Christmas time.

He got it from his father who was out of Kentucky and I've never seen what they make called dumplings anywhere else; they're basically just thick noodles. Making it is as much a family project as it is an actual recipe.

Toss the turkey carcass and pan drippings in a pot of boiling water. Season that until it suits your likings add some celery and carrot slices. Carrots are mostly for a little color in there but I always love the taste of them cooked that way. Doesn't hurt to quarter a couple of onions and throw them in there too. You don't have to simmer it too long and you want to fish that big carcass back out before it completely falls apart because you don't want to be fishing out all the bones. if you get distracted the easiest thing to do is to strain the entire broth through a colander and then pick through what's left in the colander and throw the bits of turkey carrots and onions and whatnot back in the pot.

Pick over the carcass trying to get all the little bits of meat you can. The harder to find little bits seem to taste better anyway and it's a great job for small fingers after the carcass cools a bit. From the already carved turkey leftovers, add back in however much turkey you think you're going to need to get a lot of turkey in your bowl when you start load ladling it into bowls.

While the small ones are picking through the carcass you make your dumplings. This is how the Next Generation learns to make the dumplings.

I like a lot of dumpling so I probably would use a couple of cups of flour at least basically one egg for every cup of flour. You just make a pile of flour on the counter, make a little volcano looking shape, crack the eggs in the middle and then just start making a mess of it all over your sticky fingers until you have worked it into some sort of a dough. Playing and with it a lot is desired because what you're doing is you're stretching out the glutens and you're making it a stretchy springy Chewy though you're doing the opposite of what you would want for bread. You're going to just keep adding water every so often and the best way to do that is when the stickiness on and between your fingers starts to annoy you, you basically get your fingers wet enough to get that dough off those fingers and you just keep doing it until you have a dough that holds together and doesn't stick to your fingers. you get too much water you're just picking up some flour off the counter with the window and getting it right. If it starts sticking to the counter you just throw more flour on the counter and you just keep doing this until you have a round of dough that's sliding around loose on a floured counter. Little hands enjoy the sticky part of this operation.

Take a heavy rolling pin and then roll the whole thing out I like him kind of thin, so I'll go maybe an eighth of an inch thick.

Dad had this pizza cutter that had sort of a waviness to it so it made wavy lines. I don't think it was actually a pizza cutter because it was only about an inch in diameter. I've never seen one since but I've made do with an actual pizza cutter or just a knife and you slice it up into ribbons anywhere from an inch thick to 2 inch dick depending on how awkward you want it to be to eat. Bigger dumplings arevawkward but chewier. You then cut all those ribbons on the diagonal and you almost deliberately make an effort not to be uniform about the mess so you have all kinds of shapes and sizes of dumplings.

as you're cutting you grab a few at a time and toss them into the boiling broth. it doesn't matter at all that someone cooked longer than the others once they're cooked they're cooked and they don't tend to fall apart the way pasta does if it becomes overcooked.

What I added to the family recipe that the kids tend to like it sometimes I add sriracha sauce a little soy and a little vinegar to lean it towards hot and sour soup. I didn't really use ginger as much as I do now, the last time I made it or I would have added some of that.

When their kids were quite small I read to them the book Stone Soup and started the boiling water with a smooth stone.

 

[Aquagal]

Carrots are almost done!

 

[silver gurl]

My favourite is the stuffing but that is basic. We also always brine our turkey.
For an easy ap (which is a big hit) Water chestnuts wrapped in bacon.
We get thick cut bacon from the butcher. Wrap bacon around water chestnuts and hold with a toothpick, marinate in soy sauce. Bake at 425.

 

[Conager]

At extended family gatherings I was always in charge of the cranberry sauce. Mostly because I was the only one that was overly enthusiastic about cranberry sauce. Maybe because I don't make good cranberry sauce but I think it's delicious. That can stuff sliced is sort of fun for the kids because it's gives them a giggle when it comes out of the can but nobody really likes that do they?

I just follow the recipe on the back of the bag of fresh cranberries and it works perfectly every time. Sometimes, I will section an orange and add that after the sauce has cooled down a bit. Cranberries contain natural pectin so it thickens on its own.

One time while using a standard stuffing recipe I think just because it's what I had on hand instead of using the standard sage-seasoned breakfast sausage in my stuffing, I used sweet Italian sausage. That was interesting.

 

[RunningJib]

For My Son-in-Law

My son-in-law grew up thinking it was perfectly good to have a hot turkey sandwich on Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, he still despises turkey in all forms


I filet a pork loin and stuff with dried fruit that I've soak in cider

 

[yossi]

My mom uses the sweet Italian sausage in her stuffing. I can't convince her to go with the hot, but I did talk her into adding apples the last couple years.

 

[yossi]

He got it from his father who was out of Kentucky and I've never seen what they make called dumplings anywhere else; they're basically just thick noodles. Making it is as much a family project as it is an actual recipe.

The noodle dumpling a Pennsylvania-Dutch thing, as far as I know. At least, that's where I know it from. It could have originated elsewhere.

 

[neci]

i love some well made mashed potatoes, but corn spoon bread is up there at the very top. when done right, it's like a soufflé.

 

[Conager]

My mom uses the sweet Italian sausage in her stuffing. I can't convince her to go with the hot, but I did talk her into adding apples the last couple years.

In my lasagna I mix lean hamburger and about half and half of sweet and hot Italian sausage.

 

[barefootgirl69]

Turky and dumplings. There are very few cooking projects that my late father was in charge of but that was one of them along with pralines at Christmas time.

He got it from his father who was out of Kentucky and I've never seen what they make called dumplings anywhere else; they're basically just thick noodles. Making it is as much a family project as it is an actual recipe.

<snip>

Take a heavy rolling pin and then roll the whole thing out I like him kind of thin, so I'll go maybe an eighth of an inch thick.

Dad had this pizza cutter that had sort of a waviness to it so it made wavy lines. I don't think it was actually a pizza cutter because it was only about an inch in diameter. I've never seen one since but I've made do with an actual pizza cutter or just a knife and you slice it up into ribbons anywhere from an inch thick to 2 inch dick depending on how awkward you want it to be to eat. Bigger dumplings arevawkward but chewier. You then cut all those ribbons on the diagonal and you almost deliberately make an effort not to be uniform about the mess so you have all kinds of shapes and sizes of dumplings.

as you're cutting you grab a few at a time and toss them into the boiling broth. it doesn't matter at all that someone cooked longer than the others once they're cooked they're cooked and they don't tend to fall apart the way pasta does if it becomes overcooked.
<snip>

My mom is from western NC and this is how they're made around here. When we have family reunions back east, my uncle - the oldest brother of the nine siblings - is in charge of the dumplins...

Carrots are almost done!

That looks delicious... can you post a link so we can smell them?


****

The one thing we have at Thanksgiving and Christmas that we don't make any other time of year is a huge pot of sauerkraut and pork country ribs. We add some water and cook it on low all day long and the meat absorbs the sour, which makes it heavenly.

Long ago, we gave up on pumpkin pies in favor of Sweet Potato Pie. Pumpkin pies are done in late September and October.

 

[Disgustipated]

Brine with salt and water with a bit of pepper. Not everyone likes all the spices and bullshit in the brine. Don't cook a giant bird. Cook two smaller birds, like 13-15lbs. And FFS, spell the gottdamn bird's name right. It's Turkey.

 

[thør]

First time dry brineing my bird. Crosses fingers.

I prefer it for meats.

 

[Wild_Honey_66]

traditional around my house:

creamed pearl onions
zucchini frittata
canned jellied cranberry sauce, crushed graham crackers, and Cool Whip layered in a glass loaf dish
King's Hawaiian sweet rolls or Pyrenees (local bakery) sourdough rolls

 

[Noor]

At extended family gatherings I was always in charge of the cranberry sauce. Mostly because I was the only one that was overly enthusiastic about cranberry sauce. Maybe because I don't make good cranberry sauce but I think it's delicious. That can stuff sliced is sort of fun for the kids because it's gives them a giggle when it comes out of the can but nobody really likes that do they?

I just follow the recipe on the back of the bag of fresh cranberries and it works perfectly every time. Sometimes, I will section an orange and add that after the sauce has cooled down a bit. Cranberries contain natural pectin so it thickens on its own.

I love cranberry sauce too! I make it from the directions on the package and it tastes great! For canned kind I like Ocean Spray with whole berries, though I will eat the jelly if I must.
I hate the adulteration with oranges. I am a purist!

 

[sr71plt]

A slug of Wild Turkey.

 

[thør]

I love cranberry sauce too! I make it from the directions on the package and it tastes great! For canned kind I like Ocean Spray with whole berries, though I will eat the jelly if I must.
I hate the adulteration with oranges. I am a purist!

4 cups cranberries, 3 cups sugar, 2 cups water.

Bring to a boil and simmer. Pour it into a bowl and let it cool.

I don't know what's on the package, but this is grandma's recipe using lingonberries, which are low-bush cranberries. It works for ocean spray berries, too.