Thanksgiving traditions

[mjeff87]

Might be a couple days early for this, but WTH.....

 

What does your family do as a tradition for Thanksgiving?  I'm mostly talking about food here, curious about what different people do around the country (and world, for that matter).  Turkey day for me is my favorite holiday (it's about the only holiday that isn't commercialized except for black Friday), bar none, and I'm a strict traditionalist when it comes to grub.  I likes my roasted turkey (the whole damn bird, not just a breast.....), dressing, mashed and sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce (preferably homemade), buttered corn and gravy.  Pumpkin pie with real dang whipped cream, too.

 

Problem is that my wife and I alternate holidays with her parents....and this year they are coming here to VA but MIL is bringing most of the stuff.  She buys the hugest turkey breast (fresh, she's picking it up on Wednesday morning on their way here) she can get.  I'm serious, she gets like a 20 lb BREAST, for 4 people.  She buys an extra thigh and leg and throws it in the roaster just for me, 'cause I'm the only one who likes dark meat.  That never turns out well, because you need to cook them longer so they are tender......they always end up like rubber.  But I just shut up and eat them, LOL.  She cubes up raw potatoes and mixes them into the stuffing too (it's an Amish thing, I guess).  Her stuffing is wonderful tasting, but because it has potatoes in it noone wants mashed potatoes on the side, and nobody eats sweet potatoes, except for guess who?  Me.  My wife is in charge of making crescent rolls (from the tube, not from scratch), and always ends up burning them in the toaster oven.  That's a lovely addition as well.

 

We just bought a new gas range with dual ovens earlier this year, and I doubt the Chernobyl sized monster turkey will fit in either oven in the garbage can sized roaster she always cooks it in, so that's another potential thing I'll need to deal with as well.  I might just go in the garage with a beer and watch TV all morning.

 

So.....what's everyone else do?

[DDJeep89]

No mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving, that's a sin! Like you we alternate with my family and my wife's family every year. My only complaint with my wife's family is they do dinner, my family does lunch time. Eating dinner with the in-laws means no leftover turkey sandwiches and beer around 4pm when football is on. I have a pretty large family so we do 2 turkeys. One roasted and one deep fried. I've never had stuffing with potatoes in it, sounds pretty good. Pie is real big in our family. We have Pecan (my favorite), Cherry, Apple, and Pumpkin. Damn now I'm hungry. 

[mjeff87]

Sadly, I have very few family members left (alive), only one brother and an aunt.  We did the "alternating" family gatherings for Thanksgiving and Christmas for years and couldn't get either family to coordinate meal times for so long I just gave up.  Thankfully, we don't have to do that dance anymore.

 

I usually cube up a couple potatoes and make a small pot of mashed, and I bake off a sweet potato, just for me.  Leftover turkey is never a problem....we usually have about 19.27 lbs of the original 20 lb breast to munch on for days afterward

[Pete M]

This year I'll be in Disney World on Thanksgiving.    here's hoping that'll be a new tradition from here on out!    lol

 

 

[mjeff87]

Nice.

 

I could eat my body weight in those lamb chops that the New Zealand (IIRC) booth had at the Epcot food and wine festival.  Who knew that ground up potato chips make the world's best topping on a grilled lamb chop.  I sure didn't, but do now

[Motorhead X]

Just two of us here and our plan is to try a brine turkey breast and turkey gravy from Trader Joe's. Also making baked butternut squash halved with brown sugar, mashed potatoes, cornbread stuffing and a purchasing a berry pie with vanilla ice cream. It should take about an hour to prepare. It probably won't be as good as a whole baked bird, but we're not cooking all day... We usually go to the beach instead.

[Manche757]

mjeff87, I see you are in Richmond.  I will be driving from Virginia Beach past you to stay at Skyland Lodge in the Shenandoah National Park for a few days of hiking with friends. They have an expansive Thanksgiving day buffet. Two years ago, I was there hiking at dusk and got lucky when a black bear went scampering by about a 100 feet away.   I could not tell how old it was with the limited daylight left. I did a quick check around to make sure we were not between mother and cub.  If it gets bad with the in-laws, come on out if you like wilderness and wildlife. I sure do for both.

[mjeff87]

Nick....one year I got so fed up with both families fighting over what time each was going to serve the meal that I said screw it, we're not coming home to visit EITHER of ya.  Wife and I stayed home and did exactly what you and yours are planning (except for the beach part).  It was wonderful, but boy were both mothers pretty cheesed off at us both for a few months after that.

 

'Manche, are you coming up 460 through Suffolk or driving I64?  If via 460, you'll literally be passing about 2 minutes from my house once you get to I95 (we're about 20 minutes/miles south of Richmond city).  Stop by for a beer or 10 if ya want.  I feel you on the great outdoors, we spent a week over at Smith Mountain Lake a couple months ago in a little cottage right on the water.  It was incredible.

[Manche757]

59 minutes ago, mjeff87 said:

Nick....one year I got so fed up with both families fighting over what time each was going to serve the meal that I said screw it

 Laughing.  Happens to the best of us.  Will be going up 95 to spend first night in Front Royal which is the northern end of the park.  Will travel south to Skyland and spend three nights there. Some great hikes in the area.  You put out the welcome mat once before when the hurricane was headed to us at first.  Maybe our paths will cross before too long.  

 

59 minutes ago, mjeff87 said:

  I feel you on the great outdoors, we spent a week over at Smith Mountain Lake a couple months ago in a little cottage right on the water.  It was incredible.

 

  Yeah, HOrnbrod said you caught all the fish there.  

 

[Eagle]

Turkey was always the traditional Thanksgiving dinner in my family. Since my wife came here from South America when we married, it was no problem indoctrinating her into the tradition. Cranberry sauce was a staple (the clear kind, not the type with whole berries in it), green beans for the vegetable, and Mom usually made both mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes. (I liked the mashed.) When I was growing up, we didn't know that you'd die if you cooked the stuffing inside the bird, so Mom's home-made stuffing got cooked in the bird, and nobody died.

 

Most of the family liked pumpkin pie. My grandfather and I liked mincemeat pie. Mom used to make two, one for Grandpa and the other for everybody else. I tried to hog as much of the "everybody else" pie as I could.

[NHMJXJ]

My sister got the "cooking gene" from my Dad.  She's amazing.  Tradition is "show up at her house with an appetite".  

 

She and I can look in the same fridge.   She sees 7 course meal, I see bologna sammich.

 

 

[mjeff87]

I'm sure you're wife brought many new dishes into your life Eagle. If you ever care to share some of them, I'm all ears.

 

Yeah, as far as I can remember, nobody ever got sick or died from stuffing.  I should correct my original post as I said "dressing", which technically is cooked in a pan outside of the bird.  Blah.  STUFFING is where it's at.  MIL uses four (yes, four) loaves of bread and 2 dozen eggs to make her stuffing, and crams it into any and every part of the mutant breast she buys.  Yes, it sits there and stews inside the cavity for way too many hours in the "food danger zone" while it all cooks, but it is damned good.  Did I mention the cubed potatoes she mixes into the whole mess too?  Yeah, good eats.

 

Full disclosure, I'm a trained and certified chef through the American Culinary Federation, and plainly violate most of the rules of current cooking philosophy (and law, in a commercial setting, but I'm not active in the business now).  Moms, their moms, and their moms moms know/knew how to cook.  Well, except for my crescent-roll burning wife...she couldn't cook her way out of a wet paper bag. I still lover her though.

[mjeff87]

2 hours ago, Manche757 said:

 Laughing.  Happens to the best of us.  Will be going up 95 to spend first night in Front Royal which is the northern end of the park.  Will travel south to Skyland and spend three nights there. Some great hikes in the area.  You put out the welcome mat once before when the hurricane was headed to us at first.  Maybe our paths will cross before too long.  

 

 

  Yeah, HOrnbrod said you caught all the fish there.  

 

I'm here, the beers are cold, and yer always welcome

 

 

47 minutes ago, NHMJXJ said:

My sister got the "cooking gene" from my Dad.  She's amazing.  Tradition is "show up at her house with an appetite".  

 

She and I can look in the same fridge.   She sees 7 course meal, I see bologna sammich.

 

 

 

Shes a keeper.  Any chance she would be willing to spend a weekend, or several years, with my wife to teach her?

[mjeff87]

Manche, if you're taking a wheeling vehicle, you can run Shoe Creek, either from the bottom up to Buttermilk Falls or start at the top and go down.  It's not crazy wheeling....I ran it bottom up in my stock TJ on 31's doing a couple bypasses on more "technical" sections, but it's a few hours worth of fun.  It starts off rt 29 just north of Lynchburg and runs up through Shenandoah.  At the Falls area on top you can hit hardball and come out onto Skyline Drive.

[mjeff87]

I almost forgot, one non-food tradition my wife and I have....at noon we have to listen to Alice's Restaurant.  There's a radio station in Pittsburgh (WDVE) that plays it every year.

 

"who ever heard of a dump bein' closed on thanksgiving?"  

[DDJeep89]

44 minutes ago, mjeff87 said:

I almost forgot, one non-food tradition my wife and I have....at noon we have to listen to Alice's Restaurant.  There's a radio station in Pittsburgh (WDVE) that plays it every year.

 

"who ever heard of a dump bein' closed on thanksgiving?"  

I live real close to Pittsburgh. Alice's Restaurant is definitely a staple at Thanksgiving in Pittsburgh. Gotta love Arlo Guthrie!

[Manche757]

"You can get anything you want at .....

[87MJTIM]

43 minutes ago, Manche757 said:

"You can get anything you want at .....

 

"...excepting Alice."

[Pete M]

6 hours ago, mjeff87 said:

I almost forgot, one non-food tradition my wife and I have....at noon we have to listen to Alice's Restaurant.  There's a radio station in Pittsburgh (WDVE) that plays it every year.

 

"who ever heard of a dump bein' closed on thanksgiving?"  

 

same here with my mom's side of the family.    

[kryptronic]

We absolutely have to listen to Alice's Restaurant at some point during the day.  Usually leads to a request for the Motorcycle Song.  And watch some football, or a lot of it.  The kids like watching parades in the morning.  Usually we do a big family thing either hosting about twenty people ourselves, or attending somewhere else with as many people.  This year it's going to be a quaint affair here. 

 

Usually I grill a turkey to save room in the ovens for other things.  We usually do the full boat - a big 20lb turkey, a ham, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top, stuffing (these days outside the bird, but my mom always did both and nobody ever got sick), dinner rolls, corn off the cob, cranberry sauce (from the tube), and definitely pumpkin pie with whipped cream.  Other pies as well like apple with crumble topping, and pecan pie is always on the table. 

 

I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.  One thing we make here that nobody mentioned is green bean casserole.  It's a staple for my family and has been for years and years.  It's basically reen beans covered in cream of mushroom soup, and baked with crispy onion bits on top.  Don't quote me on the recipe, I'm sure you can find it online.  Everybody likes it and it's an easy to prepare dish.

 

I hope everybody has a great holiday.  Happy Thanksgiving.

[HOrnbrod]

12 minutes ago, kryptronic said:

One thing we make here that nobody mentioned is green bean casserole.  It's a staple for my family, and my wife's family, and has been for years and years.  It's basically reen beans covered in cream of mushroom soup, and baked with crispy onion bits on top.  Don't quote me on the recipe, I'm sure you can find it online.  Everybody likes it and it's an easy to prepare dish.

 

I've always hated green bean casserole with a passion. Probably because as  a kid I was forced to eat it. To this day I can't stand it.     I do love fresh green beans with plenty of butter though.  

[mjeff87]

LOL, green bean casserole.  The official side dish of PA.  Along with "Pittsburgh potatoes"  (frozen cubed potatoes, cream of whatever soup, sour cream, melted butter and shredded cheddar cheese, all topped with crushed up corn flakes).  Not for thanksgiving, but perfectly acceptable at almost any other holiday and/or family gathering.

 

I just made green bean casserole last weekend to go with some baked half chickens and rice pilaf.  Wife loves it, which is weird because she hates onions of any sort.

[Eagle]

11 hours ago, mjeff87 said:

I almost forgot, one non-food tradition my wife and I have....at noon we have to listen to Alice's Restaurant.  There's a radio station in Pittsburgh (WDVE) that plays it every year.

 

"who ever heard of a dump bein' closed on thanksgiving?"  

 

I'll never forget when I first heard Alice's Restaurant. 1967. I was in the Army, stationed at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland. My parents were still alive and living on the family patch in Connecticut. I had gone home for a visit on a weekend pass. The route back to the post was I-95 out of Connecticut, across the George Washington Bridge in New York, down the full length of the New Jersey Turnpike, reconnect with I-95 at the Delaware Memorial Bridge, and follow I-95 to an exit a few miles from Edgewood. The car I had back then only had an AM radio. I was driving back to the post late on a Sunday night. I turned on the radio and started cruising the dial to find a good station. What I picked up was Alice's Restaurant. I caught it right near the start, and it lasted a good portion of the ride down the NJTpke.

 

Curiously, it turned out that the station I had found was WBZ out of Boston. WBZ used to crank up the power at night, and with the atmospheric skip that was possible with AM signals you could hear them in places where it shouldn't have been possible. My grandparents were on the coast of Maine, at the head of Penobscot Bay, and WBZ was one of the only radio stations we could receive there.

 

Quote

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's
Where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after
Committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly
Looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father
Rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And
They was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the
Bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest
Father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly
'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me
And said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay
$50 and pick up the garbage. " He said, "What were you arrested for, kid? "
And I said, "Littering." And they all moved away from me on the bench
There, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I
Said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand,
And we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing,
Father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the
Bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of
Things, until the Sargeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it
Up and said.

 

Keep in mind, this was 1967, when the anti-war activists were spreading the stories that American soldiers in Vietnam were slaughtering entire villages across the length and breadth of Vietnam ... and Arlo was an anti-war activist. So, the song was amusing, but the message wasn't. Not as bad as Hanoi Jane, though ...

 

[mjeff87]

Yeah, I know.  My father was a Nam vet (Korea too).  I know the sentiment back then, and while I don't agree with it, as much as I hate to say it, it's a part of American history.

 

Aside from that little part, you have to admit the song is funny as all h*ll.

[kryptronic]

On 11/15/2018 at 1:36 PM, HOrnbrod said:

 

I've always hated green bean casserole with a passion. Probably because as  a kid I was forced to eat it. To this day I can't stand it.     I do love fresh green beans with plenty of butter though.  

 

Me too.  Until one day somebody decided it would be way better with fresh green beans, less soup and not cooked to death.  I really like it now.

 

On 11/15/2018 at 3:43 PM, mjeff87 said:

LOL, green bean casserole.  The official side dish of PA.  Along with "Pittsburgh potatoes"  (frozen cubed potatoes, cream of whatever soup, sour cream, melted butter and shredded cheddar cheese, all topped with crushed up corn flakes).  Not for thanksgiving, but perfectly acceptable at almost any other holiday and/or family gathering.

 

I just made green bean casserole last weekend to go with some baked half chickens and rice pilaf.  Wife loves it, which is weird because she hates onions of any sort.

 

I grew up in Maryland and we had green bean cassarole there too.  I think it was a Campbells soup recipe all the moms got excited about in the early 80s.

 

I live in Pennsylvania and there are some foods here I never had before moving here which she has introduced me to.  That potato dish is one of them.  They call it potato casserole around here.  Good stuff.