First Thanksgiving meal of the season, tonight!

OT a tad but Bobbi will you be able to host your young military people this year? I always think of you doing that as someone had hosted my son years ago. :)
Operation Fireside will not happen in its usual form this year. The recruits will not be able to come to our homes. There will be something on base for them, and families have been asked to contribute baked goods, holiday cards and notes and video clips of family activities. This is a very different year, and we all hope to bring as much enjoyment to the recruits as we can.

Tom is at a store right now ( early senior hours) buying supplies for the cookies I promised to bake!
 
Operation Fireside will not happen in its usual form this year. The recruits will not be able to come to our homes. There will be something on base for them, and families have been asked to contribute baked goods, holiday cards and notes and video clips of family activities. This is a very different year, and we all hope to bring as much enjoyment to the recruits as we can.

Tom is at a store right now ( early senior hours) buying supplies for the cookies I promised to bake!

I'm sure it will still be a special day for those recruits.......anything from home mixed with yummy foods from you guys will be a blessing. :goodvibes
 
I usually do 3 turkeys a year. Thanksgiving, around Christmas, and around the President's Day weekend. That's plenty for me. I do ham probably 6 or so times a year. Cranberries I do whenever I can get them. Cranberry applesauce is our favorite. Pumpkin is also year round for us, though I don't bake very often. I don't feel like we have to do the whole shebang to enjoy some of the traditional Thanksgiving foods we like, we just don't have them all at once.
 
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As much as I love Thanksgiving dinner, Personally I would not want to have it multiple times a year. It takes away from the anticipation and specialness of it.

Not to mention I would not want to eat such large carbohydrate-rich meals multiple times in one month. :sick:
 


I usually pick up an extra turkey when they're on sale, dirt-cheap. I don't do an all-out feast for the second one, but I will make stuffing and gravy, maybe open a can of cranberry sauce. I typically get smaller birds, so we don't have leftovers for days on end. Then I also pick up turkey breasts when they go on sale--I find I get 2-3 meals (we're a family of 5), so it's not overwhelming.

As to pumpkin pie--I know they sell frozen pies, including pumpkin, so I imagine they freeze okay. If you were inclined, you could even cut the pie into individual servings, so you could take out what you need. While DH and I like pumpkin pie, the kids don't, so one is our limit. We're more inclined to do apple or blueberry. DH also likes mince, but I refuse to make one (yuck!). So he hasn't had one in years, since his mom stopped making him one. Ditto for fruitcake.
 
We had Thanksgiving a few weeks ago, but since I’m working from home now, I thought it would be fun to celebrate American Thanksgiving this year. I don’t think I’ve ever cooked a turkey on a weekday in November. Lol.
Looking forward to it! :)
 


Thanksgiving is my favorite meal of the year along with Christmas Eve.

When I was growing up, every year on my birthday, my Mom would recreate Thanksgiving dinner for me. (My Mom is the best, in case you were wondering.)

Now, I make it several times a year.

In a typical year, we have Thanksgiving at my MIL's house on Thursday, Black Friday means Thanksgiving at my house and over the weekend, we have Thanksgiving with my parents and family. Everyone's meal is a little different. My MIL doesn't cook anymore, so the turkey is edible now... good, actually. MIL would cook it until it was good and done and then cook it some more to make sure it was really done. Her bread stuffing is very onion forward and delicious. There is also lasagna with all of the meats cooked in Sunday Sauce. I make a bread stuffing full of vegetables and my Mom's stuffing is cut from a loaf of stuffing. Hers is very sage-forward.

This year, it looks like i will make everything for my family of 4, with a pasta accompaniment. My MIL will get food dropped off from all of her kids since we can't all be together this year. The virus is ramping up in our county in PA right now.
 
Last year we started a tradition of eating a Thanksgiving style meal once a week the 4-5 weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. Why have all that good food only once a season?

So tonight is turkey and gravy, green bean casserole, dressing, mac n cheese, and cherry pie.

This year we are going to alternate between turkey and ham each week so next week will be ham and mashed potatoes plus another side or two and a dessert.

The house is smelling so good right now.
Unless I'm making the big dinner once and eating leftovers from the freezer all those other times, that all sounds like a nightmare of work to me.
 
Unless I'm making the big dinner once and eating leftovers from the freezer all those other times, that all sounds like a nightmare of work to me.
We all chip in so no one person is doing the cooking or cleaning. It is surprisingly easy with the 3 or 4 of us depending if my daughter is home from college.
 
I'm probably in the minority - but I LOVE cooking Thanksgiving dinner. I love the planning of it, the shopping for it, cooking all day - I really enjoy the whole process to the point that I prefer not to have much help. Oh, I like having Company in the kitchen and if I need help I'll surely take you up on your offer, but I just love cooking the Thanksgiving meal.

I'm very disappointed to be only cooking for 5 this year. But glad for those who will be able to join us.
 
I'm probably in the minority - but I LOVE cooking Thanksgiving dinner. I love the planning of it, the shopping for it, cooking all day - I really enjoy the whole process to the point that I prefer not to have much help. Oh, I like having Company in the kitchen and if I need help I'll surely take you up on your offer, but I just love cooking the Thanksgiving meal.

I'm very disappointed to be only cooking for 5 this year. But glad for those who will be able to join us.

I, too love cooking Thanksgiving dinner. And this year, I'm only cooking for 5, also. Hoping my older son and grandkids come over later tho from his inlaws just to visit. But because of my "underlying" lung disease they all get nervous.......which I respect but still get sad. :(
 
My mother-in-law lives far enough away that we only visit her a few times a year. We were just there last week, and since it's the closest to the holidays that we'll see her, we made a turkey dinner on our last night there. She was delighted, as were we, since we love that meal!
 
Haven’t eaten any traditional T-Day food recently but have been preparing for the holiday meal in advance. That’s my norm but this year it’s on a much bigger scale. I’m the current chair of a building committee that decided to make turkey and vegan dinners for building residents who will not be able to join their families this holiday season. So far we’ve had approximately 60 residents sign up so we are planning to produce 150 to 175 meals. Any excess will be donated to a local food pantry with takeout containers donated by nearby restaurants.

So far we’ve produced about 25 gals. of poultry stock (some chicken, some turkey), made 4 sheet pans of corn bread for stuffing/dressing, and cornered the local supermarkets‘ supply of cranberries.
I suspect I’ll be bored to tears with the smell of Thanksgiving food before long :lmao:
 
I'm the only one that eats pumpkin pie in the family so I usually have to buy a pie for my self and can NEVER justify a Costco sized pie!

That does remind me I need to be on the look out for some French Vanilla Reddi Wip.
They freeze really well. Divide it up and have it a few times .
 
Actual Thanksgiving is never at our house. So we always lose out on left overs.

For almost 3 decades we've "been away" for Thanksgiving, either to my MIL's in Ohio or sharing T-giving dinner at our dear friends' home. While I love cooking and making the whole meal, I don't miss the mess and stress of producing a huge family feast on somewhat of a timeline. What I DO miss are the leftovers, which has always been my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner. About 10 years ago, I started cooking a small Thanksgiving dinner here at home on Black Friday. No stress, house smells great, we only have the foods WE like, and... LEFTOVERS!!
 
I make turkey maybe once a month to every 6 weeks or so... Since it just the 2 off us, I normal just get turkey parts, and not a whole turkey... I roast them in the oven with potatoes, onions and carrots is my normal go to.

I made Turkey pot pie, well my version of it, a couple of months ago. It turned out better than I thought it would, I added in some new seasoning, and changed up the veggies to go better with the turkey... and it was really yummy...
 
We do a Friendsgiving the week before actual thanksgiving so I get my fix that way.

I’ve started hosting thanksgiving for my family but in previous years I still made dinner at my house. Mostly because we like my food better and leftovers! Now that I host I get the leftovers and I’m not cooking again. Lol
 
This may be the first year we don't have a traditional Thanksgiving meal. It'll just be DW and me and we won't be seeing family due to Covid. I'll miss it--it's probably my favorite meal of the year.
Try the small Purdue Roast (Around $10), I love them, although keep an eye out for what kind. I thought they were only breast meat and one time I picked up one that with a mix and it had a sort of marbled look, still it tasted fine. A quiet day can be filled with making the side dish, making dessert and a much waited for movie or show (last year was The Mandalorian)
 

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