Food floof! Flex your feast!
Comments (39)
- 5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoDessert first! Chocolate peanut butter pie AAAAAND:
Punkin pie! I am rather proud, as I have never made a punkin pie, or even a pie crust from scratch. Why would I, when so many others do it for me. But this year is different so.....I made an attempt.
- 5 years agolast modified: 5 years ago
And the sides:
Loaded hash brown casserole. I know that mashed potatoes are more traditional, but I make mashed potatoes all the time. So I am mixing it up.
My homemade mac and cheese. Just a basic recipe.
That's all I am making ahead. Everything else will have to be made the day of. Still, whatever few things I made ahead surley will make it easier on turkey day!
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Comments (39)I second the request for the Chocolate Bread Pudding. There's not really any "must have"s here but I miss a few things: My godmother always made lefse and dinner rolls. They were both excellent. That poor sweet lady made them every year up until maybe a year or two before she died, and she was mid-90s when she died. And making homemade yeast rolls was plenty of work for people who have ever done it the old-fashioned way, and no, she didn't use a "Kitchen-Aid"! She got weaker in her old age and less able to stand for the long time. But she knew how popular they were and she always wanted to do it. And most of the time until her latter years, she'd walk to the grocery store (I'd guess maybe 1/2 mile away!) What a trooper! RIP my dear, you're missed in SO many ways! Making lefse is not easy either, especially by yourself! In the later years she couldn't roll it as thin as she used to but still gave it her best shot and it still was a treat. I've made lefse a few times. Should give it a try again but my limitations probably would affect it. And I can buy decent stuff from a couple places so I can still have a memory and a treat. Also my cousin used to (probably still does) make excellent iced sugar cookies. But the local "produce" store makes some that are pretty much identical so that fix is taken care of and even Lofthouse cookies are an adequate substitute. As far as other dishes, I can be pretty flexible but I have, in the past few years, been making a BBQ bacon ranch corn that I really enjoy and I'm getting back to really enjoying turkey again so I usually get a smoked turkey breast. Probably 20-30 years ago I started my own semi-tradition of having a "themed" holiday. Guess I got a little tired of the always-turkey or always-ham meals. One year it could be "comfort" foods, another "Italian", another was "diner" food, etc. And I always tried to add a new dish that I wanted to try that I hadn't made before. Keep some staples in there in case it didn't turn out. But it became quite popular with guests. And when the GFs didn't have to cook they always appreciated it no matter what I made! Could be 99¢ TV dinners and they probably wouldn't complain... too much. Uh, strike that. Yeah, they could complain. :)...See MoreFestive floof! Celebrating then and now.
Comments (8)I liked Christmas as a child, but once I became an adult, it was more stressful than anything else, and my mother took it too seriously. She felt compelled to have everyone together for Christmas, and this became more difficult when the family got larger and had other places to go. I left home at 18, and so after that, I returned as a guest. I have no holiday traditions of my own, although I used to celebrate the summer solstice when I lived in Venice, as that was a good time to have a party there. When I did visit my parents for Christmas and/or Thanksgiving, I would do much of the cooking, partly because my mother did not like to do it and partly because I was better at it, and my nieces especially appreciated it. I found exchanging gifts to be more stressful than enjoyable, and so I did not like that as an adult. We sometimes played board games, and I did enjoy that. As a child, we alternated having Christmas at my parents' house and at my maternal grandparents' house. My mother was an only child, and so her parents were always with us at holidays. My father had two older brothers and an older sister, and we never celebrated any holidays with them. His sister had moved to New Mexico, and we almost never saw her at all. His two brothers had married two sisters, and so they were very close to each other but not to us. Since their children were double first cousins, they were much like one family (and closer to each other in ages). My father's family was not big on Christmas, partly because his sister had converted to Jehovah's Witness (because of her husband), and she had converted my grandmother. I believe that JWs do not celebrate Christmas, as I remember, but my grandmother was not the typical JW. In fact, being inventive (with a couple of patents under her belt), she had created her own version of the religion, probably from her imagination, which was far from conventional. No one knew where she got her ideas, but she did enjoy going out and witnessing. However, when the other JWs found out what she was telling others, they tried to get her to stop witnessing, but to no avail. I was told not to listen to my grandmother because she was "off her rocker," but I found her stories entertaining and imaginative. My grandmother owned the waterworks in town because my grandfather (who died before I was born) and his father had dug a bunch of artesian wells, and so the people in town pretty much had to put up with her, even though they thought she was a bit crazy. She never forced people to pay their water bills, and so my father had to do that for her. She thought water should be free. Anyway, my father's side of the family did not celebrate Christmas in a conventional way....See MoreFestive Food Floof! The perfect plate!
Comments (27)My plate of favorites would include white and dark meat turkey, rustic (made with unpeeled potatoes that are not mashed until they no longer resemble potatoes) mashed potatoes with a bit of whole milk and butter, kasha (buckwheat) stuffing, fresh green beans with mushrooms, turnip puff, cooked carrots with a hint of maple syrup and browned butter, turkey gravy for the stuffing and potatoes, and a raw fruit salad with a touch of lime juice and honey. I’m not much of a dessert eater, but I like a creamy lemon pie with a crushed animal cracker crust, usually called North Carolina lemon pie, I think. I may have to make one tomorrow. I first had the kasha stuffing when I went home with a college friend for T-day and have made it since then. Wonderfully flavored with everything you’d put in a bread dressing, it is a delicious alternative to a festive feast. Buckwheat is gluten free for those that are interested, by the way....See MoreFestive Floof! Feast Photos!
Comments (25)PM, the ”hard” in hard sauce refers to whiskey, but is often brandy or rum, and I felt no compuntion with the liqueur. Your great-grandmother's recipe sounds interesting, One ancestress of mine was in the WCTU. She would have approved! I wonder if it was a Prohibition era thing. Mine was the whipped pumpkin gravy, which was made with a but of butter and cream, and impressively stable (no drippings)m just thinned a bit and heated with the GM. Not the traditional butteriness and booziness of hard sauce, but a similar texture and sharp enough with the GM. For the bread pudding, I did add a few shakes of Vietnamese cinnamon and a shake and a half of cloves to the custard to unify things, but the spices from the rolls (fenugreek and some others) and the pumpkin filling, sweetness frome the latter, a whiff of salt frome the former, and the pistachios, whick pretty much kept their coatings. There was also a lot of butter in both the rolls and the babka. The most amazing bread puddings come from irreproducible breads!...See More- 5 years agolast modified: 5 years ago
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoOkay. Here you go...
Yet to be constructed apple pie:
Cranberry (organic) sauce cooling:
Libby’s recipe pumpkin (organic) pie in whole wheat spiced crust. I used to be embarrassed by my pie edges until last week in the Food Network contests. Ugliest pies ever! Mine aren’t nearly that bad! I forgot not io use convection, so have a spot where the fan reflection hits. I don't care!
amylou321 thanked plllog
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoI have double convection in my Wolf oven(in case anyone is wondering why 2 fans in the background). The interior is dark blue. Didn't use the convection feature.
20lb stuffed turkey & pumpkin cheesecake w/ home made whipped cream. ☺ Ready to eat!
amylou321 thanked User- 5 years agoBacon wrapped turkey tenderloins
The dressing and the cooked hash brown casserole.
The collard greens (gag) made with extra love for SO.
If I am honest, after cooking all of this all day, once it was done, I didn't want to eat it. At all. That always happens to me. Plan,shop, cook, stare at the food and watch other people eat it. I just don't want it. Maybe tommorow. I did bring some pie with me to work. I think I can force that down.......
5 years agoIt was a quiet Thanksgiving, like every one for the past 15 years or so. Wanted to try something different so I made sausage and apple stuffed baked acorn squash with roasted Brussels sprouts for a side. It was delish!
Dessert was homemade pumpkin cheesecake bars. The rest will go with my husband to work for others to enjoy.
amylou321 thanked dees_1- 5 years ago
Constructed apple pie— my pretty scroll edge melted in the oven!
Constructed apple pie:
amylou321 thanked plllog 
5 years agoOld picture from a couple months ago but I made some more of this today. Having my dinner tomorrow.
amylou321 thanked Kathsgrdn- 5 years ago
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoAll the foods above look and sound so perfect. I can taste them all the way up here!
My duck, despite its wild adventures escaping the resident duck dog, turned out beautifully!
It was so moist and so juicy and so flavorful and so aromatic, just like its name and I am being so modest! 😊
The skin was crispy, dark, and so flavorful. We were both very pleased with it. DH says he likes it better than turkey.
We saved every bit of the wonderful duck fat drippings.
The other dishes were very tasty. I overcooked the cranberry-orange relish, not burnt, just mushy.
The cornbread dressing was a dry. Not having even a bit of turkey meat in it was the main problem.
No one can mess up steamed broccoli and I did make the Hollandaise sauce for it.
amylou321 thanked caroline94535
5 years agokathsgarden, that looks like a pretty good breakfast to me, in fact, it looks very much like my supper, LOL.
I got out my turkey platter, cleared away the turkeys and set the table...
Thawed an apple pie:
Made some rolls, a cheesecake, gluten free cornbread for the stuffing and a gluten free lemon chiffon dessert:
Made the cranberry sauce and the strawberry topping for the cheesecake:
Madison, who is 8, made individual "favors" for each plate. Pumpkins constructed of orange napkins, filled with small candies and a stem made of green Frog Tape:
And then I rested, LOL.
Annie
amylou321 thanked annie1992
caroline94535