Wow does that look good. Happy Thanksgiving.

Excellent!

It's just the two of us - our usual companion had hip replacement surgery on Tuesday so we cooked our bird a day early so we could take a meal to her today. Nothing fancy. But it was good and we have leftovers for awhile!

Just getting started here on the West Coast, visiting family. fourteen for dinner tonight. But I made the two pies last night: Chocolate pecan (because plain pecan is not sugary enough LOL) and pumpkin. brought a pie pumpkin from our Colorado garden for the occason. The crust on that one got a little overdone, as happens when one is distracted by wine and conversation....

We’re being Very Thankful but low key.

I made my Grandmother’s Cranberry-Orange sauce yesterday and it turned out just like I remember! I also made my cornbread for her dressing recipe.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Caroline - homemade crandberry sauce is the only way to go! So easy and quick, and who needs high fructose corn syrup?

Amylou - That plate looks absolutely delicious. Love the heart shaped cranberry sauce!

Amylou, I knew there would be hearts in there somewhere and you did not disappoint me!

Our family Thanksgiving will be on Sunday to accomodate the work schedules of attendees. Mother doesn't even know what day it is, so it doesn't matter to her anyway, and I don't care which day we get together, I just want to have the people I love around the table.

Today we went to Elery's middle son's home, he was having "Grandparent Thanksgiving", LOL. Elery and I, Elery's ex-wife and her husband, Sorah's parents. He did all the cooking, because he enjoys cooking and his wife hates it. She does the clean up and the kids do whatever they are asked to do to pitch in. We didn't have to do anything at all except bring a dessert. So I made AnnT's cream cheese danish, thinking the kids could have the leftovers for breakfast, and a Caramel Nut tart. Elery made venison sausage and a cheese tray. The ex-wife brought pumpkin pie and dinner rolls. Sorah's folks brought a vegetable tray and roasted potatoes. Chris made turkey and ham, green bean casserole, broccoli and cheese, and stuffing. We were all stuffed when we were done. No pictures, but I'll try to remember to post some on Sunday.

Seagrass, that turkey looks perfect and I'm sure your friend was very thankful. I hope the recovery is quick and complete.

Caroline, I'll be making cranberry sauce tomorrow, I hope it looks as good as yours.

gardengrl, I'll have the pumpkin, thank you, the crust doesn't bother me a bit!

dedtired, I think that pie is going to turn out perfect, I think the pie crust should hold the shapes well. Now I'm going to want to see how it turned out.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Annie

We had appetizers for lunch around noon, dinner at 4:30, and dessert at 7:30 These sugared fresh cranberries stayed out all day for snacking. i may have had a plate of leftovers around 11:pm last night! Lots of good food all day

No pictures, but my plate didn't look too different from Amylou's sans hearts. My cousin said bring everything, so I did, but there weren't many people there, and they ate sparingly. It was nice to catch up with those who were there. Cousin said to bring everything so I did. I also didn't want her to have to search out serving pieces, so I packed everything in Pyrex glass with lids, and brought my own tray and chip bowl (I didn't have to bring the chips). I managed to tetris the dishes, except a little one with spiced pecans, into the tray. Not exactly a grazing board, but still pretty colorful. Guacamole, as previously reported, cranberry jezebel, plus a dish with some jezebel over cream cheese, which was very popular, pumpkin gravy, well aerated and without the drippings, as a dip or spread (and because I love pumpkin--they liked it (mmm sounds too) but really went for the cream cheese), green and orange bell pepper strips, and the sweet potato "toasts" to put it all on. They were a big hit too. This time, they had lemon pepper and lemon zest, and just a bit of flor de sal.

I took a bit of everything at dinner, as is polite, except one casserole which had no name and looked like I might be allergic to it. Big surprise! Not one of the usually three competing sweet potato casseroles were there. Just one that my goddaughter made which was dessert sweet but absolutely delicious. I made the kohlrabi cacio e pepe, as well as some roasted kohlrabi slices with mushroom salt and fresh chopped flatleaf parsley for the wimps. I was tired and kind of over cooking when I made it and invented a way out. There were an awful lot of good leaves, which I gave a rough chiffonade, and wands of the stem, which I'd premade. It looked like it would fit in the frying pan, but there was no room to stir, so after it was all well coated with the oil/pepper/pepper flakes, I turned it out on parchment on a baking tray and added the cheese on top, then roasted for half an hour while I showered. Perfect! A large turner made it easy to pile in three layers into a Pyrex rectangle. They put it in the oven before dinner, which I think overcooked the leaves some, but it was still really tasty. They, like Englebert, nibbled most politely, but I don't know how many actually liked it.

The sweet potato maker also made the pies, including a maple pie which was intensely maple (love) and really sweet (don't love), but it was an awfully good pie. Another cousin made vanilla bean ice cream, and served it with olive oil and salt, but I hate olives so he gave me a half scoop plain with my pie, and, yes, I was eating ice cream to cut the sweetness of the pie!

So use your imaginations. ;) We don't have to say "no devices". We just do it. But it cuts into the pictures. :)

Plllog, the maple pie sounds delicious to me!

Lisa, I made sugared cranberries one year to decorate a pumpkin gingersnap cheesecake and they were eaten before the cheesecake was. I should do that again....

I did take a few pictures before I got so busy that I stopped. We had two separate Thanksgiving dinners that I cooked for, one with Elery's family and one with mine. For Elery's family we had that cream cheese danish I mentioned, the recipe makes FOUR (!!) so we had a couple today, one raspberry and one apricot and two went to his family on Thanksgiving Day:

Elery made cannoli for today's meal , Italian food is his area of expertise, definitely not mine.

I m

I made gluten free trifle, with a chocolate custard and raspberry sauce in that beautiful trifle bowl that I got in an auction box and just kept because I thought it was pretty. That was for today because my daughter is celiac and seldom gets the "good desserts". This one was pretty darned good, several people remarked that they couldn't even tell it was gluten free. I got the recipe from Cook's Illustrated and just subbed gluten free cake for the regular cake in the recipe.

I took some of craftyrn's cuccidati to Elery's family, they love it since their trip to Italy and tell me that mine is just like they got in Italy. Again, not my recipe, it's thanks to craftyrn. Please overlook the fact that some fell over and just became cookies....

A five nut caramel tart also went to Elery's family on Thanksgiving.

And, of course, I made cinnamon rolls for Mother, and I frosted some and although they were not eaten they were kept by Elery's family for breakfast.

We did actually eat other things besides dessert, LOL. Today we had turkey and ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, both cornbread and traditional sage stuffing, corn pudding, green beans with bacon, LindaC's cranberry jezebel, Sol's honey rolls, some sweet potatoes with the marshmallow topping because it's Amanda's favorite. Desserts were the cannoli, the trifle and a pumpkin pie which I didn't take a picture of, but I think we may have a couple of pieces left. If I can remember before Elery eats them, I might get a picture, LOL.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and on to Christmas baking!

Annie

Everyone's food looks and sounds absolutely fantastic! T-day ended up being just pasta and sauce for two here, so no pics of that. lol! I'm definitely already thinking about baking for Christmas!!! In the meanwhile, I found a pic of a lemon meringue pie I made for a previous T-day. :)

Party, that is the most perfect lemon meringue pie I’ve ever seen! My father really loved the meringue so when I made it, I often threw in an extra egg white. Jealous of your crust edge;)

Nothing fancy, just a 32-pound turkey...for six people. Largest bird I've ever had to carve.

Awwwww, thank you, that’s so sweet of you, carabubble! My mother was the best-ever pie maker until she started to make her pies ”more healthy”. Lol. She made this style crust by pinching the edge from both sides, like this, so that’s what I do. :)

Omg, Ricky, I didn’t think a turkey could weigh that much!!!

Man oh man, Ricky, now THAT'S a turkey! Lots of leftovers, hopefully, my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal.

PM, that's a pretty pie. I do my crust exactly like that, just like my Grandma taught me. Lemon meringue is my all time favorite pie, but since I'm the only person in the family that eats it, I don't make them because, well, I just don't need to eat an entire pie, LOL.

Annie

I doubt that that large of a bird would fit in my oven!!

I’m not sure I could lift it without hurting my back. :p

Thanks, Annie! I can’t believe that you’re the only one in the family who eats it. Your mother is allergic to lemons, though, right?! My grandmother always made both a pumpkin pie and a lemon meringue pie for T-day, so it’s just expected in my family.

So, then there are leftovers. The not good enough to serve on T'day spiced rolls and the butt of the pumpkin-pecan wannabe-babka, along with the spiced pistachios and a big handful of currants just became the most outstanding bread pudding. With grand marnier pumpkin hard sauce.

plllog, that bread pudding and hard sauce sounds interesting! My father used to make my g-gmother's recipe for "hard sauce" to serve with peach cobbler, but it had no booze... just vinegar, brown sugar, and butter, iirc, and I loved the stuff! Therefore, I think of a hard sauce as being a little sweet-tart and completely under-used these days. :) I just read yesterday about mixing banana vinegar with brown sugar to pour over vanilla ice cream. That sounds like it would make a pretty good "hard sauce" to me. lol!

Yeah, the 32-pound bird was huge, but a toddler when compared to the 50-pound turkey that Pam raised. (She's the blonde in the photo.) That's butchered weight, by the way. I saw the big one while it was still alive and thought it looked prehistoric.

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!

plllog, I doubt it. I had to look up WCTU… my g-gmother was anything but. She died quietly in her sleep, in her late 80s, after a night out drinking and dancing. lol!

The most amazing bread pudding I’ve ever had is made at a local restaurant. It’s their own recipe for a White Chocolate Bread Pudding and it is addictive. Now I’ll be craving it for days. :) Yours sounds great too, and definitely irreproducible!