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booze

Yum to everyone, and I second the request for @dbcurrie to share some more info about the bubble salad. Sounds like a must-do!

My meal will serve 10 people on Thursday, and then we traditionally do Second Thanksgiving on Friday for all of our friends who are required to spend time with family on actual Thanksgiving Day, but for whom we want to give thanks. That's looking like a group of 14 this year. All food for Second Thanksgiving is leftover from the original meal.

Main Meal:

• Dinner rolls - Cook's Illustrated recipe, the triangle-shaped ones


• Beet salad with feta and cardamom dressing


• Turkey - AB's Good Eats version like some others, but spatchcocked or butterflied - that oven time is too precious!


• Mashed potatoes


• Sweet potatoes with orange juice and Calvados


• Thyme-roasted apples and onions - from Epicurious/Bon Appetit


• Green beans with ginger and soya


• Apple raisin stuffing


• Classic stuffing


• Corn Casserole - a bizarre mix of canned, fresh, and ground corn products that my best friend can't go without on t-giving


• Whole cranberry sauce


• Lots of extra turkey gravy - Cook's Illustrated recipe

Dessert:

• Pumpkin Pie


• French Silk Pie


• Cranberry-Walnut Cobbler

• Spiced cranberry punch - MAKE THIS! http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Cranberry-Vodka-Punch-200563 If you like mulled drinks and don't mind getting rather silly, make this sometime this season. It's very strong, but the spices mask the alcohol brilliantly. It's always a huge hit.


• Sparkling juices


• Beer & wine

We are traveling to TX for the holiday and there will be at least 15 people there. Besides the normal roast turkey, dressing, giblet gravy, mashed potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, there will be many sides, a few of which will be fruit type salads andlots of delicious vegetables, a few pies plus I will be taking pumpkin squares, cranberry nut bread and a pineapple zuchinni cake. One of our favorite recipes is Paula Deen's Tugboat turnips and another is our TX corn casserole. Someone will make the green bean casserole which I hate and won't eat. I much prefer fresh beans! I am thinking about taking a few new cookie recipes too! These are my grandchildren!

I have lived in Missouri (St. Louis) all my life. We always called the second meal of the day "Lunch", and the last meal of the day, "Supper". Although Dinner and Supper could be used interchangeably My husband's family did the same thing.. I notice my older siblings are now calling it "dinner" when they invite us over. I have always used the word Supper unless we are going out to a formal meal, then I will call it Dinner.

We have always used the word soda. My uncle used to call it sodie.

@lakeloverhh
"Something pumpkin-- not in the mood for pie. Don't want to make a cheesecake. I would love any suggestions from the SE crowd."

Well...
It's called pie, but is more custard in an unusual and lovely presentation...

Baked Whole Pumpkin Pie

4 to 6 lb (2 to 3 kg) pumpkin
6 eggs
2 cups (500 ml) whipping cream
1/2 cup (125 ml) brown sugar
2 tsp (10 ml) molasses
1/2 tsp (2 ml) freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp (5 ml) cinnamon
1/2 tsp (2 ml) allspice
1/4 tsp (1 ml) powdered ginger
2 TBS (30 ml) butter

Remove the top of the pumpkin and scrape out the seeds and membranes as though you were making a jack-o'lantern. Mix the remaining ingredients together EXCEPT the butter and pour into the pumpkin. Top with the butter, put the lid of the pumpkin in place, and place in a large baking dish. Bake at 350°F (180°C) for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until the mixture has set. Serve from the pumpkin at the table, scraping a little of the pumpkin flesh to accompany each serving. Serves 6 to 8.

Cooks' Illustrated Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Spatchcocked Turkey smoked or roasted haven't decided which
Gravy
Apple and Sausage stuffing in a crockpot
PW's Sweet Potato Casserole
Yeast rolls
Indiana noodles (MIL)
Green Bean Casserole (MIL)
Scalloped Corn (MIL)
Cranberry Sauce
Also thinking about Roasted Asparagus
Apple Pie
Banana Cream Pie
Pumpkin Pie
Sugar Cream pie (MIL)

We are having a pretty traditional Thanksgiving.

For appetizers:

Roasted spiced nuts
A cheese board
Roasted Vegetable tapenade served with toasted pita chips

For the main meal:

Roast turkey + an additional breast that I'll roast the day before
Amazing gravy (my favorite part of the meal ... everything tastes better with gravy!)
Mashed potatoes
Dressing with sage
Carmelized pearl onions
Broccoli cheese casserole
Corn that we cut off the cob and froze during the peak of corn season.
My great great grandmother's clover leaf rolls ( I made these this past weekend and froze them)
Brown sugar glazed sweet potatoes
Homemade cranberry sauce

For dessert:

Something pumpkin-- not in the mood for pie. Don't want to make a cheesecake. I would love any suggestions from the SE crowd.
Apple pie.

@betteirene - hope you get this. Sounds like you are busy and I won't rush you, but sometime next week after your Thanksgiving, will you please post your method of cooking sweet potatoes in gingerale with the fresh ginger and butter? Out of all the posts here, this one intrigues me the most. Up here in Canada, sweet potato pies with marshmallows and brown sugar, etc. are almost unheard of, and frankly, they do not sound appetizing. However, your recipe sounds like it would be worth a try. Thanks and have a great day - we have large family celebrations as well and I know how much fun you will have.

@Adam: CONGRATS on your impending nuptuals. Remember to always let her "have a bite" of whatever you're eating, and you'll stay happily married always!

My menu pretty much remains the same from year to year.

Appetizers served about 3:30:
Brie with Hot Pecan Caramel Sauce
Individual Mozzerella Caprese

Dinner is served about 6:00

Soup:
Tomato Basil Bisque

Main Course:
Good Eats Turkey which was brined in Emmeril's brine

Side Dishes:
Vanilla Glazed Sweet Potatoes
Slow Cooker Stuffing
Broccoli And Artichoke Casserole
Green Bean Casserole
Carrot Souffle
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Ocean Spray Cranberry Orange Relish for Chicken
Fresh made Cranberry Orange Relish from recipe on bag of cranberries
Jellied Cranberry Sauce (canned)
Cranberry "Fluff"

We're not big on bread here, and with everything else, we'll skip rolls or bread

Dessert served about 9:30:
all home made by me the day before
Pumpkin Pie
Coconut Layer Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting
Key Lime Pie

Hi everyone.
The holidays are here; time I returned to the boards.
I'll try not to gain a reputation for spamming again.
*blush*

Jerzee, sorry. Right away I did a search for chili-rubbed sweet potatoes--you got me with that one--and didn't even notice the rest of the reply or who posted it.

My Thanksgiving menu has not changed for 30+ years, always buffet-style with the good china (but paper napkins) for anywhere between eight and 40 (I shouldn't have had so dang many kids--besides their immediate families, sometimes they bring their in-laws.):

Appetizers are trays of canned black olives, green olives steeped in cheap white wine, carrots sliced on a long diagonal into chips, skinny celery sticks, broccoli and cauliflower florets with a cream cheese/ranch dip; crackers and baguette slices with a cheddar, cream cheese and chive ball rolled in sliced almonds; boiled chestnuts.

Turkey; sometimes fresh but most often a whole Butterball, which I don't brine. Sometimes I loosen the skin over the breast, legs and thighs and slide whole sage leaves between the skin and the meat. Always a brined fresh whole breast (or two) cooked on the gas grill. Everyone goes home with enough white meat for sandwiches, and I get to to keep the carcass with enough meat for turkey pot pie and soup later in the week.

The smallest bone-in ham I can find, with a cherry or pineapple sauce on the side. One of the boys usually volunteers to bring it.

Sweet and savory cornbread dressing with fresh hand-rubbed sage. I don't stuff. Sometime on Wednesday, I roast the neck and other innards with the pope's nose, a whole unpeeled onion, celery and carrots until they're all nicely caramelized, then use it to moisten the dressing and use the rest to make the gravy.

Mashed potatoes (cream and butter) and gravy.

Sweet potatoes (homegrown Georgia Jets) boiled in ginger ale with a slice of fresh ginger and a little butter. It makes its own glaze.

Steamed-until-barely-crunchy broccoli with butter.

Cranberry-orange jelly, thick and a touch sweet, for a jolt of color and to spread on sandwiches on Friday.

Crescent rolls, recipe from the 40-year-old red-and-white checkered Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

Pancit, a Filipino noodle/vegetable dish that's mandatory at any celebration.

Pumpkin pies (2) made with homegrown Bon-Bon squash; pecan pie (1); blueberry pie (1); Chocolate walnut fudge using the Marshmallow Fluff recipe; peanut butter fudge; peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate; pecan sandies, also a BH&G recipe; gingerbread and oatmeal raisin cookies; kolache, using the recipe on the back of the can of Solo fruit filling; cranberry-orange and pumpkin nut mini muffins, both with a piping of cream cheese icing; vanilla ice cream and real whipped cream.

We keep a couple of coolers of soda and beer on the back porch, and inside I have spiced tea, coffee and cran-apple/champagne spritzers.

I've always had help, either from my sisters before they had their own families, or from my sons as they grew up. I live with one of them, and his wife and I work well together in the kitchen. One of my other sons lives downstairs in the in-law apartment, so we can use his stove, oven and refrigerator.

Thanksgiving is way cool. It's my very favorite holiday.

I don't even know if I'll be home or with family at all on Thanksgiving.

If it's just the wife and I then I'll do a simple brined turkey breast. Some butternut squash mashed potatoes, and a saute of veggies.

or I could be working all day long and try to stuff a grilled PB&J sandwich down my throat in the afternoon.