Happy Thanksgiving - Enjoy Your Time With Family

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SUMMARY

This forum discussion centers around Thanksgiving celebrations, with participants sharing their plans, experiences, and humorous anecdotes related to the holiday. Key highlights include discussions about traveling for family gatherings, cooking techniques such as brining and smoking turkey, and the enjoyment of traditional foods. Participants also share light-hearted poems and reflections on gratitude, emphasizing the importance of family and friends during the holiday season.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of Thanksgiving traditions and customs
  • Familiarity with cooking techniques such as brining and smoking
  • Knowledge of common Thanksgiving dishes and ingredients
  • Awareness of cultural variations in Thanksgiving celebrations
NEXT STEPS
  • Research brining techniques for turkey preparation
  • Explore recipes for traditional Thanksgiving dishes
  • Learn about the history and cultural significance of Thanksgiving
  • Investigate regional variations of Thanksgiving celebrations across the U.S.
USEFUL FOR

This discussion is beneficial for anyone interested in Thanksgiving traditions, including home cooks, food enthusiasts, and individuals looking to enhance their holiday celebrations with family and friends.

  • #31
Evo said:
I had just asked about this in the food thread.

Glad it turned out well. I had good luck with it also, but I've been doing smoked turkeys for the last few years.
Yes, like my reply in the food thread, I plan on brining our next turkey AND hickory-smoking it breast-down in my charcoal-fired Brinkman smoker. I keep a pan of water under the rack to protect the bird from the direct heat of the charcoal, and to provide a good mix of steam and smoke under the domed lid. Those birds come out of there the color of dark chocolate, and the penetrating smoke gives the meat a rich red hue, at least in the outer 1/2" or so. Mmmm. Since I started smoking them breast-down, the white meat stays a lot moister - basted by fats and juices from the dark meat.
 
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  • #32
BobG said:
Stupid Thanksgiving decorations!



Cute video, Bob!
 
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  • #35
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  • #36
BobG said:
Stupid Thanksgiving decorations!



:smile:

turbo, glad your turkey turned out well.

I'm sitting here just STUFFED. (As expected, the pumpkin pie made by the sugar-phobe was not that great, but it seems everyone had the same idea I did and brought back-up desserts, so we had PLENTY of other desserts.) It was quite fun...I think I met the entire Slovakian community of this town tonight (my friend who invited me to dinner is Slovakian, and had invited several of her friends and their mothers came along too). I've decided that I very much like Slovakian foods. We had a potato bread with caraway seeds in it that was absolutely fabulous (I like to bake breads but cannot bake them that well), and one of the desserts was Slovakian too...not that I can remember the name...I'll need to ask and say it a few more times...one of those words with more consonants than vowels. We had more traditional American foods too...a very tasty stuffing, a decent turkey, a homemade cranberry sauce (the sugar-phobe made that too, but it was actually really good...it was sweetened, but not overly sweet, which was nice for that), sweet potatoes (I skip those since they were the type with sugary toppings on them), I contributed a green bean dish that people actually went back for seconds on for some odd reason...the vegetable is never what I go back for seconds on when it's Thanksgiving, a tossed salad, mashed potatoes and gravy. All very good. And lots of wine too. I suspect the wine contributed to the lengthy debate over the difference between a village and a small town. :biggrin: I had a good time, and am very stuffed...perfect! :smile: Oh, and I learned that patting one's stomach with both hands is the international sign for "I'm stuffed!" I said I was stuffed to my friend's mother who speaks very little English, and she didn't understand the word, so I patted my belly, and she said, "OH!" We verified the understanding a moment later when my friend returned to the table to translate.
 
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  • #37
I still don't understand why they would ask a sugarphobe to make the pie.

So how do you make the green beans?

Both Spawn and Child of Evo came over last night after they finished dinner at their dads. They brought two plates of turkey, some burned biscuits, a double slice of pumpkin pie and a cherry desert. AND...drumroll please...a can of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce! It is not Thanksgiving without that can of sauce (why do they call it a sauce? I even have a beautiful cut glass tray made just to hold the round object of heavenly bliss. Sure you can make fancy stuff, but I love to slice it really thin and suck it into my mouth through my front teeth. That is the "only" way to eat it. And there is absolutely nothing abnormal about it. Really.
 
  • #38
The green beans were really simple, which is why I was surprised people were diving in for seconds. I just sauteed some garlic and shallots with mushrooms (just the "baby bella" kind...a tad more flavor than white mushrooms, but nothing extraordinary) in butter, then added a bag of frozen green beans (didn't even have fresh green beans), and a splash of white wine, salt and pepper. When the beans were cooked through, I just poured off the excess liquid (since they were frozen, they generated some water during cooking) so they wouldn't be runny/drippy, and that was it. It took all of 10-15 min to prepare, and was entirely inspired by "What do I have in the fridge/freezer" because I didn't want to run out to the store to fight crowds to find any last minute ingredients for a fancier dish.
 
  • #39
Tsu and I would like to thank Mr. and Mrs. Integral for a wonderful dinner.

It was a meal fit for a king!
 
  • #40
Moonbear said:
The green beans were really simple, which is why I was surprised people were diving in for seconds. I just sauteed some garlic and shallots with mushrooms (just the "baby bella" kind...a tad more flavor than white mushrooms, but nothing extraordinary) in butter, then added a bag of frozen green beans (didn't even have fresh green beans), and a splash of white wine, salt and pepper. When the beans were cooked through, I just poured off the excess liquid (since they were frozen, they generated some water during cooking) so they wouldn't be runny/drippy, and that was it. It took all of 10-15 min to prepare, and was entirely inspired by "What do I have in the fridge/freezer" because I didn't want to run out to the store to fight crowds to find any last minute ingredients for a fancier dish.
Sounds good, I'm going to try that. I was disappointed, no vegetable leftovers last night. I was expecting garlic mashed potatoes, green beans and stuffing.
 
  • #41
Ivan Seeking said:
Tsu and I would like to thank Mr. and Mrs. Integral for a wonderful dinner.

It was a meal fit for a king!
What did you have?
 
  • #42
Evo said:
What did you have?

This was dessert [posted in the photo contest]
pies.jpg


We also had plenty of nuts and chocolate covered berries for starters. The dinner was the thanksgiving classic: Turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberries, mashed potatoes, yams, rolls, green-bean casserole, ambrosia... and I think I’m forgetting a couple of things.
 
  • #43
Oh yes, Mrs. Integral made all of those pies from scratch!
 
  • #44
Our menu was pretty traditional (for us). Chips with home-made clam dip and deviled eggs made with minced olives for appetizers. Roasted turkey, "dirty" mashed potatoes, gravy, acorn squash, peas, pearl onions, home-made cranberry sauce, brussles sprouts that I had picked just an hour or so before (they are frost-hardy) and three varieties of home-made pickles (bread and butter, kosher dill, and spicy cucumber spears with chili peppers), ending up with a from-scratch pumpkin pie.
 
  • #45
Ivan Seeking said:
This was dessert [posted in the photo contest]
pies.jpg


We also had plenty of nuts and chocolate covered berries for starters. The dinner was the thanksgiving classic: Turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberries, mashed potatoes, yams, rolls, green-bean casserole, ambrosia... and I think I’m forgetting a couple of things.
Oh, how pretty!
 
  • #46
Ivan Seeking said:
This was dessert [posted in the photo contest]
pies.jpg


We also had plenty of nuts and chocolate covered berries for starters. The dinner was the thanksgiving classic: Turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberries, mashed potatoes, yams, rolls, green-bean casserole, ambrosia... and I think I’m forgetting a couple of things.

I see there are even some apple martinis there for the sisterhood. :biggrin: Looks yummy!
 

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