Let's plan Thanksgiving!

[Dingfod]

I say Turkey Day.

[erimir]

I say tur-KEY-day

[JoeP]

Actually ... it should be pronounced [thanks]giving.

[BrotherMan]

[erimir]

Apparently THANKS-giv-ing is the British pronunciation?

[LadyShea]

Some Southerners too, that's what prompted my comment

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by erimir

Apparently THANKS-giv-ing is the British pronunciation?

No.

Originally Posted by JoeP

thanksGIVing

There is only one correct answer and I've given it.

[thedoc]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

[lisarea]

I went to bed last night fully intending to spatchcock the turkey, then I woke up this morning, jabbed feebly at it with my terrible broken poultry scissors, and decided to just cook it the dumb way as usual.

Next year: Make an appointment with my friend who knows how to do this stuff. This isn't even something I particularly want to be able to do.

Other memo to myself: Get some working poultry scissors. The only thing my current ones are effective for is pissing me off.

[vremya]

We can't get our oven to light

[JoeP]

[thanks] in the hope that it will light your oven ...

[livius drusus]

I made a brussels sprout salad this year that was very successful. It's colorful, tasty, easy, REQUIRES NO COOKING, and can be made almost entirely a day in advance.

It starts with a very simple honey mustard dressing: 2 tsp grainy mustard, 2 tsp honey, the juice of 1 lemon, salt & pepper to taste and 2 tblsp olive oil. Whisk it up until emulsified. Then I sliced half of a medium red onion really thinly in half-moons and added them to the dressing and tossed. You can set them aside for a couple of hours or put them in fridge for as much as a day. They basically pickle, so they wind up soft and delicate. Even onion haters should be able to tolerate them. Be sure to take it out of the fridge in time for the dressing to come up to room temp before you start the next step.

Cut the tough stem ends off the brussels sprouts, remove any busted or gross outer leaves, cut them in half through the stem then slice thinly crosswise. I used a bag of them. No idea how much that is, but the final product was 4 cups. Put them in a bowl or quart measuring cup and sort of run your fingers through them to separate out the leaves like you're making cole slaw. Which I guess it kind of is, really.

Throw the sprouts in with the onions, toss, toss, toss. Throw in a half cup of pecorino romano or parmesan or both, toss, toss, toss. Adjust for salt and pepper. The end. We had very little left over, and there were several picky eaters in the house.

[lisarea]

The stupid bag of stupid bread cubes I got for the stuffing had HFCS in it. I hadn't even thought to check the ingredients because I got it at a stupid hippy store, but once I tasted it, I dug the bag out of the trash to check and yep.

Also, it looks like our regular grocery store doesn't carry Vernor's anymore.

I hate America so much.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

I made a brussels sprout salad this year that was very successful. It's colorful, tasty, easy, REQUIRES NO COOKING, and can be made almost entirely a day in advance.

[ceptimus]

A Brussels sprout salad will produce colorful and tuneful farts for almost a full day after consumption.

[vremya]

We ended up cooking the turkey in the toaster oven and it came out great!

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

I think we're going to buy a deep-fried turkey for the first time. With that we'll have the traditional Dingfodian Turk Giving Day feast, with mashed potatoes topped with creamed peas, yams boiled in carmelized spiced cream of coconut, and corny jalapeno cornbread. For dessert, pumpkin pie a la Dream Whip.

Originally Posted by Dingfod

I'm thinking of coming up with a Thankgiving paella-type one large skillet dish, with chunks of turkey and ham and new potatoes and sweet potatoes and veggies and rice.

We did not do either of these. This is our first Thanksgiving ever to not have a sweet potato dish. We did have pumpkin pie though, and notsosure made an apple pie she dropped off a few hours ago.

Originally Posted by Dingfod

We've decided it's going to be a snack food Thanksgiving at the Dinsford Estate this year, a turkey breast sliced up to make sammiches, cheeses, and other sordid delights.

...but we did do this.

Missing from this picture: sliced beef summer sausage, smoked swiss and cheddar cheeses, and sliced turkey breast that we had not pulled out of the refrigerator yet.

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

I made a brussels sprout salad this year that was very successful. It's colorful, tasty, easy, REQUIRES NO COOKING, and can be made almost entirely a day in advance.

It starts with a very simple honey mustard dressing: 2 tsp grainy mustard, 2 tsp honey, the juice of 1 lemon, salt & pepper to taste and 2 tblsp olive oil. Whisk it up until emulsified. Then I sliced half of a medium red onion really thinly in half-moons and added them to the dressing and tossed. You can set them aside for a couple of hours or put them in fridge for as much as a day. They basically pickle, so they wind up soft and delicate. Even onion haters should be able to tolerate them. Be sure to take it out of the fridge in time for the dressing to come up to room temp before you start the next step.

Cut the tough stem ends off the brussels sprouts, remove any busted or gross outer leaves, cut them in half through the stem then slice thinly crosswise. I used a bag of them. No idea how much that is, but the final product was 4 cups. Put them in a bowl or quart measuring cup and sort of run your fingers through them to separate out the leaves like you're making cole slaw. Which I guess it kind of is, really.

Throw the sprouts in with the onions, toss, toss, toss. Throw in a half cup of pecorino romano or parmesan or both, toss, toss, toss. Adjust for salt and pepper. The end. We had very little left over, and there were several picky eaters in the house.

We were shopping at Sprouts market for our Thanksgiving feast the other day. inland wave had never seen brussel spouts on their stalk before so she made me take this picture.

[lisarea]

WE ARE ENEMIES, DINGLEFORD!

Sprouts is the stupid place that ruined my stuffing!

And I forgot to complain that we had to buy brussels sprouts on the stalk because neither place we went had them loose!

Plus, you will all be shocked to learn that when I tried to watch Helvetica after I ate a big pile of turkey and potatoes and stuff, I fell asleep for some reason.

[Dingfod]

I gotta say that I've had better cornbread stuffing than that crap we bought at Sprouts.

[BrotherMan]

We had a most traditional Thanksgiving feast. Regular turkey and stuffing (though not cooked in the turkey), potatoes of both sweet and mash varieties and someone brought some kind of vegetable casserole that was good. Three types of dessert: Pumpkin pie, pecan pie and some pumpkin spice cookies.

It was all traditionally good. I don't know how it happened but I ate too much even if I ate less than I usually do at these family feasts. I think it was all of the starches. Like, look at that list, right? It's 90% starch. I didn't stuff myself silly but I've been on this side of almost miserable for a couple of hours.

I'm almost literally like this guy: except not as animated.

I was also additionally worried after pea's posts. I checked the bread rolls I bought and thankfully they don't contain HFCS so whatever I make this weekend (planned chicken parm samwiches) aren't completely ruined before I even try.

So I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

[LadyShea]

I am making that next year

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by lisarea

The stupid bag of stupid bread cubes I got for the stuffing had HFCS in it. I hadn't even thought to check the ingredients because I got it at a stupid hippy store, but once I tasted it, I dug the bag out of the trash to check and yep.

Also, it looks like our regular grocery store doesn't carry Vernor's anymore.

I hate America so much.

Uh, you buy bread cubes?

[lisarea]

Oh, hell yeah, if I can find unseasoned ones. I have no great love for standing around dicing stale bread.

Also, I'm kind of sick of cooking for people and would really like to scale back, so it's extra pissing me off to have some bullshit cake-bread waste my time like that.

My prediction: By this time next year, people are just going to be stuffing their turkeys with straight up Lucky Charms, and I'll be the only one who even notices that it wasn't always that way.

[LadyShea]

You could make cornbread dressing like a real person. Soggy toast is just gross.