Maxwell 15: Simplifying Thanksgiving into Less than Regular Dinner

[Jana814]

In the chain grocery stores by me. People can also order all their food for any holiday and just pick it up and heat it up. I have a client who's does it every year for Thanksgiving. 

[freethemall]

Wait wait wait...I haven't checked on the Maxwell's in like a month and all of a sudden another son is courting and engaged?

The wording on the engagement announcement is interesting, they're so terrified of another failed courtship, that would have been shocking to once again learn about it only after they were married.

Now excuse me while I go learn about these Bontragers (I know I've seen the name around here) and stalk this girl's blog...

[kpmom]

@nvmbr02 would you mind sharing your cranberry pear recipe?

@anniebgood a miniature bottle of Grand Marnier sounds really interesting.  It has an orange flavor, right?

Do you use it in place of recipes that call for O.J.?

[Bajovane]

Wegmans does the same thing - their most basic offering serving 10
Classic Turkey Dinner – $115.00

Serves 10 Features an all-natural, slow roasted turkey from Plainville Farms with fresh FYFGA sides the whole gang will love. FYFGA

Ready to heat and serve in about 2 ½ - 3 hours
Fully Cooked Whole Turkey (12-14 lbs)
Turkey Gravy - 26 oz.
Herb Bread Stuffing - 3.75 lbs
Green Bean & Mushroom Casserole with Crispy Onions - 3 lbs
Whipped Butternut Squash - 4 lbs
Cranberry Orange Relish - 16 oz
Mashed Potatoes - 5 lbs

Way more $$ than the Meijer's!

Hand carved turkey is even more!
Hand-Carved Turkey Dinner for 12 – $219.00

Serves 12 Our highest quality offerings in a beautiful presentation. This all-natural, free range turkey, contains no antibiotics, MSG, gluten, nitrates or nitrites. Accompanied by fresh, delicious sides made right in your store.

Ready to heat & serve in about 1 hour and 15 minutes
Pre-Carved Whole Turkey (12-14 lbs)
Home-style Gravy - 48 oz
Herb Stuffing - 5 lbs
Seasoned Green Beans - 3 lbs
Roasted Butternut Squash, Spinach, and Craisins - 3 lbs
Mashed Potatoes - 5 lbs
Cranberry Orange Relish - 16 oz

[JermajestyDuggar]

Some Kroger stores will do the thanksgiving meal as well. 

[Black Aliss]

3 hours ago, PsyD2013 said:

Thanksgiving is one big idol at my house.  I love to cook and like to make each year a bit different for my guests.  (Yeah Steve, my chef knives and gas range are just a few of my idols)

Appetizer- butternut squash soup (I dump white wine in it!)

Pheasant wrapped in pancetta with a stout reduction sauce

cranberry chutney ( Grand Marinere in it)

sweet potatoes with a garlic expresso glaze

green beans with almonds

Various breads and rolls

Deserts include: pumpkin, chocolate pecan, and rhubarb pies, & a Bailey's Irish Creme cheese cake 

Lots of wine, various beers, and coffee (another idol).  For the kids Pepsi, Coke, and flavored waters

 

 

May I please come to your house for Thanksgiving? I'll bring more wine.

[PennySycamore]

@mango_fandango,  I've got to get that Mary Berry Christmas cookbook!  I   Mary!

[nastyhobbitses]

Mary Berry could totally take over the world if she wrote a recipe that said something like "fold in the egg whites, then kill all who oppose me".

[freethemall]

I just showed my husband the Maxwell family for the first time, the Thanksgiving post and accompanying sala post. His thoughts:

- Why is this so badly written? From the first sentence on, are they really into passive voice?

- That salad looks DISGUSTING

- Why do you read this stuff?

Couldn't answer the third one...

[Coconutwater]

1 minute ago, freethemall said:

I just showed my husband the Maxwell family for the first time, the Thanksgiving post and accompanying sala post. His thoughts:

- Why is this so badly written? From the first sentence on, are they really into passive voice?

- That salad looks DISGUSTING

- Why do you read this stuff?

Couldn't answer the third one...

Third- because it’s a slow moving train wreck where nothing happens, but the crazy is there and you just have to keep reading...(my excuse anyway...)

[Tatar-tot]

5 minutes ago, freethemall said:

I just showed my husband the Maxwell family for the first time, the Thanksgiving post and accompanying sala post. His thoughts:

- Why is this so badly written? From the first sentence on, are they really into passive voice?

- That salad looks DISGUSTING

- Why do you read this stuff?

Couldn't answer the third one...

Number 3 is the question my husband asks me and I ask myself.....It is kinda like starring at a car wreck or a modern day soap opera of freaky weird people who for the most part are awful dressers and live in crappy housing.

[Palimpsest]

7 hours ago, Tatar-tot said:

Dinner can be prepped in 30 minutes or less with most of it cooked in the microwave.  

The microwave must have been an idol because they got rid of it.

6 hours ago, mango_fandango said:

Teri said this in reply to a comment. I bet the DILs have offered but Teri has politely refused. 

The DILs don't get that meal "off" if they have to go home and make another one for their still hungry children and husbands.

I can't get over the acute lack of vegetables for the Maxhell Thanksgiving.  To me the side dishes are better than the turkey.

[johnhugh]

With regards Stud John, my guess is that we know he was hard to break. He seems to have been given more ‘freedom’ than his brothers. Apparently all the children were asked at either 18 or 21 if they wanted to carry on in Maxhell or Fuck off.  But with conferences gone to live with Jesus and book sales heading that way they may have had little choice  but to relax the rules to save  the Maxhell brand.

interesting to see what happens.with Jess, but he seems very different to John and anyway makes an idol out of abortion.

[freethemall]

1 hour ago, Tatar-tot said:

Number 3 is the question my husband asks me and I ask myself.....It is kinda like starring at a car wreck or a modern day soap opera of freaky weird people who for the most part are awful dressers and live in crappy housing.

Adding to this, my husband was just putting together a salad for our dinner (can you believe it? My husband, not me, his heathen wife, putting together a salad for our dinner) and yelled "honey, I'm chopping lettuce, get me the pizza slicer!". And imagine, no sour cream in sight! 

[Captain Obvious]

8 hours ago, Tatar-tot said:

2.  If the Maxwell family blog tone is so snarky I can only imagine their behavior towards her.  Given the lessons Steve has taught John about where parents fit in to marital relations: if they do not 100% agree with you and/or contradict you in any way excommunication is the only option.  My guess is Chelsea and her sister are staying with Elisa since it is “closer to John’s house.” It is unimaginable they don’t show the spinsters bring lunch over (remember the women helping in previous construction adventures) or Teri/Steve hosting dinner for the engaged couple after a hard day of construction.

Don’t forget that if Steve had his way he wouldn’t be acknowledging Chelsy at all, and then not until after the wedding. That’s regardless of what her family are like and what kind of courtship they had. I can’t see that changing - I doubt we’re going to see any wedding prep posts either, unless somehow the spinsters can find a way to host a wedding shower that’s suitably Maxwellian, unlike the f*n bachelorette party that Allison no doubt has planned.

Even the way the other Maxwives are depicted on the blog depends on what use they are to Steve’s purposes. Since the ministry focuses on the raising of children, the only real time the wives are referred to is when they are pregnant, giving birth, or doing something that allows the spinsters to be shown as selfless potential helpmeets to them. That’s literally the only time we’ve seen Elissa on the blog and - since she appears to resist the constant intrusion of her in-laws - why we still know basically nothing about her.

The only other choice is when a wife can be depicted is when she is in a Maxwell approved courtship, and it looks like Chelsy won’t qualify for that. Though I’m intrigued to see what happens if/when J & C update their wedding site to tell their “relationship” story - whether Steve will be compelled to create a beigewashed “courtship” version, or just pretend the other account is not there. 

[mango_fandango]

35 minutes ago, johnhugh said:

With regards Stud John, my guess is that we know he was hard to break. He seems to have been given more ‘freedom’ than his brothers. Apparently all the children were asked at either 18 or 21 if they wanted to carry on in Maxhell or Fuck off.  But with conferences gone to live with Jesus and book sales heading that way they may have had little choice  but to relax the rules to save  the Maxhell brand.

interesting to see what happens.with Jess, but he seems very different to John and anyway makes an idol out of abortion.

I agree WRT John. They knew he was the hardest to train, and probably likely to be least like Steve, so they let him have bigger freedoms/slightly more relaxed courtship to keep him happy. Steve and Teri still hold the reigns, but they're a little bit looser in order to try and keep John on-side.

[formergothardite]

My Thanksgiving conversation contribution. Some bad language. 

 

[meee]

1 hour ago, johnhugh said:

Apparently all the children were asked at either 18 or 21 if they wanted to carry on in Maxhell or Fuck off.

Wait, what? Where do we know this from? I've been following the Maxwells for awhile and this is news to me.

[Elegant Mess]

1 hour ago, freethemall said:

Adding to this, my husband was just putting together a salad for our dinner (can you believe it? My husband, not me, his heathen wife, putting together a salad for our dinner) and yelled "honey, I'm chopping lettuce, get me the pizza slicer!". And imagine, no sour cream in sight! 

Wow!  He knows how to use the pizza slicer without Sarah's tutelage?!  Tell him he needs to get on a blog post so that the rest of us can be trained!

[johnhugh]

53 minutes ago, meee said:

Wait, what? Where do we know this from? I've been following the Maxwells for awhile and this is news to me.

I remember reading this sometime ago on either the blog but more likely one of Mum or dad corners.

[anniebgood]

9 hours ago, kpmom said:

@nvmbr02 would you mind sharing your cranberry pear recipe?

@anniebgood a miniature bottle of Grand Marnier sounds really interesting.  It has an orange flavor, right?

Do you use it in place of recipes that call for O.J.?

Yes, it's an orange liqueur and it just gives the orange flavor without the oranges. I just use the basic 1 to 1 cranberry recipe and as the fruit is popping add in the booze.

WRT the pre-done holiday dinners, we've done the Thanksgiving one. The sides are mediocre size at Ralphs (Kroger) but the turkey was exactly the right size. We added our own potatoes and dressing and I make the sweet potatoes with gingersnaps and marshmallows.  This year I'm getting a large turkey breast and a small ham from Trader Joe's. I've already got the turkey gravy starter and the turkey broth for the dressing. I'm going to use Murisaki sweet potatoes instead of orange ones just for a change. They are delicious.

 

[Hane]

11 hours ago, mango_fandango said:

Teri said this in reply to a comment. I bet the DILs have offered but Teri has politely refused. 

Flashback to my second marriage: One Thanksgiving weekend, we were traveling out of state to visit my inlaws.  My mother-in-law wasn’t well, being on oxygen 24/7 for a lung ailment, so I offered to bring dinner. (I am a kick-ass cook and baker.)  She refused. (She was pretty deeply narcissistic: when I timidly mentioned that my 12-year-old had a solo in the school concert, she started going on and in about how SHE had had a solo in HER school concert, and how impressed all the boys were by her POISE compared with all those other simpering, giggling girls. It made me want to ask her how such exquisite poise  allowed her to get knocked up in high school.) 

So we head out to Pennsylvania for a dinner of turkey, boxed scalloped potatoes (“My sister-in-law hates me because when I make these, they always come out better than hers!”), and frozen mixed vegetables.  She agonized over where to seat everyone for dinner—all seven of us.

We sat down to eat, and my FIL took the turkey out of the oven. It was WHITE. Apparently she hadn’t set her new oven correctly, and the turkey was nearly raw. They dealt with the situation by slicing it up and microwaving the slices.  It was about the least appetizing meal I was ever served. I choked down minimal amounts, while enjoying a rich brew of schadenfreude.

I’m sure that Teri, like my MIL, is aghast at the possibility of being shown up.

[nvmbr02]

@kpmom I no longer have a recipe. But t is just a package of cranberries, one pear, cored and cut into bite sized pieces (we use Korean pears here but I have used several different ones), one cup of apple cider, 3/4 to 1 cup of sugar depending on how sweet the pears are and how tart you like your cranberry sauce and a bit of lemon zest. 

I just dissolve the sugar into the cider in a saucepan on the stove. Then add the cranberries. Once the cranberries start to pop open I add the pears and cook until the berries and the pears are soft. Add in the lemon zest and let it cool to room temp. and put in the fridge over night. My husband doesn't normally like cranberry sauce but likes this one because the pears mellow out the cranberry taste.

[FloraDoraDolly]

18 hours ago, lilith said:

Those two look uncannily alike. If they weren’t born in the same year I’d wonder if there had been some sweet fellowship between Steve and Mama Bontrager. Or Teri and Patriarch Bontrager - god, Chelsy’s parents look like siblings too.,,..

There is a certain alike-ness about these fundie families. I remember when I looked at the Bontrager sons' wedding pics on their website, I had a hard time telling which girls were the brides and which ones were the sisters. And whenever I see a photo of Joseph Duggar with Kendra, I have to do a double take because she looks so much like the Duggar girls.

[Elegant Mess]

5 minutes ago, FloraDoraDolly said:

There is a certain alike-ness about these fundie families. I remember when I looked at the Bontrager sons' wedding pics on their website, I had a hard time telling which girls were the brides and which ones were the sisters. And whenever I see a photo of Joseph Duggar with Kendra, I have to do a double take because she looks so much like the Duggar girls.

Just speculation, but I wonder if all that time they spend within the family subtly influences what they consider attractive?