Dillards 67: It Came From A Can

[EyesOpen]

Everyone blowing up this thread over thanksgiving food is making me hungry and also fearful there was a preggo announcement I missed! Carry on! Lol

[PennySycamore]

@Maggie Mae, I think that the opinion on the safety of stuffed turkey might be changing.  The America's Test Kitchen Cookbook had two recipes for stuffed turkey.  In one recipe, they recommend roasting smaller turkeys -no larger than 12 pounds- and splitting the stuffing into two portions -one portion that gets partly cooked in the microwave and then stuffed into the turkey and one that get baked in the oven.  The turkey is also brined.

For those turkey hater, have you ever had a well-roasted turkey?  A turkey need not be dry and tasteless.  I've always used James Beard's Roast Unstuffed Turkey recipe for Theory and Practice of Good Cooking until last year when I made the dry-brined turkey recipe from the ATK Cookbook's turkey chapter.   I roast a fresh turkey too and always have..  Both recipes yield a moist and delicious bird.

I think I'll make my Quorn "turky" roast I have in the freeezer for supper.  I can always get a new one before Thanksgiving.

[EmmieJ]

1 hour ago, emscm said:

I have a super unpopular and controversial opinion to share but.... I hate almost all of the Thanksgiving dish things. Except mashed potatoes. ?? Please don’t put me in the prayer closet! 

You and my son both.  He loves chicken, dislikes turkey.  Will eat plain, buttered green beans, hates green bean casserole.  Not crazy about mashed potatoes, doesn't like any sort of cranberry sauce.  Doesn't like any pie but those Hostess pocket pies.  He does like homemade rolls though.  I used to make him pork chops, a baked potato, steamed green beans, and chocolate cake for dessert for both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner.

[Alisamer]

55 minutes ago, AtlanticTug said:

I don't like turkey but love all the other T-giving food.

Same. I'm OK with turkey and will eat it, but it's kind of blah to me.

Dressing, however, I LOVE. Both my grandmothers took their recipes (one for a dense, pie like CHICKEN dressing, and one for a regular turkey dressing) to the grave, but we usually make Stove Top with chicken stock instead of water, with added sage and celery salt, and then baked. It turns out really good and is easy. I could easily have just dressing and my potato salad (the mustardy yellow creamy kind, served hot) and that be the meal. Sometimes that is my evening meal after a family holiday dinner. 

That said, we only cook the big family meal once or twice a year now - we usually go out for the other holiday meals, since my aunts don't really cook so my mom and sisters and I end up making everything.

I'm also an introvert, and big family holiday meals are exhausting. I enjoy it, but I feel like I need a day off afterward to decompress. By the evening I'm like "I love you people but I need to go home and sit alone in my house for a couple hours."

[Loveday]

I rarely come into the Duggar threads because there are too many Duggars and I just get overwhelmed and confused, but I had to find out why this one was 'hot' today. So glad I did...this is one of the best thread drifts EVAR. *wipes drool off keyboard* 

[artdecades]

2 hours ago, emscm said:

I have a super unpopular and controversial opinion to share but.... I hate almost all of the Thanksgiving dish things. Except mashed potatoes. ?? Please don’t put me in the prayer closet! 

I Mac the exact opposite of you. I love it all except for the potatoes. In fact, I hate potatoes. When I tell people that they look at me like I just said I was an alien. 

[socalrules]

I grew up where everyone had homemade  sweet potato pies for the holidays. I never even tried pumpkin pie until I was maybe 15. I can still remember the disappointment. I have tried it many times since and still don’t like it. I thought they would be similar in taste because they look somewhat alike but I was so wrong. I now either make my own sweet potato pie or drive around town until I can find one already made. They can be difficult to find. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

3 hours ago, emscm said:

I have a super unpopular and controversial opinion to share but.... I hate almost all of the Thanksgiving dish things. Except mashed potatoes. ?? Please don’t put me in the prayer closet! 

   

 

That is OK, I know several people who only like, one or two things on the Thanksgiving day feast.  I'm not a huge turkey fan, if I MUST eat it I will only eat dark meat.  I LOATHE green bean casserole as well as most stuffing/dressing there are 2 kinds I will eat, the stuffing at a local restaurant (that is probably just stove top made properly) and my mothers dried out over cooked lump of gooey bread how is it dry and gooey you ask, well that is a skill my mother has mastered in her art of over cooking EVERYTHING to avoid the dangers of food poisoning.  Its a family staple it is actually kind of disgusting from a "foodie" stand point, but it is childhood comfort food, that my siblings and I still fight over while our spouses look at us like "that shits nasty".   I'm generally the Thanksgiving chef in our family, my sister and sister and law do NOT cook, period and my mother is a terrible cook, who smothers every over cooked meat in onions and sauerkraut (can you say German raised) GAG. So I make it all, even the nasty ass green bean casserole, and my plate normally consists of dinner rolls, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, stuffing and jello. with a little piece of ham and a little piece of turkey. It is a carb OVER LOAD, and I love every mouthful of it.

[JordynDarby5]

43 minutes ago, socalrules said:

I grew up where everyone had homemade  sweet potato pies for the holidays. I never even tried pumpkin pie until I was maybe 15. I can still remember the disappointment. I have tried it many times since and still don’t like it. I thought they would be similar in taste because they look somewhat alike but I was so wrong. I now either make my own sweet potato pie or drive around town until I can find one already made. They can be difficult to find. 

My dad loves sweet potato pie. Its the one thing Mom had never figured out to make. She tried different recipes over the years but it never came out right. She was always so happy when someone brought a sweet potato pie usually one of my aunts or my sister-in-law's mother. 

[kmachete14]

a tiny slice of dark meat turkey with a disproportional amount of crispy skin I've stolen from three other pieces lol, TONS of my mom's homemade cranberry relish, scoop of Grandma's marshmallow sweet potatoes, corn bread-cream cheese casserole, spinach casserole, and a giant serving of mashed potatoes ? and four glasses of wine 

[libgirl2]

1 hour ago, Alisamer said:

Same. I'm OK with turkey and will eat it, but it's kind of blah to me.

Dressing, however, I LOVE. Both my grandmothers took their recipes (one for a dense, pie like CHICKEN dressing, and one for a regular turkey dressing) to the grave, but we usually make Stove Top with chicken stock instead of water, with added sage and celery salt, and then baked. It turns out really good and is easy. I could easily have just dressing and my potato salad (the mustardy yellow creamy kind, served hot) and that be the meal. Sometimes that is my evening meal after a family holiday dinner. 

That said, we only cook the big family meal once or twice a year now - we usually go out for the other holiday meals, since my aunts don't really cook so my mom and sisters and I end up making everything.

I'm also an introvert, and big family holiday meals are exhausting. I enjoy it, but I feel like I need a day off afterward to decompress. By the evening I'm like "I love you people but I need to go home and sit alone in my house for a couple hours."

I remember when I was little my mom made a meat dressing for the turkey. I loved it. It was only years later, when I ate the same dish at my future in laws (made my my ex's grandmother) did I find out it was made from the gizzards, liver..... I am really glad I didn't know that then. 

1 hour ago, artdecades said:

I Mac the exact opposite of you. I love it all except for the potatoes. In fact, I hate potatoes. When I tell people that they look at me like I just said I was an alien. 

I would look at you the same too. Potatoes are great, haven't met one I don't like... except sweet potatoes. Yuck. 

[Markie]

I like most of the Thanksgiving foods. I am not a huge green bean casserole fan and marshmallows on root vegetables aren’t my thing either.  Perhaps because those two dishes weren’t what we ate when I was growing up in Canada. We’d usually have turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, dressing, salad, squash or turnip, hm cranberry sauce, another vegetable like peas, corns or green beans with some butter, pumpkin, apple and lemon meringue pies and fudge! 

[byzant]

As a non American I find it fascinating but when an American Collegue  did thanksgiving I was amazed by how sweet it all was. Give me proper roast ham, roast potatoes , parsnips, Brussels sprouts, homemade stuffing , proper homemade Gravy and carrot and parsnip mash any day.  I always thought pumpkin pie would be amazing, have never been more disappointed than when I made it. 

 

It just goes to show how ingrained some cultural preferences and expectations are. On a related note had a massively stressful day at work with court and police so got home super late and treated myself to a mezze selection from the local Lebanese  resturant- so good. 

[Hashtag Blessed]

I like pretty much all Thanksgiving foods when they're made well. Except for Turkey, cause I'm vegetarian. Stuffing, brussel sprouts, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and potato rolls are what our family usually does. The meat eaters do turkey, and we (Mr. Blessed and I) do our own little thing.

This year we've decided we'll make a stuffed pumpkin. Basically, a hollowed out sugar pie pumpkin, filled with a cheesy mushroom and walnut stuffing, and baked whole so you can slice right into it like a cake. We've made it once before and loved it, so that's going to be our turkey alternative again this year. 

I love hearing about what other people's traditions are! I know that canned cranberry sauce is a Thing, but we had never done it in my families until recently. We never had cranberry sauce at all when I was growing up and I really feel like I missed out. Now we usually make it from scratch with some whiskey-soaked dried cranberries mixed in to give it a little something extra. 

[Maggie Mae]

38 minutes ago, byzant said:

As a non American I find it fascinating but when an American Collegue  did thanksgiving I was amazed by how sweet it all was. Give me proper roast ham, roast potatoes , parsnips, Brussels sprouts, homemade stuffing , proper homemade Gravy and carrot and parsnip mash any day.  I always thought pumpkin pie would be amazing, have never been more disappointed than when I made it. 

This is highly dependant on where you are in the US and/or who is making dinner. My mom's family always had a turkey, roasted properly, a goose (because there are like 50 people on that side), ham, mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts (for me and my aunt who loved them), stuffing, gravy, roast carrots, and nothing was drenched in sugar except for desert. I think my grandfather is descended from UK/Wales and my grandmother came as a kid from Poland. We'd also have homemade relish trays and various vegetables and other than sometimes being a bit cold, the food was pretty good. 

My dad's side was in the US much longer and they had a lot more money and are much more protestant. That was usually turkey, several pies, various casseroles and veggies and salads, gravy, and homemade cranberry sauce. Oh, and the dreaded sweet potatoes with mini-marshmallows. I don't get it. They had a lot more money, fewer people and were much much worse at menu planning, cooking, and food sanitation.  I want to say they came from Holland and Canada. 

The one thing I can't abide on Thanksgiving is paper plates. I know its weird. 

[Hashtag Blessed]

15 hours ago, LurkerOverThePond said:

As a non-American, I find all the Thanksgiving food talk interesting. Some traditional foods sound yummy and if I ever visit the US during Thanksgiving, I most definitely want to go to some nice lil' mom & pop restaurant serving traditional Thanksgiving meal. 

A few years ago I tried pumpkin pie for the first time ever (believe it or not!). I _love_ savory pumpkin dishes and I thought I'd love the pie, too. I bought a tin of pureed pumpkin (the brand was Libby's, I think) from a local store selling American food brands and followed the instructions printed on the tin and eagerly tasted the pie... let's just say I won't be baking it again   On the other hand, I found candy corn at the same store and absolutely LOVED it!

I don't blame you for not liking pumpkin pie. Plenty of Americans hate it. I love it, personally but everyone's tastes are different. We do apple pie at Thanksgiving too, that's always more popular. 

Also, candy corn fucking rocks, don't believe the haters!

[melon]

2 hours ago, socalrules said:

I grew up where everyone had homemade  sweet potato pies for the holidays. I never even tried pumpkin pie until I was maybe 15. I can still remember the disappointment. I have tried it many times since and still don’t like it. I thought they would be similar in taste because they look somewhat alike but I was so wrong. I now either make my own sweet potato pie or drive around town until I can find one already made. They can be difficult to find. 

I am the opposite of you.I don't care for sweet potato pie,in fact,I don't like sweet potatoes,at all.

I have to make more than one pie.Pumpkin for one son and me.Some other pie for Mr Melon and my other son.

2 minutes ago, Hashtag Blessed said:

I don't blame you for not liking pumpkin pie. Plenty of Americans hate it. I love it, personally but everyone's tastes are different. We do apple pie at Thanksgiving too, that's always more popular. 

Also, candy corn fucking rocks, don't believe the haters!

We sometimes do apple and pumpkin pie.I like pumpkin pie,but usually just have it twice a year.

I am with you on the candy corn,but can only handle  a little at a time.It's so sweet.

 

[byzant]

7 minutes ago, Maggie Mae said:

This is highly dependant on where you are in the US and/or who is making dinner. My mom's family always had a turkey, roasted properly, a goose (because there are like 50 people on that side), ham, mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts (for me and my aunt who loved them), stuffing, gravy, roast carrots, and nothing was drenched in sugar except for desert. I think my grandfather is descended from UK/Wales and my grandmother came as a kid from Poland. We'd also have homemade relish trays and various vegetables and other than sometimes being a bit cold, the food was pretty good. 

My dad's side was in the US much longer and they had a lot more money and are much more protestant. That was usually turkey, several pies, various casseroles and veggies and salads, gravy, and homemade cranberry sauce. Oh, and the dreaded sweet potatoes with mini-marshmallows. I don't get it. They had a lot more money, fewer people and were much much worse at menu planning, cooking, and food sanitation.  I want to say they came from Holland and Canada. 

The one thing I can't abide on Thanksgiving is paper plates. I know its weird. 

That sounds amazing and I totallybagreebthat paper plates are evil! The different areas thing is v true when I moved to Scotland I was amazedbthwt people liked Xmas but went all out for hogmanay the first time someone came first footing I was petrified- why was my door ringing after 12! Where as now I quite like it. And it has traditional food to_- new years day you have to have steak pie mash and cabbage! 

[Timetostoplurking]

Pumpkin pie is the best!  But you can’t just follow the receipe on the can of pumpkin purée.  You really need to double the spices, then it’s fantastic.  

It’s interesting how similar, across the whole country, thanksgiving dinner is.  At the same time, how different .  Now, I need to make a pumpkin pie....yum!

[Lisafer]

I think green bean casserole originated in the depths of hell!  

Turkey is good if it's moist, but it's not an easy bird to cook. And stuffing...ew. I'm not a Thanksgiving meal fan at all, really. I hosted Thanksgiving for some of the family last year, and I made brisket, slow-cooked in the oven, corn casserole, a huge salad with greens, tomatoes, Kalamata olives, onions, and feta cheese--and my aunt brought a turkey for the turkey-lovers! To be fair, hers was cooked to perfection!

Growing up, we didn't celebrate holidays, so I don't have a nostalgic connection to "Grandma's green bean casserole" or "Mom's homemade stuffing." I skip the foods that I hate and cook ones that sound good for the holidays now!

[Hashtag Blessed]

3 minutes ago, Lisafer said:

Growing up, we didn't celebrate holidays, so I don't have a nostalgic connection to "Grandma's green bean casserole" or "Mom's homemade stuffing." I skip the foods that I hate and cook ones that sound good for the holidays no

I don’t have a connection to family recipies either but that’s just because neither my mom nor my grandma are particularly good cooks!? No one else in the family was either. So the pies were always store bought and the food was meh. I only came to love Thanksgiving foods since I became an adult and learned to cook for myself.

[SapphireSlytherin]

We do a pumpkin pie and a pecan pie. When more of my family was alive, we also had an apple pie. Well... multiples of each.

[fluffernutter]

4 hours ago, MoonFace said:

When my daughter comes for her pre Thanksgiving/Christmas visit (I celebrate whatever holiday my kids want to celebrate whenever they visit so that they do not feel obligated to come for holidays)  I make a full Thanksgiving dinner - but substitute a family recipe for chicken for turkey because that is what she prefers.   

But I do love making a full blown Thanksgiving dinner.   Love the scent of turkey cooking.  

Way to go for not pressuring your adult kids to be present for every single holiday. My husband and I tried to make his  side and my side happy and we ran ourselves ragged for years. Now we are almost empty-nesters, only one left at home, and we are very chill about it all. They come, they are welcome, they go somewhere else or stay home, that's cool too. I do not want them to ever feel guilty, or exhausted trying to make everyone happy. 

[haroldtheyrefundies]

I used to be really picky when I was younger and just didn't eat much at all, but now that I'm older I still don't eat much when it comes to Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner. I'll normally eat mac and cheese, corn casserole, baked (never mashed) potato if there are any, and a roll. And the only pie I will eat is chocolate chess pie, and only if it is my dad's mom's recipe. I have never eaten turkey or ham on Thanksgiving/Christmas. 

[catlady]

50 minutes ago, Timetostoplurking said:

Pumpkin pie is the best!  But you can’t just follow the receipe on the can of pumpkin purée.  You really need to double the spices, then it’s fantastic.  

Re: the spices, this is so true.  I make pumpkin pie all through fall and winter; my go-to is to generously double the spices and triple the cinnamon.  I also get several pie pumpkins every fall, bake them, portion them out, and freeze them. Then we have pie every 2 or3 weeks.