Thanksgiving

[jennythe_reader]

It's probably just me and my husband this year, so we aren't bothering with a traditional meal for the two of us.

Our dinner will be steak, baked potatoes, green beans, rolls, and semi-homemade apple pie.

[txanne]

"Semi-homemade"?

[elyse]

I just put the turkey in to brine  -- roughly Alton Brown's Turkey brining recipe: salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, allspice berries, candied ginger, vegetable broth and water. A hefty 2.5 gallon ziplock bag turns out to be large enough to hold a 14.8 pound turkey and a fair amount of brine. Which all (barely) fits into a big stockpot, which fits into my snazzy new fridge with one of the half-width shelves removed.

I haven't done a brined turkey before. I hope it comes out ok. This is also my first Thanksgiving since the food allergies were diagnosed, so I'm making some changes to my standard menu.

[MadGastronomer]

This year I'm going with a friend to her family's Thanksgiving dinner.  My family came out here last year to celebrate my new house, and I did the whole shebang -- nine people, a deep-fried turkey, bourbon-pecan gravy, cornbread dressing, cranberry sauce, rolls, mashed butternut squash with mace, roasted fingerling potatoes (in three colors, including purple), roasted cauliflower (in three colors, including purple), several bottle of champagne and wine, and two kinds of pie with ice cream...  We couldn't fit it all on the table.  It was fun, but I'm just as glad this year to be going to someone else's.  I'll help with the cooking (of course; Wendy says it's theoretically a potluck, but that nobody but her and her mom ever cooks anything, so she seems pretty pleased to a cook to invite), and I'm doing the tricolor potatoes and tricolor cauliflower again, the latter this time with a Cambozola Mornay sauce (errr, a cheese sauce that includes Cambozola, which is sort of a cross between Gorgonzola and Camembert).

[jeffy]

...and I'm doing the tricolor potatoes and tricolor cauliflower again, the latter this time with a Cambozola Mornay sauce (errr, a cheese sauce that includes Cambozola, which is sort of a cross between Gorgonzola and Camembert).

omnomnom. I'm drooling on my keyboard here. Everybody else's stuff sounds yummy too. And add my voice to txanne's query about the mulled cranberry sauce. Sounds intriguing.

My house smells like stuffing.

[Elizabeth Bear]

Last year, I did dinner for eight in a kitchen that's slightly smaller than Chaz's, which gave me an appreciation for what his Sundays are like. (Drilled military precision.) This year, T-day is at my mom's, and I will be bringing cake, two kinds of pie, cranberry sauce, yams, and probably some other stuff I need to look in the fridge and remember to pack.

Mmm.

[kvon]

I'm going to my friend's house for dinner.  She's Phillipina, so besides turkey I'm not sure what else we'll have.  Since she's only ever made one apple pie (in my kitchen) I volunteered to make one for dinner.  And I also made a pumpkin pie.

[winterwind]

I'm going to the in-laws' later today (on a 3:30 flight; I had to work yesterday). They're in St Louis.

Since I'm vegetarian, they're making stuffed acorn squash from the original Moosewood cookbook and sides of veggies. Probably tinned cranberry sauce. I'm bringing fresh-baked sourdough rolls, which are currently on their second rise in my oven (heat off, light on. Perfect temperature for shoggoth-spawn.) For dessert, they're doing a cranberry-apple-pineapple crisp that I found a recipe for 2 T-days ago.

The in-laws aren't very culinarily adventurous, so I had to say "try this recipe; it sounds good," because otherwise, it'd be eating the same exact thing as we had 2 years ago. I like to try new things.

[txanne]

"The most important topic" is as good a place as any to put this.

I'm thankful for all the Deltas who post and a good few who lurk, and I'm thankful for TPTB, who make it possible.

[jennythe_reader]

"Semi-homemade"?

Filling from scratch, in a crust from the grocery store.  I don't have enough counter space to roll out the crust for a full sized pie.  I guess I could use the table, but it's at an uncomfortable height and is hard to cat-proof.

[ebony14]

As a post Thanksgiving note, I offer up the only way to improve on the turducken, aside from frying it up like a State Fair fried thing. I give you ... the turbaconducken: http://bacontoday.com/turbaconducken-turducken-wrapped-in-bacon/. It's disturbing, but also has a strange allure.