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Nov
23
I engaged in some power-whining a couple months ago about not wanting to travel too much over the holidays and how I was hoping we’d keep things more low key this year because as lovely as it was visiting JB’s brother’s fiancee’s parents (got that?) last time, their house is spotless and features lots of pointy marble things and their dinner spread is like something crafted by set designers for a keepsake Gourmet magazine (RIP) layout. Between constantly scanning to be certain that one of my feral children isn’t pulling a collection of Waterford crystal onto their heads and having a hand at the ready to clap over the other one’s mouth in case he decides to loudly describe a food item that took seventeen consecutive hours to prepare as “yucky”—while, by the way, being personally poured into something that requires Spanx—well, just thinking about it makes me want to crawl into a closet and suck on dog hair.
So anyway, we’re having Thanksgiving at our house this year. This all seemed like a very good idea until this morning when it sort of hit me all at once that I have to produce an actual non-microwaved meal this week, at which point I launched into the exact same process I experience every time I host a holiday:
1. PANIC! Consider faking own death.
2. Pore over 257319 recipe websites, considering which seventy-step dish I should try for the very first time this year. Should I buy a chef’s torch? Make croissants from scratch? I should at least replace all our dishes and get some raw silk table linens and sterling silver napkin rings and maybe plan on at least seven courses, not including the amuse-bouche and palate cleansing sorbet and—
3. Fuck it, man. These people are getting Stove Top and paper plates. I hate everyone and everything. Cram it up your pilgrim-hole, Thanksgiving.
4. OH FINE I GUESS I SHOULD BUY A GODDAMNED TURKEY.
5. Panic! Consider faking own death.
I am now in step 6, where I’ve figured out what I’m going to serve and I’ve created the monstrous shopping list and I think I have it under control, except I just found out JB’s parents are arriving tomorrow and all I can say is I hope they don’t mind pizza between now and Thursday because seriously. See also: step 1, step 5.
We’ll stick to the basics—turkey, potatoes, stuffing—for the meal but I think I’ll sneak one weird thing in there that probably no one will like except me. This is a recipe from my Aunt Eileen, and I have very fond memories of it.
Aunt Eileen’s Jello Salad
2 cups hot water
2/3 cups cinnamon candies
1 large lemon Jello
1.5 cups applesauce
8oz cream cheese
1/2 c. chopped nuts
1/2 c. chopped celery
1/2 c. mayonnaise
Pour hot water over candies until melted. Add jello and stir in applesauce. Pour 1/2 of mixture into bowl or mold. Chill until set. Blend cream cheese and nuts and celery and mayo. Spread over set mixture. Pour on remaining mix. Chill.
Oooh, it’s just all spicy and creamy and cool and it’s a pretty red color and looks particularly nice in a glass dish and I’m telling you, you should try it. Even if it is weird, which fine, it sort of is.
What are you doing for Thanksgiving, if you’re celebrating? Do you have any oddball family favorite recipes that are part of your holiday meal?
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95 Responses to “Thankswhinging”
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My mom always makes the nasty green-bean casserole. My person favorite has always been my grandma’s homemade dressing. Unfortunately, my aunt has hijacked the honors and now fixes it. Let me put it to you this way. You could melt it down and fill the cracks in your driveway/sidewalk. It’s that bad.
We missed Canadian Thanksgiving because we were Stateside (and failed at meeting up with you. BOO.)
I’m tempted to make a turkey this weekend because, well, why not?
Matthew’s Mom makes a dish that makes me want to vomit. Or leave it on the doorstep of someone who deserves a flaming bag of poo. He, however, LOVES IT.
It involves non-salted crackers, pistachio pudding, marshmallows and oranges. I’M NOT EVEN KIDDING.
I pretty much always make a bourbon pecan pie and try like hell to avoid doing anything that resembles parenting. Kind of like any other day of the week.
Happy Thanksgiving from Bachelor Girl Land, where I will undoubtedly get asked 14,465 times in row Why I Am Not Married, Why I Have Yet to Produce a Litter of Catholic Babies and Don’t I Know That Time is Running Out.
Wow, I feel like I’m missing out. I don’t have a weird family recipe. Oh well.
I’m having dinner for 22 at my house. It *sounded* like a good idea when I proposed it a couple months ago but here we are at T-3 days, I’m working extra hours at work, AM BROKE and haven’t started cooking or cleaning yet. Sounds like a great time, huh?
But it will be. It’ll all work out. Everyone’s bringing stuff and we’ll gorge ourselves silly. Then go back for seconds a few hours later.
Happy Thanksgiving!
In my family we makes something called “pink stuff”. It involves cherry pie filling, sweetened condensed milk, cool whip, pineapple, and pecans. It’s wonderful!
I work at a daycare and we’re hosting Thanksgiving lunch for the kids and parents tomorrow. I’ve been slaving away in the kitchen for the last 2 days making all kinds of goodies. I will be glad when it’s over…..
This year, the boyfriend, his sister, her husband, and I are doing Thanksgiving without any pesky parents. My boyfriend has decreed that there will be Turducken. Hope he knows how to cook that shit. In the meantime, his sister and I plan to make mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese, and maybe nuke some frozen peas if we feel the plate lacks color. I’m betting the Turducken takes WAY longer than anticipated to cook, so it’s gonna be mac and cheese and pumpkin pie sandwiched in between Mario Kart Death Race and massacre of the songs of the Beatles.
I’m making that confused dog head-tilt right now, trying to imagine those flavors combined. I wonder if you put apples in it too? Sort of like a waldorf salad. On crack.
We have Jello Salad at every holiday- some of my familiy members actually fight over who gets to eat the most of it…
My family’s weird Thanksgiving food is Christmas cookies. Specifically, special Christmas cookies that for some reason only I can make, even though I’ve been attempting to teach the famliy how to make them since 1991.
One year, I had strep throat and was too sick to make cookies or even get up off the couch, really. I was almost disowned that year.
Maybe it’s because I’m English, but that when I first read that salad recipe I assumed it was a joke. I’ve never heard of a recipe that calls for both mayonnaise and jelly (jello!), wow, it seems we’re separated by more than a giant ocean!!
That being said, I’ll admit to being intrigued as to what exactly that would taste like…
No weird recipes here. I am worried about how I’ll get my contributions to the meal done when I work a 12 hour graveyard shift the night before. Sleep deprivation with lots of wine will help me survive. My brain will be so numb, I won’t know if I’m coming or going.
I don’t think I could eat a turducken, simply because the word begins with “turd”. And my family’s pink stuff involves jello, cool whip and frozen strawberries (and is actually very good).
Probably the oddest thing I fix is my grandma’s apple salad. Usual chopped apples, pecans, celery if you insist, but the dressing is a combination of mayo, peanut butter, cinnamon and a little sugar. I don’t know how much of any, you just add this or that until it tastes good. That’s how Grandma taught me to cook.
I am currently at step 5 myself. I sure hope that my in-laws like eating out of the freezer for the next few days. Trader Joe’s corn dogs anyone??
As for T-day, I always make cranberry salad- halved grapes, whipped cream, finely chopped walnuts, sugar and ground cranberries. DELISH.
(Oh, and I love that sucking on dog hair has become the go-to image for a Personal End of Days.)
That recipe sounds like a science experiment! I bet it’s good though.
Every year I get the cranberry sauce shaped like a can. Not because I really like it, but because my sister and I used to stick out fingers in it, when I was about 15 and she was 11 (sad). Now my in-laws get it for me because they think I still like it, even though they make that cranberry relish stuff.
I’m going to make Scalloped Sweet Potatoes with Maple Glazed Apples, and take it over to some friends’ for dinner, where I and their 13 year old will be the only ones who will eat it, so there will be leftovers which I will bring home for ME. Should be yummy.
My dad used to make a cornucopia made of bread, you had to make a tinfoil model and then put the bread on it. It was really good but no one makes it anymore, and since I am having diner for … THREE adults, I figure it might be overkill. We are having Thai Curry Sweet Potatoes this year, that’s our weird one. I’d like to try your recipe, but … jello? And … mayo? I’m skeered.
We’re hosting our first Thanksgiving in our home for my in-laws, and we had all these grand plans regarding dinner until reality set in.
After reading your recommendation, my husband had bought the oil-less turkey fryer, but we decided to go with pre-marinated turkey breasts instead. Our guests are getting Pepperidge Farm stuffing from a box and mashed potato flakes from boxes, and canned cranberry sauce, and so help me THEY’RE GONNA LIKE IT.
Ahem. Anyway, check out Tyler Florence’s Thanksgiving recipes on Food Network. He does some really good-looking stuff, and it sounded pretty easy. We were going to do his dinner until the Invasion of the Boxes. Good luck!
I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time last year. It went really well but I obsessively planned it down to the last detail. I’m a food writer now, so I crack myself up when I think of it, but boy was I nervous the whole week before. The food is the vocal point for me, people who iron their napkins and take out their china crack me up.
We’re having it here too which wouldn’t be that big of a deal except that my daughter has had Weird Fever of Unknown Origin for the last few days and of course everyone goes right to thinking SWINESWINESWINE and I’m all like, dudes, it’s a fever and she just told her brother to suck a wang, so I think she’s feeling okay.
Today she seems better so I’m hoping the baby can avoid it. Otherwise, a 22-lb turkey is a whole lot of fucking sandwiches for two people.
You had me with that recipe until the celery. The celery! And … is that mayonnaise in a sweet-type recipe? MYSTERIES ABOUND.
Just want to say that jello recipe looks awesome. And I am glad you’re making it.
pilgrim-hole…heh.
We’re doing all the usual food, but my mother-in-law always finds it necessary at Thanksgiving and Christmas to make a big batch of scalloped oysters. Which basically, to me, looks like my dog threw up a box of Saltine crackers in a dish.
*gag*
3 Granny Smith Apples, cubed
1/4 cup of chopped walnuts.
10 diced maraschino cherries
1 heaping tbl of miracle whip (enough to lighly coat mixture)
Toss
Make about 2 hours prior to serving. Serves 4. Easily tweeked and a good way to get fresh fruit on the table.
I’m cooking dinner for the first time this year too, and I feel your panic. I decided that the turkey and gravy are going to be the only things on the menu I’ve never done before. Still, I wouldn’t say I’m NOT freaking out especially since I have big going-out plans on Wednesday night. Good luck!
Brenda: OH.MY.GOD. Are you part of my family? We do that same “pink stuff” too and that’s exactly what we call it – “Millionaire Salad” is the real name I think. It was a fave among the kids of course, back when we had 30 people at my mom & dad’s house for holidays (yes, THIRTY. Madness ensued.)
As for bizarrely wrong, my father-in-law makes a lime jello-o and green olive concoction that makes me throw up a little just looking at it.
I’m contributing to the meal at the in-law’s with homemade jalapeno-raspberry chutney and puffy mashed potatoes – basically you whip up some egg whites into a meringue and add to mashed potatoes along with the yolks & some cheese, & bake them. Yummmm
I’ve always done the big Thanksgiving meal, and cooked & hosted everything (I really kind of enjoy it, actually)……but this year we got an offer to use a condo at the beach for free!!! So DH, 2 little girls & I will stop at Cracker Barrel on the way down to the beach & have a nice, traditional Thanksgiving meal with no prep or clean-up, and then hit the beach for a nice long weekend!!!! I think I’m rather excited about it…….
We have something similar…red hot jello. It has well, red hots and jello. But no celery, cheese, etc. Other than that, it’s all the usual green bean casserole, stuffing, potatoes, etc. Except we do have these amazing homemade dinner rolls and we eat them with strawberry jam. That’s kinda weird but delish. Hosting is never as low key as it sounds is it? Best of luck!
My mom makes a jello salad with strawberry jello, frozen strawberries, sour cream, pecans, and probably some other stuff I’m forgetting. It is a huge hit every year. So while Aunt Eileen’s recipe seems a little out there, I bet I would like it.
Last Thanksgiving, my best friend and I ended up doing Microwave Thanksgiving…and it was awesome!
One precooked turkey breast, one tub of Country Crock Mashed potatoes, a small tub of brown gravy, and box of Stove top – we had Thanksgiving dinner ready in our hotel microwave in 20 minutes. And then we had ice cream and a premade pie for dessert.
This year I am responsible for mashed potatoes. My recipe involves red potatoes, a head of garlic, enough (fresh) parmesan to look like it is snowing in my kitchen, and a bit of cream cheese stirred in, right at the end.
Oh, and spinach dip, also known as appetizer crack.
I can’t decide if you’re joking about that jello recipe or not. Mayo and celery? And Jello? Are you just kidding? Or are you really eating that?
Did I just do the adult equivalent of your 3 year old saying “Yuck!” at the dinner table? I apologize if I did.
This year it’s my hubs, me, aunt/uncle, their 2 children (adult children, both in grad school). It’s pleasant, the food rocks, there is high quality wine. Dicussions typically revolve around economics and the politics and last week’s New Yorker. It’s typically rather pleasant (no spanx involved), especially because the 6 of us are the only members of our extended family that don’t talk about squirrel hunting, Jesus (He saves! Have you heard? Can I get anyone another Miller Lite?) or have a jello-salad. In my fam, the Jello usually involves floating carrot shreads and raisins. Anyway, by Christmas we’ll have a brand new squalling baby, and conversation’s likely to involve the various shades of baby poo.
Oh, and will you please take a picture of that Jello for us? Thank you.
We don’t do thanksgiving, but that sounds like my christmas routine!
Ok… I dont know how you can manage this one, but I got a friend to stay with my sons, and I went shopping at an all night grocery store after midnight. There were 0 flying elbows to get the last brown-n-serves, no one to humph at my choice of jars of gravy (vs acutally trying to craft gravy – YAH RIGHT!!) and NO waiting at the check out line. I was DOG tired the next day, and Ive only ever cooked for my sons who think I am God in the kitchen, but it was hella easier then trying to deal with blue-haired old women and the 30 minute wait while the person in line in front of me got out of line to run back and get gagillion “one more” things. :) Hope it all works out for you
Ha, that’s our family tradition too, the green weird nutty jello thing, but we call it “Grandma Salad.” I’m still suspicious of it. Happy to be having Thxgiving at my in-laws’, where there are no weird Waspy Jell-o traditions, and equally happy to be flying out from Boston to Seattle for Xmas with my family, since on this coast there are no kids besides ours, and much commercial weirdening of the holidays.
We’re going ALL out this year. We’re bringing the soda. To someone else’s house. That we don’t have to clean.
But I do have to worry about my feral children, so there’s that.
oh yeah and. Thxgiving traditions here in Massachusetts, aka in-law-land, involve awesome green bean casserole, and bringing my own gravy (I’m the only non-turkey eater). And delicious Danish-style red cabbage. Mmmmm. I’m going to be bringing this dish to the table:
cut a couple sugar pumpkins or butternut squash in half. bake. scoop and mash.
sautee diced onions and green peppers. mix into the squash. crumble in a good amount of feta. bake. OH MY GOD SO GOOD.
I’m hosting it too.
I just realized today that I don’t actually have a dining room table. That’s…problematic.
My mom makes this crazy green stuff every Thanksgiving. I think it has pistachio pudding and cottage cheese and nuts and is totally green and jiggly and lumpy and, yeah, I don’t eat it. It might be called Watergate Salad in real life, but in my family, it will always be known as ‘green stuff’.
Nope nothing odd ball just my little family of four and a huge ass turkey that I got on sale and coupons and OMG is was like $9.00 for the huge ass turkey. That and all the fixin’s (potatotes, sweet potatoes, veggies, gravy, cranberry sauce, and rolls).
My son has randomly asked for a homemade pumpkin pie – I have never actually make a pie before so I am planning to try it but I think I am going to make a back up dessert as well given the fact that I have tried to make exactly ONE cake and it looked like elephant poo. It was THAT gross looking – tasted delicious but it was ugly. Any who that is it.
Also, I agree with whomever asked for the photo of that jello. Am curious…
I caved this year and ordered the meal from Metropolitan Market. I don’t mind hosting Thanksgiving but sometimes after all the prep and cooking, I just can’t enjoy the meal or the time with family so I decided to just pay the 100 for someone else to whip up something delicious and gourmet. I just hope it doesn’t suck.
I like Snickers Salad:
6 full sized Snickers bars, cut in small pieces
6 apples cut in small pieces
1 8oz container of Cool Whip
Nuts (if you wish)
Mix and chill
I really love that this is called a “salad”. No, you are not having a tasty dessert, this has fruit so it must be a salad. Very healthy.
We pretty much stick to the basics (apart from the years when we do a Mexican feast, or seafood, or anything non-turkey-centric), but the one weird thing that we–well, I–do is have potato salad.
I *love* potato salad, and one year my aunt randomly brought some for Thanksgiving, which is when I discovered there is no better combination on earth than turkey and potato salad and those brown-and-serve rolls.
I actually don’t mention this in public anymore, because the WTF? looks I get when I mention potato salad make me feel like a freak.
But there you go: my weird Thanksgiving food.
Oh wow I could have written this post. I’m doing Thanksgiving here (as opposed to having it at my sister’s who is total Martha Stewart, just like the waterford-crystal house you described; she’ll be coming HERE so the pressure’s ON).
We bought the turkey last night. I’m STILL poring over a million recipe sites looking for some way to do sweet potatoes where they don’t end up looking like mush. I’m leaning toward some kind of oven-roasted thing. Also: we’re going to spend Wednesday night roasting and peeling chestnuts for a stuffing recipe we’ve never done before. YOW, SCARY.
And: my MIL has a jello recipe nearly identical to the one you listed! It features red jello AND a bunch of those red-hots cinnamon candies! Hers omits the cream cheese but is served with mayonnaise, it’s a more savory garnish thing. I hope your jello recipe is met with lots of ooohs and aaahs!
I keep looking for signs that any of you are Southern. Are you? I can’t quite tell.
We’re very particular about the whole “stuffing/dressing” thing down here. It’s dressing. It’s not stuffing, because it doesn’t go inside the turkey, unless you’re a Yankee. :) It’s made from cornbread and a bunch of other stuff, mushed together and then laid out into a pan like a casserole, cooked and then cut into squares like brownies. My family’s dressing is the best food ON EARTH and we fight over it, and then fight over the leftovers! Hee.
Our weird thing was also a jello/mayo/nuts/pineapple concoction. It’s orange. We called it “orange jell-o salad.” Yummy. My grandmother’s sisters (my great-aunts) used to make another uniquely Southern thing: Tomato aspic. Think tomato-flavored jell-o, with celery, nuts, possibly olives and even asparagus in it. I know it sounds disgusting but I love it!
I just want to say that I have read all these comments with a look of sheer horror on my face. I am British so admittedly do not ‘get’ the TG foods but my God people! Jello and mayonnaise? And celery? What the hell is going on here??! And people say British food is weird…
We always go to my in-law’s house for Thanksgiving. And I always make sweet potato casserole, which is awesome. And from scratch. I also usually make the stuffing, but I don’t have a good recipe for that, so I just make stove-top, which is more than we would get if I didn’t make it. My MIL doesn’t do stuffing or sweet potatoes. One year she didn’t even do a turkey, and we were surprised with meat loaf and roast beef.
I will be flying to Phoenix on Thanksgiving day. I don’t have to touch a thing in a kitchen…. unless it’s to help clean up, which I’m happy to do. I think my mom is bringing the cranberry jello salad. It has apples in it and shredded carrots. It’s good and colorful.
I don’t think we have anything really weird except for my husband’s family’s creamed corn crap and that ghastly green bean casserole (why oh why do people love that so????).
One interesting thing this year though…my husband redeemed our free turkey gift certificate last week (grocery store-speak for thanks for dumping all your money at our store to get a ten dollar turkey, sucker) and instead of a turkey he got a turkey BREAST (must have been mesmerized by the word ‘breast’). No biggie for me, I like the white meat and it will cook faster but hubby is the one who will lose his beloved drumsticks. Next time he will look at what he is buying maybe? No, probably not…
I’m hosting again this year, my family and the in-laws…hoping everyone is on good behavior. Oh well, can’t be any worse than the time we hosted when our daughter was a week old, I was a victim of identify theft two days earlier and our plumbing backed up flooding the whole back of the house causing everyone to leave before dessert.
Our funky family recipe is carrots and rutabugas in equal amounts boiled then mashed with gobs of butter. Like mashed potatoes but bright orange and kinda bitter. I don’t eat it, I just serve it.
I just wrote about a weird red jell-o salad that MY family makes every year! But yours sounds better.
Also – panic is definitely my default setting for Thanksgiving. Or, let’s face it, entertaining in general.
You will get through it and it WILL be fun!
May I suggest QFC prepared/ready to heat and serve Thanksgiving dinner? I think you can order turkey, sides, everything!
Hosting … myself, the hubs, our 2-year-old girl, and maybe our friend the Dude (as in Lebowski). 18-lb turkey (ohhhhhhh the leftovers!!!), cream gravy made from the juices, a big ol’ gank of mashed potatoes (you best not ask how much butter & salt & cream are in with them Yukons, hon), my late grandmother’s stuffing (I was the only grandchild she taught to make it — suck it, cousin Layne!), rolls, a couple of vegetables that might as well be made of plastic for all anyone intends to eat them, and a half-dozen bottles of excellent white wine. Of course the day will begin with a cheese plate, a dozen or so deviled eggs (another secret grandmother recipe — suck it, cousin Monty!), and probably some bloodies. Somebody’ll bring pie, right? Surely.
Now, as for weird shit that passes as food, and is oddly crazily tasty: at xmas, we will be having my in-laws’ concoction, known as “goo-de-goo” (I’ve never seen it written — that’s my approximation). It involves a grated block of Spam, a grated hard-boiled egg, a grated sour dill pickle, and mayonnaise. It is mixed together and served on Ritz crackers. It looks like something a cat horked up, and it is DELICIOUS.
Dear Jennifer –
I do a sweet potato casserole that is NOT mashed sweet potatoes, is actually fairly easy, and delicious – especially if you actually make it ahead of time!
I take sweet potatoes & peel them, then cut into thick slices – also peel & slice granny smith apples…..start layering – a layer of sweet potatoes, a layer of apples – sprinkle with chopped pecans & some brown sugar (not much is needed) and cinnamon, dot with butter – then repeat…..you can make as many layers (in whatever size pan) as you think you need!
cover with foil & bake until potatoes & apples are tender…..I usually take a knife & score the whole thing up, to mix it a little more, without actually mashing…..
Its quite good, and no mush & no marshmallows….and like I said, *I* think its actually better reheated the 2nd day!!
Wow, the Jello-cinnamon-cream cheese dish seems very haute cuisine. Are you sure you didn’t steal if from Gourmet magazine? (Last Tgiving, I made six different cookies from Gourmet magazine, each more leboarate than the last, which required hundreds of dollars of ingredients, trips to gourmet stores for pastry bags and various tips, food coloring for different-colored frsotings, dough that had to be chilled then rolloed out and cut, and the big hit was this cheapo, ten minute cookie recipe: mix small can pumpkin + 1 box spice cake mix + 1 bag chocolate chips; bake at 325 for 18 minutes. Done. Nobody ate the expensive Gourmet mag cookies that I spent weeks on.)
Thanksgiving at my aunt’s house is not complete without chicken and noodles (alongside the turkey, of course) and a green jello salad made with cool whip and nuts that is refered to as “Pistachio shit.” One year I asked her what the real name of the salad was, and she said “That is the name: Pistachio shit.” So that’s what we call it!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Fay: I’m a midwestern daughter of a southern dad, so some holidays were spent below the Mason-Dixon line. My aunt’s favorite thing to make us was tomato aspic….she was going to make southerners out of those damned yankee kids if it killed her! Bless our hearts. And we do celebrate EVERY holiday with banana pudding :)
my mother made some sort of weird side dish/dessert with fresh cranberries, pineapple tidbits, whipped cream, and mini marshmallows. it may or may not have had coconut in it. i love it, however weird and i am the only one who eats it.
My MIL makes this dish called Veg-All casserole. It seriously looks like the grossest thing on the planet but it is AMAZING. The first big meal I had at their house when I was dating the Hubs featured this casserole and I pretty much had to taste it so I wouldn’t seem rude. It was so good and really easy to make. You take a can of Veg-All, 1/3 cup of mayo, 1/2 cup of cheese, 1/4 cup of onions (less if you don’t like them) and salt and pepper to taste. Mix all ingredients together and pour into a greased baking dish. You can mix crushed Ritz and melted butter together as a topping (I leave that off when I make it becaus I don’t usually have the crackers on hand) and then you bake it for 25-20 minutes or until hot.
Looks like puke, tastes like heaven.
Great post and awesome comments! The jello dish (well a slight variation on the recipe you posted) continues to be a staple at our holiday gatherings – of course, we’re midwestern so it isn’t a gather at all if jello isn’t somehow involve (yuk)- hope all goes well for you!
No weird dishes here, but I am careening toward step 5. Working full-time and doing even a simplified Thanksgiving meal is super-stressful. My house is a disaster area – thank God our only guest is my niece on college break! We went out last year – it was great! No dishes, no piles of leftovers to fatten my thighs and our then 2.5 year old was so well-behaved we got compliments from other diners. No, he wasn’t asleep!
One of my favorite dishes is a Bon Appetit recipe from about 10 years ago – cranberry sauce made with dried tart cherries, cranberries, frozen sweet cherries, dry marsala, a little fresh rosemary and some brown sugar. Fabulous, and just about the only cranberry sauce I’ll eat.
I’m pretty sure I’ve been eating too much cottage cheese and protein mix because, dude, that concoction sounds delicious.
I don’t have any weird holiday recipes but I have to say that Canadians all think you guys are wingnuts for loving all over the bean casseroles so much. That’s definitely an American thing…green beans and mushroom soup mix, wha??
I have never had one of these Jell-O “salads” that seem so popular–they’re not really part of the meal in this part of the country. That one’s going on my list of Weird Stuff to Try, though. I mean, red hots AND mayonnaise? MAN.
We’re going to my husband’s parents’ house for Thanksgiving, where the new tradition is having a beer tasting in the afternoon. We’re bringing some of the beer and had a blast picking out weird bottles at the liquor store.
I don’t think we have anything weird, exactly, in either of our families’ holiday meals. Both of our moms make a pineapple stuffing that I guess could be considered weird (?). People sometimes think my mom’s cranberry sauce sounds weird (cranberries cooked according to the back of the package with sugar to make a traditional cranberry sauce, then add a drained can of mandarin oranges, some toasted walnuts, some raisins, and a chopped apple, and chill), but it’s AWESOME.
Our weird recipe isn’t really weird. It’s Cranberry Relish. My oldest brother loves it so I now make it (Mom and Dad flew the coup to TX) and I leave the leftovers with my brother. It’s too darn tart for me. No canned cranberry jello for us.
Unfortunately, my 3 brothers don’t feel it’s necessary to bother to get together – something about deer hunting is more important – so I’m still unsure what I wil be doing. Maybe just go to a movie and skip turkey.
Nothing says Thanksgiving like mayo covered jello mold.
Isn’t this the recipe that the Griswold’s Aunt Bethany uses?
Oh, God! Jesus! That sounds disgusting (no offence). Jesus.
We don’t really do “Jello Salad” in Canada (at least in any Canadian house I’ve been in), so who am I to judge. Maybe it’s good.
While that kinda sounds to me like a Friends Trifle gone bad, I’m seriously considering making that Jello Salad!
@Nancy- I’m a New England girl, and I was served Tomato Aspic when visiting a friend’s aunt in Florida. I still havne’t gotten over it.
I meant “offense” and also “Maybe it’s good?” Totally changes the comment. But not the sentiment.
My mom makes a pink jello salad that is similar and I actually pouted last year (yes I really was 41 years old) because she didn’t make it. She’s learned her lesson I hope. My portugese husband’s family has this odd t-day tradition started by his grandmother. They have a breakfast with all of the relatives from his mom’s side of the family. That’s 5 kids worth of family (50-60 people) who gather together and have pork and grease (pork marinated in wine and garlic w/ the drippings), inyums (taro root) and portogee sweet bread. It’s loud and crazy and I equally love and hate it. We have to be there at 9am so I miss the parade (more pouting) but it is nice to be able to see all of the extended family. We now have 4 generations in attendance. After that it’s off to my family (mom and brother) for a nice quiet traditional turkey feast. Talk about both ends of the spectrum. By Friday I may be in a corner sucking my thumb!
Thanksgiving makes my head hurt this year. We’re bringing 2 home made pies to the family event (Punkin’ and apple-cranberry). It’ll be me and mah huzbind, my brother and his wife and their twin girls, and my brother’s mother in law all at my parents’ place. Madness I tell you! Madness!
OH! And the family recipe:
Triscuit topped by square of sharpest cheddar cheese available and one small wedge of artichoke heart. Drizzle with oil and sprinkle with salt if not already oily and salty enough. Appetizer to gorge yourself on. Guarantee’d.
laura,
“looks like puke, tastes like heaven” is fantastic. thank you for the laugh!!
my mother in law does the ‘pink stuff’ too. thought it was a wierd missouri thing. glad i’m not alone.
well, now, now, I am Eileen and I am the jello-salad queen and I think I will just try your recipe this year, afterall, it is sort of named after me. hope they don’t hang me out to dry for changing the “normal” one I make………..teehee. Enjoy all!
We typically have 60+ people at our home for Thanksgiving. We make the turkeys, stuffing, and mashed potatoes and everyone brings a dish or two, or three. We have the usual pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, and green bean casserole but we also have wing dip, better than sex cake, baked beans, and whatever else everyone likes. And maybe this year some Jello Salad? Maybe?
Usually I am in charge of cooking every year. This year we are going to my MIL’s and all I have to bring is some non-alcoholic drinks. You think I’d be happy, but actually I’m going to miss my homeade cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. I’ve gotten quite good at a traditional Thanksgiving spread. I guess there’s no pleasing some people.
I’m jealous of the interesting potato recipes folks are making. In my family, we are NOT allowed to fuck around with the mashed potatoes. There will be no flavorings or anything beyond “naked potatoes.” My contribution this year is corn pudding. Love the stuff.
I always do this weird jello salad……
Orange jello with crushed pineapple and mandarin oranges, when the jellow is almost set, top with a layer of mini marshmallows. Then allow to fully set. Then mix a dressing of half mayo and half sour cream, spread over the marshmallows, then top the whole damn thing with shredded cheddar cheese (preferably Tillamook).
I know, I know, beyond weird, but it really tastes awesome!
We’re going to my inlaws for diet-Thanksgiving (turkey breast from the ham store, vegetable, stuffing, pie). I mean, it’s very hard to complain about having a delicious meal with wonderful people who insist on casual dress and will entertain my toddler for hours on end, but it’s not the usual huge spread. That said, I only have to bring potatoes. (I insisted on potatoes a few years ago… they’re Italian and don’t really do much Thanksgiving, but I’m Irish. I mean, really, at LEAST one kind of potato!) I’m looking for recipes right now.
My mother makes a green-grape salad. Tske a bunch of washed green grapes and cover them in sour cream, put them in a bowl and then put packed brown sugar on the top (about a half inch). Sounds gross, tastes good.
My oddball dessert is Trifle, it is english and actually something my family never made. I got the perfect crystal bowel for it as a wedding gift and it is so tasty I make it any holiday I can find an excuse for.
The neighborhood stores have run of of turkeys!! What am I going to do? My brothers are going to freak out if I bring a tofu turkey…
We cook our turkey wrapped in bacon to keep it basting the whole time. Plus it tastes good.
Wombat will someday go to someone else’s house for t-giving and wonder why they don’t have a bowl of bacon on the table.
We will point at him and laugh when he tells us this.
We, too are having PEOPLE at our NEW house…the SECOND group of PEOPLE in just ONE week??!!! I must have just gotten off a runner’s high, cuz now it doesn’t seem like as much fun! Oh, well…thankful that people want to be in my company…I pray that my first attempt at turkey and dressing doesn’t kill or make anyone ill…and if they get ill it is rude to NOT go visit them in the hospital? ;)
@ Fran & Nancy – I’m Canadian and we have tomato aspic at Christmas. Really only my mother (age 90) and I like it. Our father used to call it tomato aspenic and as soon as we sat at the table announce to everyone, “You don’t have to eat THAT” while pointing at the aspic. I had forgotten about putting olives and such in it. We put some chopped green onions in now. My husband calls the weird traditional recipes “church basement food” because the church basement pot lucks were where you could find them ALL!
Happy thanksgiving!
you are such a hoot.
happy thanksgiving
ps. that recipe makes me shiver
Im having a really hard time envisioning what that jello salad must taste like…..I’ll take your word for it that its good. ;)
We were feeling all sorry for ourselves that we are too far away to spend Thanksgiving with family so we came to Singapore this week instead. We have reservations at one of the hotels for ‘Thanksgiving dinner’….but we may forego that and eat something local instead.
“…crawl into a closet and suck on dog hair.” = AWESOME. And I can totally identify.
Jello salad? From the 70s?!
We went to Jay’s grandmother’s house, where there exists no internet, which is why I am late commenting. :) Hope your meal went fabulously!
Our singular family oddball recipe is called “Mormon Salad”, and we call it that because… well, my family are mormons. And it’s a jello salad.
Mix together in a large bowl: 1 container of coolwhip, 1 container cottage cheese, and 1 packet of pistachio pudding mix. Chill and serve. Ta-da!
We too have sort of a Gourmet kind of family and yet our single greatest tradition?
Stovetop Stuffing.
Seriously, that stuff rocks.
Glad you survived Linda. It woudl suck if your very last post was a Jello salad recipe. (No offense to Aunt Eileen.)
I need pics of that Jello salad. Seriously. I can’t even picture what it looks like :)
I saw/tasted my first and last aspic this summer. Sweet Jeebus it was nasty.
My mom makes a yummy jellied salad. Prepare cherry jello and add a can of cranberry. When it’s half way set, wisk in a small container of sour cream(25o ml – canadian measurements not sure what that is in us) and let it finish setting. It sounds terrible but it’s really good with turkey or chicken. You have to use full calorie/fat ingredients or it wont set though :\
Pilgrim-hole, hehe. You always make me smile. Judging by the photos, everything went well, and I’m glad. Happy Thanksgiving!
I had to laugh when I read the paper plates and Stove Top stuffing~ Just wanted to let you know, that’s how we roll in my house. It was great.