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Post by brutalis on Nov 8, 2021 10:51:52 GMT -5
Time to start into Thanksgiving feast mode by preparing the saliva glands. Which One is your preferred side dish? Green Bean Casserole, cranberry's or the sweet potato/yams? Crank up your yum...
The filler on the side of my plate will usually be the Green Bean Casserole with it's crunchy fried onions goodness all smothered in mushroom soup/sauce. So many variations can be created from the basic easily made standard and best of all, you can double cover and smother it all in turkey gravy!
So what's your holiday side hunger?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2021 11:16:34 GMT -5
Green bean casserole is the staple of my wife's side of the family holiday fare, and what my wife usually makes and brings when we attend holiday dinners. However, since I am allergic to mushrooms, it is usually a different kind of cream sauce (homemade when time, or using a can of cream of celery soup as a base when in a hurry) when she makes it.
That all being said, my choice would be sweet potatoes/yams (but not with the super-sweet marshmallow topping her family prefers, just with a hint of brown sugar in the mix). I love sweet potatoes (baked, twice baked, sweet potato fries, or just as a side) all year long, not just at holiday time, but I especially like them with holiday diners.
-M
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 8, 2021 11:18:27 GMT -5
Of the choices given cranberry's by a fairly wide margin. I will eat a bit of green bean casserole, but I prefer my green beans fried with bacon. Sweet potatoes are inedible. I will add that my son has a near apoplexy when people call them yams. I'm told that yams are incredibly rare to the point of being almost non-existent in the U.S. This from the kid who spent a bit over two years in Benin in west Africa eating real yams.
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 8, 2021 11:48:02 GMT -5
We usually have them all, and I load up on them.
Love them sweet potatoes myself.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 8, 2021 11:50:41 GMT -5
Sweet potato puree, especially if you add celeriac to the mix.
Not that the others aren't delicious. We're just given a choice between many of my favourites!!!
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Post by tartanphantom on Nov 8, 2021 12:55:46 GMT -5
Cranberry anything.
Jellied cranberry sauce, orange-cranberry relish, fresh whole berries rolled in powdered sugar, cranberry juice & vodka... anyway you make 'em, I'll eat 'em.
Lots of 'em.
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Post by The Captain on Nov 8, 2021 13:29:20 GMT -5
Cranberries, no question. I've been tinkering with my own recipe over the past few years and think I have finally found the right balance of tart and sweet.
Sweet potatoes are second. My sister makes a version with caramelized onions and candied walnuts on top, and it is killer, although she also does a traditional one with brown sugar and marshmallows.
Never been much of a fan of green bean casserole. We didn't have it when I was growing up, and the only exposure I've had to it is my sister-in-law's, and while she is a good cook, that dish has never appealed to me.
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Post by Rob Allen on Nov 8, 2021 13:32:15 GMT -5
I'll take the sweet potatoes.
Cranberries never seemed to fit with a turkey dinner, to me. The flavor was always jarringly different from the rest of the meal.
Green bean casserole is fine, but I've been spoiled by Chinese dry-fried green beans with garlic. If that were one of the choices, I'd choose that.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Nov 8, 2021 14:21:08 GMT -5
Growing up in an 'ethnic' (Croatian) household, the only part of the traditional Thanksgiving meal that wasn't a complete unknown to my parents, and thus to us kids, was the roast bird - considered quite a delicacy in several parts of the old country. The other stuff though - cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, sweet potato - we never had. I first tried cranberry sauce when I was in my teens, and I kind of agree with Rob that it doesn't seem to fit with a turkey dinner.
So the closest to the choices in the OP that I can offer is green bean salad (which we often had as a side with Thanksgiving and other holiday meals). Like Croatian potato salad, the recipe is simple: after the green beans are lightly cooked or steamed (we had home-grown green beans that my mom stored in the freezer), you add either chopped onions or garlic (the better variant), oil, vinegar, salt and pepper to taste.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 8, 2021 15:05:07 GMT -5
The one time I was invited to an American Thanksgiving party, I was surprised by two things : (a) the turkey (which looked like an ostrich, honestly) was stuffed with pumpkins (small ones, but still... pumpkins!) and (b) we were actually expected to eat all day long. It was a quintessential American holiday, in my eyes: everything was just BIGGER!
Canadian thanksgiving is a much smaller thing. Sure, we'll eat turkey, cranberries and stuff... but it's not what I would call a major holiday. My family never got together for Thanksgiving, for exemple, and when we did it wasn't because of the day itself... it was just because we had a three-day weekend and we happened to pay each other a visit.
I love that American holiday. People seem to have honest fun, without too much stress, and we don't have enough of those these days.
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 8, 2021 15:20:41 GMT -5
The one time I was invited to an American Thanksgiving party, I was surprised by two things : (a) the turkey (which looked like an ostrich, honestly) was stuffed with pumpkins (small ones, but still... pumpkins!) and (b) we were actually expected to eat all day long. It was a quintessential American holiday, in my eyes: everything was just BIGGER! Canadian thanksgiving is a much smaller thing. Sure, we'll eat turkey, cranberries and stuff... but it's not what I would call a major holiday. My family never got together for Thanksgiving, for exemple, and when we did it wasn't because of the day itself... it was just because we had a three-day weekend and we happened to pay each other a visit. I love that American holiday. People seem to have honest fun, without too much stress, and we don't have enough of those these days. Thanksgiving is often a gastronomic odyssey down here, and the last holiday to resist complete commercialization. I say "complete" because there is nothing so sacred or pure that can't be turned inot a money-making machine by capitalists. Thus we have football game afetr football game; parades pushing every damn product they can; fewer and fewer stores closing for the holiday; and of course, the subsuming of Thanksgiving into the insatiable maw of Christmas, with Black Friday being its avatar. |
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Post by EdoBosnar on Nov 8, 2021 15:42:40 GMT -5
The one time I was invited to an American Thanksgiving party, I was surprised by two things : (a) the turkey ( which looked like an ostrich, honestly) was stuffed with pumpkins (small ones, but still... pumpkins!) and (b) we were actually expected to eat all day long. It was a quintessential American holiday, in my eyes: everything was just BIGGER! (...) Ha! Good thing you never visited us back when I was growing up. My mom used to raise her own turkeys (along with chickens and occasionally ducks and geese) and man, they got big - a lot (*a lot*) bigger than the store-bought variety. Once, in the early '80s, some friends of my parents from Croatia (then Yugoslavia) came for a visit, so my mom roasted a turkey for the occasion. To this day I still remember the look of shock on their faces when she served it. And they would always mention it for years afterward whenever I saw them.
Yeah, but that's not the way most Americans tend to see it; it seems like the running joke about Thanksgiving is that it's highly stressful due to all of the preparations and then inevitable family arguments. However, I agree with your point - it was a very mellow holiday in our household, probably because it was just the immediate family (the extended family usually got together for traditional Catholic holidays like Christmas, Easter or the Assumption of Mary). |
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 8, 2021 18:27:58 GMT -5
That's a pretty big assumption, as a Catholic priest friend told me years ago.  |
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Post by Rob Allen on Nov 8, 2021 19:32:12 GMT -5
Today's Baby Blues strip seems relevant here:  Also "Uncle Dave's Grace" by Lou & Peter Berryman: |
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Post by brutalis on Nov 15, 2021 6:18:10 GMT -5
Which One this week focuses upon desserts at the Turkey table. Family get together time meant LOTS of dessert options as Grandma did the main dinner cooking and would make 2-3 pies. My mom and aunts (5 all together) would each bring a pie lor two and some other baked goodness. So we are talking about7-10 pies along with other treats. What can I say, it's a large family with a pair of grandparents and 7 aunt/uncles and each family with at least 2 or 3 kids each. Dinner was ALWAYS outside over several picnic benches with the inside kitchen table reserved for the desserts.
Examples for pies: pumpkin, lemon, chocolate, key lime, rhubarb, blueberry, cherry and apple.
Cakes: chocolate, carrot, German chocolate, lemon, glazed bund, etc.
Other goodies: brownies, rice Krispy bars, lemon bars, chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, coconut bars, fudge (solid hard chocolate and marshmallow cream and a mixed butterscotch/chocolate) and peanut brittle.
All the above home made from scratch, not a boxed version to be found. Makes me drool type in ng this up!
For me, myself and I it was always time to enjoy a slice of pumpkin pie, a chocolate slice of pie and some cookies and fudge. If forced for choosing just one as looking forward to most: it was grandma's rhubarb pie when she would make it. Since only grandpa and I really liked it, this meant half a pie between the 2 of us while everyone else "fought" over the other pies.
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