festive meals

[kindkit]

Will you be having a festive meal for Thanksgiving or Chanukah or both? I'd love to hear what you'll be cooking or eating.

I was lucky enough to get today and tomorrow off (the first Thanksgiving in three years when I haven't had to work) so I'm going to roast a turkey breast. My original, more ambitious plan was a pork roast with orange slices, but then I started thinking about mashed potatoes and gravy and had to change my mind. Maybe Christmas for the pork. Besides the mashed potatoes and gravy, I'll be making a cornbread pudding with greens (adapted from The Splendid Table's How Eat Weekends and a gratin of sweet potatoes with chipotle chiles and cream. There's will also be pie: raspberry, storebought. And I'm making bread today (four-grain pot boule, now made with actually four grains because I remembered to buy rye flour). Yes, it's all ridiculously too much food considering it's just me, but the leftovers will be stowed away in the freezer for all those days when I don't feel like cooking after work.

The bread dough is slowly fermenting, the cornbread is broken into pieces and sitting out so it will go stale for the pudding, and the slow cooker is full of turkey giblets and chicken bones turning into stock. I've been munching on random snacky foods all day but should probably have a real meal at some point. And I'm a little, weirdly nostalgic for the holiday meals of my childhood.

The only problem with the internet as a family of choice (and believe me, I feel more connection and trust for My Internet Friends Who Live Behind the Screen than I do for any currently living blood relation) is that you all live too far away to come and share holiday meals. But at least we can talk about them.

Comments

[tree_and_leaf]

We're doing Thanksgiving, but postponed to next week, as our only other American friend who is near enough to come can't make it till then because of work commitments.

We will have turkey - probably a crown, unless I can find a really tiny one; green beans, which bore me, but Lawyer insists it's not Thanksgiving without them; roast potatoes because this is Britain and somehow it never seems like a festive meal without them; cider gravy; sweet potatoes baked with butter and cinnamon (adding chile is an interesting idea, but I won't try the gratin as cream inevitably makes me sick); some sausages, because one of the guests doesn't much like poultry; broccoli stir-fried with garlic and red chile.

Pudding - I think I will try my hand at shoo-fly pie, what with Lawyer having grown up relatively close to Lancaster County. Also, I can't abide canned pumpkin, and the fresh ones have vanished from the shops.

[giglet]

I'm contributing to a larger meal. I'm making all-the-dairy-fat crescent rolls and a stuffed turban squash (stuffing is onions, mushrooms, apple, bread and seasonings, plus OMG a lot of cream). I had a little extra stuffing, so I cooked it in a cup. And ate it. So so good.

[mllesatine]

I don't celebrate Thanksgiving. I think I've never eaten turkey and I'm not sure if you can even buy them in a regular super-market here. I've eaten sweet potatoes two or three times. I like the taste a lot but they are very expensive (compared to the regular kind). Gratin sounds delicious.

But I'm looking forward to Christmas with my family. And it's time to start making cookies. I'm already late this year. :)

[mazily]

I'm rocking a solo Thanksgiving. Trying this turkey with pumpkin, figs, & honey recipe, as well as sweet potato latkes, green beans, and homemade pecan pie. I only decided against mashed potatoes, stuffing, etc. because my roommate will be returning on Saturday laden with leftovers from her mother's dinner.

[lilacsigil]

Enjoy your day! One good thing about celebrating by yourself: you get to eat all the leftovers! (This is our philosophy about Christmas dinner, which may or may not actually be cooked at Christmas depending how hot the weather is.)

[st_aurafina]

I really, really want to make this stuffing everyone seems to be making. In a dish? And you just, like, serve it up, not from inside a bird? I don't know why we don't do that here. It's genius. (Is it genius? Or is it horrible? It just looks so convenient and not from a body cavity.)

[lilliburlero]

Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy your feast.