Dunno.
We’re going to my sister-in-laws for the first time 10 years. Almost everything they eat is low fat, low carb, low sodium and sugar-free. When I asked what I could bring I was told shrimp salad or green salad or “something like that”.
Yes, buttermilk is very good in mashed potatoes.
I’m only having ten or so guests. It will be oddly small, and I’m deciding how I’ll scale back. I usually have over 20. So probably:
Some dips and whatnot for appetizers
1 brined turkey
Gravy
1 ham
Mashed potatoes
Sourdough-parmesan-artichoke stuffing
Green beans
Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Rolls
Possibly a butternut squash casserole that my friend has been making
And Grandma usually brings the pies. I’ll make homemade whipped cream with vanilla sugar to go on them, but half of the guests will still go for the Cool Whip. Philistines! 
I feel like I’m forgetting something.
Well, I’m not cooking for Thanksgiving. We are going to Baltimore to my oldest sister’s house for dinner, then to my SIL’s house for dessert! If anything, we’ll bring some sodas. Will you settle for my Christmas menu instead?
Appetizer:
Mushroom caps stuffed with sweet Italian sausage with a Merlot reduction sauce
Dinner:
Turducken (ordered from the interwebz)
Gravy (made from turducken drippings, duh!)
Mashed sweet potatoes with vanilla bean
Sausage and chestnut bread stuffing (with lots and lots of sage; you never have too much sage in your stuffing)
Mashed potatoes (lots of milk, butter, salt, pepper and garlic)
Corn casserole
Creamed spinach
Cranberry sauce (the white-trash kind out of a can, of course!)
Spiced hot cider
Assorted wines
Dessert:
Bakery-bought pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream jazzed up with a drizzle of bourbon and maple syrup
Haha I will settle for that. It sounds fantastic, how do you add in the vanilla bean? And, if it’s not top secret, would you share your stuffing recipe? And maaaaaybe creamed spinach too?
Rhiannon8404, good luck. Sounds worse than a vegetarian thanksgiving. Maybe bring your own stash?
Dear posters, care to share your vegetable side dishes? My planned big one- lemon dill green beans - was thwarted by the Littlest Bluth. I forgot he was diagnosed as allergic two years ago!
Don’t know the spinach recipe by heart (mostly I just do it for my hubby) so I will look it up tomorrow. As for the vanilla bean, I just slice open a vanilla bean, scrape out the seeds from one half, and mash them in with the sweet potatoes (along with some butter, a splash of Half and Half, some cinnamon and a bit of nutmeg). Stuffing is my mother’s recipe, with my own twist. I’ll roast the chestnuts a couple of days before, in the oven, maybe a third of a pound of them. The day before I cook, I’ll brown the sausage (just breakfast sausage) and drain it, about a half to a third of a pound. I’ll also tear up a couple of loaves of good bread (whatever looks good at the bakery), and put it in a huge bowl with some plastic over it, but holes poked in the plastic. That way, the bread gets kind of stale. So:
Cooked, drained sausage
Roasted, chopped chestnuts
Bread
1 small or half large onion
2 or 3 stalks of celery
A couple of cartons of chicken stock (never know how much I’ll need)
2 large eggs
Salt (go easy, because the sausage is already salty)
Fresh-ground pepper
Lots and lots of rubbed sage
About a stick of butter
Melt the butter in a heavy skillet, sweat out the onions and celery in the butter.
Put the bread, sausage, chestnuts, eggs, lots of sage, salt, pepper and about half the chicken stock into a bowl, and begin to work it by hand. Once the aromatics are cooled enough to work with, add them in, along with the butter from the pan. Work them in, add more stock as needed. Add more sage. No, that’s not enough, add more. Really. 
Stuff whatever will fit in the bird in the bird (won’t apply this year, since we’re getting a turducken), put the rest in a baking dish sprayed with non-stick spray. Bake alongside the bird until it’s as crispy as you like. The chestnuts add a little crunch and unusual (yet savory) flavor.
Tomorrow, as I said, I’ll look up the creamed spinach recipe and post it, but it’s easy to find online if you google “Boston Market Creamed Spinach Recipe”; it uses frozen spinach and cream of celery soup. Hubby loves it.
Looking for a low-fat side dish? Those who have a mandoline: Use it on your Brussels sprouts. Shred them and steam them, and then toss them in just a little melted butter. Even cabbage-haters may go for it.
Our Thanksgiving is a group effort: I provide the turkey, dressing, and mashed potatoes, and the guests bring all the sides and extras. Here’s the menu as I know it at the moment:
Appetizers (neice)
Wine (Sis1)
Brined and roasted turkey (me)
Smoked turkey (me)
Gravy (me)
Stuffing (me)
Mashed Potatoes (me)
Vegetable casserole (Sis1)
Cranberry salad (Sis1)
Green bean casserole (Daughter)
Onion gratin (Sis2)
Grilled asparagus (me)
Apple pie (daughter)
There may be additional dishes from Sis2 and Mom, but that’s already more than enough for eleven people!
Well, my food bank bags didn’t include a turkey and all the trimmings this month. But I did get some stuffing mix, instant mashed otatoes, canned sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce.
Happy Thanksgiving.
My mother-in-law coordinates a huge family Thanksgiving, so thankfully, I don’t have to do all that. When she gets too old and the day comes for me to do it, though, I’d follow my mother’s usual menu with:
Roast turkey breast
Cornbread dressing
Potato rolls
Cranberry sauce
Green beans
Pumpkin pie
Apple pie
It’ll be your typical Ukrainian festive meal with the addition of a turkey.
We’ve spent the last 26 Thanksgivings camping in the desert with friends, so the menu is pretty consistant:
Turkey (sometimes deep-fried, this year I think we are goint to bury it and pit-cook it)
Cornbread Dressing
Gravy
Cranberry Sauce
Green Bean Casserole
Hot Pea Salad with bacon
Sweet Potatoes
Wines
several pies for dessert (store bought)
All prepared over or under a campfire and several Coleman stoves.
Two of my favorite sides:
roasted chrysanthemum onions - so simple, and the flavor is out. of. this. world.
whipped chipotle sweet potatoes - I’m not a fan of the super sweet, marshmallow-y sweet potatoes, so these, with butter and a bit of smoky chipotle heat are like crack. I usually throw one yam in there with the sweet potatoes to throw just a touch more sweet in there, but there’s no added sugar. Perfect!
p.s. I’m not cooking this year, but if I were, I’d do a stuffed, bacon-wrapped turkey breast and smoke it on my Big Green Egg. I’d do the above sides, plus roasted garlic mashed potatoes, homemade gravy, some kind of green vegetable, rolls, and some kind of dessert.
That recipe is awesome. It’s copied and pasted into word. Don’t bother posting it, I’ll just find the spinach recipe online 
Thanks!
It’s only five people this year but it’s always the biggest turkey my sister can get her mitts on – somewhere around the three metric tons mentioned up-thread. And leftovers are RARE.
The rest of the menu includes:
Hawaiian sweet Rolls
Cranberry jelly (yes, in the dreaded cylinder!!)
Baked sweet potatoes w/lots and lots of butter and brown sugar.
Creamed mashed potatoes
Stuffing
Oyster stuffing (for the BIL. none of the rest of us will touch the stuff)
And for the grownups, Chateau Saint Michelle Gewurztraminer wine. Awesome with turkey.
Spinach Casserole (awesome old family recipe that I shall now share with The Dope)-
3 pkg generic frozen spinach
Two pkgs Lipton Onion Soup Mix
(Don’t substitute with another brand. We’ve learned that hard way that the dish tastes funny if you do)
One Large container sour cream
(Real sour cream. The low-fat stuff doesn’t cook right. Learned the hard way about that, too)
Thaw spinach in microwave, combine with onion mix till blended. Fold in sour cream. Bake at about 300 degrees for at least a few hours. The longer and slower the bake, the tastier the dish. Can also be made several days in advance and refrigerated).
And last but not least, dessert, which is another old family recipe – Cottage Sauce: so rich you can gain weight just by smelling it.
Again, sharing with fellow Dopers. Enjoy!
This is the basic version. Increase or decrease amount as needed.
Fruit or other extract flavorings are an option to replace the vanilla if you so choose.
4 T butter
4 T flour
2 cups hot water
2 cups sugar
2 t vanilla extract
Melt butter. Remove from heat and gradually add in flour a tablespoon at a time until mixture is smooth. Take your time with this, because it may lump on you. I use the flat side of a wooden spoon and tip the pan on its edge to blend.
Slowly introduce the hot water to avoid cooking the flour, and mix until smooth again. Add sugar and bring sauce to a rolling boil until it thickens.
Add vanilla or other flavoring when ready to serve, and pour warm over Sara Lee pound cake slices.
The above is the family Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner as it’s been since i was little. The one time my aunt changed the menu resulted in a family near riot. she hasn’t made that mistake since.
Silenus, that sounds fantastic!
We always have: Turkey, lima beans, mashed spuds, sweet spuds, turkey dressing, oyster dressing, home made rolls, tofurky, cranberry relish, banana pudding, pumpkin pie and lots o wine. It’s dreadful…
Thanks!
My sister-in-law and I usually tag-team Thanksgiving and Christmas, and this year, she got Thanksgiving so I’m off. I’m actually good with that. Thanksgiving is all about tradition - a turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, etc etc - and is not really all that much fun to cook. I’ve done it too many times!
I’m only on the hook to bring a veggy and some wine. I’m leaning towards two veggies - one being Mark Bittman’s excellent Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Figs, and then something more traditional for the non-Brussels-Sprouts eaters. Though truly, that recipe is great for even those who don’t like sprouts. When it comes right down to it, I’m not a big brussels sprouts fan, but shredded with bacon and figs? Bring it on!
For the traditional veggy… hmm… maybe some winter squash. Actually, that’s a great idea. Harlequin squash are easily roasted and mashed with butter, salt, Madeira, and maple syrup and everyone loves 'em, plus they can be done the day before, thus freeing up Thanksgiving morning for Mr. Athena and I to lie around drinking coffee & Bailey’s.
The fun in Thanksgiving this year for me is actually (hopefully) pulling it all off. I definitely have everything I need in a big kitchen, double oven, and (near) unlimited budget. But you’re absolutely right, the actual food is…pretty traditional. Not my cup of tea really. Also, giving into the demands of what the family wants to appear are pretty stinky too
I LOVE Bittman’s brussel sprouts! But my Mom has other words for brussel sprouts. Ah, well.
Question for norinew or Athena: so, for the bread for my stuffing, there’s literally not a decent bakery in my hometown. As such, I thought I could bring bread from Pittsburgh back to home. Would fresh bread purchased on Tuesday work for stuffing on Thursday, or would it be too old by then? And type of bread suggestions - sourdough, italian, something else?
Day-old bread will be fine for stuffing. It’s actually preferable, if you’re making traditional American-style stuffing. My traditional Thanksgiving stuffing recipe actually calls for croutons, not bread, and I think they tend to hold up a little better during the baking process.
As far as what kind of bread, the thing I hate is really super mushy stuffing, so I’d go for whatever is firmest. Like a good crunchy baguette, or Italian. Sourdough would probably be good but I’m guessing you’ll taste it, and if you’re going for a traditional stuffing that might not be exactly what you want.
But I’m hardly a stuffing expert - like I said, I go for the traditional comfort-food kinda Thanksgiving, and my family’s recipe calls for Pepperidge Farm herbed croutons. We doctor it up with turkey broth made from the giblets and plenty of celery and onions and fresh herbs and all that, but at it’s base, it’s mass-produced processed croutons. And we like it that way!
Someday I’m going to make oyster stuffing, but that will be something I do when it’s just me and Mr. Athena, and probably not on Thanksgiving day.
I too hate mushy stuffing, so a couple baguettes or a loaf of Italian sounds best then. Probably leaning towards the baguettes for extra crunch. Thanks!
I keep seeing oyster stuffing in this thread and I’d never heard of it till now.
When I say “bakery bread”, I just mean the bakery in my supermarket. If you hate soggy stuffing, go for something nice and firm, and then cube it (or tear it), put it back in the wrapper and poke a few holes in the wrapper so it can get a little stale. I’ve used Italian bread, French baguettes, hell, even Kaiser rolls would probably do!