Church dropped off Thanksgiving dinner plates, which were great. Plus, the Lions tortured us by getting shutout, so it felt like legit Thanksgiving today.
A non-American here. My question is do you eat those dishes at other days in the year? If so, how would you differentiate Thanksgiving dinner?
A turkey is really large, so you usually only have it if you’re serving a lot of people. You might cook a turkey breast on occasion, but I don’t think think it’s a very common meal. The thing about a Thanksgiving meal is that there are so many side dishes. You wouldn’t make all those for a regular occasion.
There will be two of us. Usually we’d be with family, but that’s not in the cards. I’m not a big fan of turkey, so we’re having:
- Olives and other crudités [not crud-ites, thank you]
- Chicken breasts
- Cornbread stuffing with chestnuts
- Gravy
- Cornbread
- Squash
- Peas
- Garden greens sautéed with lemon juice
- Cranberry-orange compote
- Oatmeal cookies with raisins and chocolate chips
- Sparkling water
Thanksgiving is typically:
Roast turkey
Mashed potatoes/gravy
Stuffing
Cranberry sauce
Rolls
Some kind of pie
Optionally:
Sweet potatoes
Green bean casserole
Corn
(Some people may disagree about what’s optional vs required. Frankly I don’t like turkey that much, which is why I’m making Cornish hens instead.)
It’s really about the scale of the meal. It’s a LOT of food. It’s rare you would cook a whole turkey for so many people, much less all those side dishes. You might have those side dishes at other times of the year, but not altogether in one meal. I don’t think most people eat cranberry sauce throughout the year, either.
The scale of the meal is why I have to pick and choose what’s on the menu when cooking for just two people. Thanksgiving is not Thanksgiving to me without roasted meat, mashed potatoes and gravy, and cranberry sauce. So I will make those (if we can find cranberry sauce!) But it doesn’t make sense to cook twenty side dishes for just two people.
(counting on fingers) … whoops
Recipe? Pretty please?
ETA:
[Emily Letella} “Never mind.” [Emily Lettella]
[Note to self: always read thread to end.]
Unless you have a perverse dedication to the abomination called “cranberry sauce” that comes in a can, you can make it at home as easy as making tea:
- Wash a bag of cranberries, picking out the rotten ones
- Put in a pot with 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water
- Boil till the berries pop, and cool
I always liked cranberry sauce when I was little, then I discovered the kind with whole berries in it, which was better, then I discovered this recipe and I will never eat the nasty canned kind again. It’s also delicious as a topping for some plain greek yogurt.
I like canned cranberry sauce with and without berries.
I like homemade cranberry sauce.
I like cranberry sauce, period. I use it all year round. It goes great with sausage.
I’m easy. 
Ham, mashed spuds, green bean casserole, rolls, salad, and pie! There are only two of us.
For my family, the internet told me that I’d need a 7lb turkey. That felt small to me so I planned on getting a 10lb bird. But the butcher said their “small” was 12-15lbs so that’s what I ordered. Then my mom said she had no plans so I invited her to come by if she wanted* and then my sister, who is going through a divorce, was going to be home with just her younger kid so now we’re taking the turkey over there. Maybe that bird got bigger for a reason.
I cook my turkey like the pilgrims did; by throwing it into a cooking bag and sliding it into the oven for an internet-approved period of time. We’ll have the usual mashed potatoes and cranberries and some side veggies plus Polish sausage and sauerkraut. Pumpkin pie for dessert. In previous years I’d also get a pecan or apple pie as well but I know my mom is doing the giant Costco pumpkin pie and we’ve all been trying to lose weight so we don’t need more pies around than that.
(*My mother works in a bakery and I didn’t know if she’d be working Thursday morning or not or if she preferred to just crash afterwards. We live local so it’s not as though these family events are unique chances to see one another)
This, exactly. Sometimes I’ll throw in a cinnamon stick and a couple slices of orange while it’s boiling.
Sigh. My husband is at the store. He just texted me “fresh cranberries or none.”
I said, “Do it.”
Looks like I’m making homemade cranberry sauce.
It’s dead easy. Make it the night before and pop it in the fridge. (Or out on your porch, if your weather allows porches to be an extended fridge.)
Spice Weasel. Try this and then next year we’ll walk you through fresh cranberry/orange relish. You will then have cranberries mastered for life.
The cranberry sauce over yogurt idea is a promising one. I’m going to try that, if I have have any fresh cranberry sauce left over. Trader Joe’s made mine this year since it is just the 2 of us.
I pried the cranberry-orange compote recipe out of my mother this weekend. It was conveyed in a highly approximate, Myers-Briggs NFP-sort of way, but I can make something of it.
I was gonna skip the whole thing this year, but I was at the store and Kroger has turkeys for .49 cents a pound with a $25 purchase.
I decided it would be financially irresponsible to not cook one. Hell, I can feed it to the dogs and make out better than dog food!
I ordered a 2-person “holiday dinner” from the local grocer: turkey breast, stuffing, smash potatoes, gravy, green beans. I’ll heat it up and dine alone on the day. My son will come up from college the Monday after Thanksgiving and we’ll share probably surf and turf (steak and lobster tails if I can find some) together. Doing a small friendsgiving (me and two others) tomorrow night, I’ll cook stir fry added to apps and wine.
As mentioned in teh “Thanksgiving for two” thread, I will be dining alone. A friend and I are doing a food swap. I will provide pumpkin cheesecake and pecan bars, in exchange I will get Turkey, dressing, gravy and biscuits. I will zoom with my family in the morning.
Brian
Just got back from T-day specific groccing; all T-day and nothing else. For this years’ 5 adults & 2 pre-toddlers …
16# bird, regular & sweet pots, green beans & asparagus, and two ready-to-eat pies. Plus raw cranberries for cooking, and a can of the jellied kind for the folks like @Johnny_L.A who demand their sauce have the ridges from the can 
When I make cranberry sauce I leave out about 2/3rds of the sugar. It still works and it’s great fun to see the looks on people’s faces the first time they taste an actual cranberry, not just bright red sugar goo.
Ref how T-day differs, given that I’m feeding only 4-8 adults depending on the year, it doesn’t differ much from any other large dinner gathering I throw. I make about 6 turkeys a year anyhow just for easy leftovers for the two of us. Plus that gives an awesome amount of stock for soups & stews. All of the sides are ordinary-enough stuff also served on other days with other main courses.
I admit to having simplified the feast a bunch so I can participate in my own party, but IMO what’s left still fills the square completely. They keep coming back next year, so it seems I haven’t offended their sense of T-Day tradition too badly. 