This thread is intended only for single people in the US, since today was Thanksgiving.
So what did y’all eat? Did you cook up a traditional T-giving dinner for yourself? Something unconventional? Were you invited to someone else’s house or did you invite others to join you? Did you find a restaurant open and go there?
As for me, I turned down a couple of invitations and kept my butt at home. Just me and the kitteh. No awkward circumstances at other people’s houses being the odd one out. No obnoxious relatives complaining about the food, their lives, etc.
I’m on an elimination diet at the moment, so I can’t have a lot of traditional things right now, anyway. So I just made one of my favorites:
Liver, bacon, onions, and collard greens all chopped up in a nice dice and tossed together hash-style. Not traditional, but, Lordy, it’s so good! Happy Thanksgiving!
For several years now, some of my friends and I get together at someone’s house for dinner. We rotate who will host.
My contributions to dinner this year were bread dressing, dinner rolls and two pumpkin pies. The hosts prepared the turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, homemade cranberry relish. Other friends brought incredible side dishes… a spinach soufflé, some creamed sweet potatoes, relish trays, a green salad and honey glazed carrots. We’re all accomplished cooks and make everything from scratch. I’m stuffed, and every bite was delicious!!
I went to a local cafe with some friends early in the afternoon. The only holiday dinner type items they offered today were a turkey/ dressing/ cranberry sauce sandwich and lasagna. I didn’t have either of those - I’m a little gun shy about other people’s dressing, I’ve encountered too many strange ingredients in turkey dressing to risk oysters or walnuts or apricots. The cafe was surprisingly crowded for a place not serving a traditional meal
I ordered a steak and fried egg sandwich - in large part because I slept really late and it was early afternoon …so breakfast
Got cupcakes to go for dessert.
Then I ordered a pizza at around 7:30 this evening … This is actually somewhat of a Thanksgiving “thing” in my family if the main meal is eaten early …so tradition
Since my partner is thousands of miles away on business, I count as “single.” I had a traditional turkey dinner with friends, and shared the leftovers with my partner’s two dogs. My two cats had Friskies canned turkey and giblets.
I work Thanksgivings ever since Mom ended up allergic to shellfish (so we can’t do our decades-long tradition of surf and turf at a nice restaurant any more - end of an era), and my parents bought a second house where they may or may not be on Thanksgiving sometimes. I said, eh, whatever, time and a half from the animal emergency plus holiday pay from my full time job, I work Thanksgivings the last 8 years or so.
All that to set the frame for Thanksgiving for the animal ER staff, they cater a full turkey dinner times three - one for the shift working at noon, one for 8pm, and one for the overnight crew. So I get there at 4pm and get leftovers from the noon meal as my breakfast, and then a full hot dinner at 8pm (well, 9 by the time my team got to the break room). A whole turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, and grilled pitas with falafel for the vegetarians. Pumpkin pie for dessert.
It tends to be a slow shift, too, so we’re able to have a sit-down meal with other team members (as opposed to the usual quick bites or shoveling a small dinner down between patients), and while we’re on the floor we clean, watch football on a big flatscreen mounted on the back wall, and talk.
Then I take Friday off and cook and stay home and call it “buy nothing and go nowhere day.”
Due to work, I celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with my daughter a week late in October. Roasted a turkey with all the trimmings: cornbread-and-cranberry dressing, wild rice-and-mushroom dressing, sweet potatoes baked in brown sugar and maple syrup, gravy made with pan drippings and port wine, and sweet corn with butter and cracked pepper. Pumpkin pie for dessert. Cranberry and apple juices for beverages.
I didn’t get to eat a whole lot of it, because I left for Moscow the next day and I’m still there. Alone in my apartment last night, I had a big bowl of homemade black bean chili, topped with cheddar cheese, sour cream, and Louisiana hot sauce. And saltines, of course. Dessert was miniature raspberry pies. Everything was washed down with glasses of whole milk.
I called a friend yesterday morning and asked him to come over for our TGiving dinner. We roasted a 19 pound fresh turkey for 6 people and barely put a dent in it. He declined, having purchased a large pizza the night before specifically for his solo dinner. He also went to WalMart to purchase some hard to get video game?
My usual Thanksgiving: my sister and parents came over, and I cooked a standard meal - turkey, stuffing, gravy, sweet potato casserole, apple pie.
About half the time we have an extra person. Last year, one of my co-workers joined us because his wife just had surgery and was doing in-patient physical therapy.
Before my family moved back into town, I either did a Cornish game hen for myself, or the always fancy peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Chips and queso for the Cowboy’s game.
Cranberry pork loin, mac and cheese (home made), and smothered green beans for dinner.
This is the first TG I’ve spent away from the family in years, and it was awesome.
I was supposed to go to my sister’s for a low-key hang-out kinda day, but when she called in the morning we both discovered we didn’t feel like it, plus we both had work to do (I’m a freelancer, she’s a teacher with term-long projects to grade), so that fell through.
Was going to make some pumpkin bread, but realized I didn’t have dried cranberries, so made an apple crisp instead. Curried carrot soup for dinner, with a sandwich of killer pumpernickel bread and super sharp cheddar cheese – a typical Thursday night dinner, except for making dessert.
<Thelma taps foot impatiently>
Yes. We’re waiting for description, details, and possibly a picture of the small furry one.
In the meantime, I went with a friend and his daughter/grandson to another friend’s. There were about 20 people there. They had turkey and some other kind of roast (which I didn’t try), dressing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, carrots, and the BEST thing: noodle kugel. Oh, it was good! Many desserts-- I didn’t even try them all.
I loathe Thanksgiving and turkey, and of course I am always compelled to be somewhere or cook the thing because GOD FORBID there should be ‘no Thanksgiving’ for the gravy guzzlers. One time in my life I was free on The Big Day and I cooked myself a Cornish hen, a sweet potato, and a salad WITH blue cheese crumbles (charged myself $1 extra, lol). It was great. Much later, I ordered myself a pizza with green peppers, red peppers, and anchovies, to see me through the next day as I didn’t have a big stinking bird cluttering up the refrigerator.
I had a couple of Thanksgiving invites but decided to stay home for the big meal. Met a friend at a diner for a quick breakfast, spent the rest of the day puttering around the house.
Dinner was a t-bone steak with a mess of fried onions and mushrooms.
Tomorrow I’m going to a post-Thanksgiving get together and meal with married friends and their families, so it’s not like I’m totally missing out.
I went to my sister’s house, visited, then we went to her husband’s sister’s for the meal. The traditional turkey, etc. I ate a wing and part of a drumstick, stuffing, rice pudding and corn pudding. I skipped dessert but brought home a cupcake which I ate at midnight. Had a wonderfulwonderful time.
