As I raced through Super Walmart yesterday, I noticed a display of thanksgiving feast foods on sale. What struck me was there was almost an entire thanksgiving spread – all in cans. Canned yams, canned gravy, canned beans, canned cranberry sauce, canned pie filling, etc. Through the rest of the store I’m sure you could find boxed stuffing, pre-baked pie crusts, frozen cheesecakes, ready whip topping, and the list goes on. As I hurried past, I wondered what Thanksgiving dinner would taste like if it was all premade. I don’t want to find out.
Around our house, everything in the Thanksgiving Dinner is made from scratch. And although that seems normal to me, I know it’s weird to people who ‘make’ it all from cans or boxes, or even go to a restaurant tomorrow. I don’t know about you, but I’m ok with being weird!
Here’s a couple recipes for making some traditional Thanksgiving Dinner dishes from scratch, in case you wanna be weird like me. 🙂
Several years ago I found out how easy it is to make cranberry sauce from scratch. There’s always a recipe right on the back of the bag, or you can use this recipe, which uses some orange juice instead of water – this is the one I’m trying this year.
Last year I made pumpkin pie and forgot one of the main ingredients – 2 cups of half and half! Needless to say, it was very…rich! Read about last year’s Thanksgiving prep at our house here. I have to say, I’m grateful that this year’s prep doesn’t involve getting ready to have a baby the next day!
This year I’m making pumpkin pie from scratch, as well as trying my hand at a cherry almond crumb pie. If you want a good pastry recipe, including detailed directions and photos, I refer you to the definitive post over at Smitten Kitchen – Pie Crust 102: all butter, really flaky pie crust, and Pie Crust 103: rolling and crimping. Her method is close enough to my own grandmother’s that I can recommend it with a good conscience. 🙂
I am so delighted that this year I have the privileged of hosting Thanksgiving at my house for the first time! There will be 10 of us, and everyone is helping out with different dishes. Our menu is as follows…
stuffed with dressing made from homemade egg bread
accompanied by mashed potatoes
sweet potatoes prepared only as my mother-in-law can,
Pumpkin Bread*
Fresh Egg Bread,
Oreo cookie salad (Holden family tradition)
green bean casserole
Homemade gravy
And
Cranberry Sauce
(even though only me and my father-in-law like it!)
whipped cream.
You still have time to make some of this delectable bread – I have a healthy version of this recipe that includes soaking instructions HERE.
Hope your Thanksgiving Celebration is full of family, friends, and grateful hearts.
We're pretty homemade ourselves -I used a can of pumpkin and a can of cranberry sauce. Otherwise our menu was: turkey, cornbread sage dressing, roasted root vegetables (onions, potatoes, and carrots), baked sweet potatoes (w a cinnamon-y butter sugar spread touched with orange), green salad, homemade gravy, and pumpkin pie for dessert. I'm really proud of myself because that was my first turkey, and I cooked in my dutch oven over coals while camping this past weekend 😀
It's such fun hearing what other people cook -thanks for sharing.
How nice you could host !It all sounds lovely. Uriah made our cranberry sauce this year and it was yummy ! I do make most everything from scratch on Thanksgiving but I must confess my guilt! For an every day meal I have been known to whip up a box of Stove Top because I like it and I also use canned pumpkin for my baking. Apart from that most of the other things totally lack flavor,nutritional value,have preservatives and are mushy.
We make a lot from scratch. I love homemade cranberry sauce although I'm not making any this year. I was scanning through the list of the stuff that you noticed at the store trying to figure out what I've used. Not much. Well, canned pumpkin…
We make everything from scratch here too – for Thanksgiving and just about everything else! I don't think it's weird at all!