Thanksgiving

[Dee Sa]

I am thinking of asking a young American student & her flate mate over for Thanksgiving. Apart from the traditional turkey what else is served eg veg on that day and should I bake an apple pie for dessert ? or if not what ? Suggestions appreciated.Presum they have cranberry sauce with the turkey, what about bread sauce too ?or is the later very english ?

[amonty1144]

This is a link for a southern style thanksgiving.
http://southernfood.about.com/cs/thanksgivingf ood/a/thanksgivingdin.htm

This one is all the recipes you should need for the day, it seems to feature yams and pumpkin pie.
Good luck

http://www.betterrecipes.com/holiday/thanksgiv ing/index.html

[Dee Sa]

many tks, the young lady hails from Connecticut I believe, but will follow the website suggestions.

[Clanad]

More than likely the young lady will appreciate simplicity. A lot of recipes suggested for the American Thanksgiving Day dinner tend to the overdone (no pun) and can overwhelm the first time cook. For example; The turkey should be about a pound to a pound and a half serving per person since there's quite a bit of waste. They generally run, at least here in the western U.S., between 10 and 12 pounds, although we buy ours fresh rather than frozen from a nearby Mennonite Colony because they can promise us one between 20 to 24 pounds (large family, lots of leftovers). The "stuffing", in my opinion, should consist simply of about 2 loaves of day old bread (doesn't need to be dry as some insist), a couple of cans of Campbell's Cream of Celery soup, sage (easy on the sage for me), black pepper freshly ground, and salt. Stuff the turkey with some of it to keep it moist in the cooking and the rest goes into a loaf pan for later baking to actually serve with the turkey. Brown it nice and crusty on top... just that simple and it's always a rave. (Be sure to take the neck and giblets out of the inside of the turkey!)
After that, mashed potatos, gravy (from the turkey roasting pan), a green bean casserole, candied sweet potatos or yams (marshmallows on top placed under the broiler for just a few minutes to brown), a relish dish of sliced celery, carrots, radishes and the like (for the health minded) cranberry/orange sauce, (one whole orange, skin and all except seeds, in a food processor with two cans of whole cranberrys or fresh cranberrys with alittle sugar to taste, works well) and perhaps one more casserole of the cooks choice.
Dessert is typically pumpkin pie, although at our house it's one of the few times we indulge in Southern Pecan Pie. There you go... Thanksgiving Dinner simplified... Enjoy!

[theonlyone]

Clanad ,any chance of an invite for dinner ??? Sounds lovely !!Enjoy your day .

[Dee Sa]

tks all, especially Clanad, sounds a bit complicated compared to good old English boring xmas dinner [ with turkey] but I will do my best to accomodate but dessert is going to be Mom's apple pie which I can make earlier in the day unless there is somwwhere within the M25 that I can buy a frozen Pecan Pie or has anyone got a recipe not too hard to follow pls ?