Thanksgiving Food Thread - Recipes and discussions

[Farmer McColl]

I'll be hosting some family from out-of-state, so I'm doing a bit much. I'm welcoming side dishes, drinks, and desserts; so that helps. It's always fun figuring out what and how I'll be cooking. I'm attaching recipes that are at least similar to my plans below.

For a mill-about appetizer as people arrive and chat: Baked Brie with local clover honey, walnuts, crostini, pink lady apple slices, and moon drop grapes.
Opening course: I'm making a fall vegetable / roast garlic soup with couscous. (Something like this, but with roast garlic, root vegetables, and all ingredients but couscous blended.)
The entree is to be Gordon Ramsey's Christmas turkey and the resultant gravy.
As for sides, I'll be making whipped potatoes; sourdough dressing; cranberry sauce with figs, oranges, and pinot noir; a green bean casserole; Roman honey-glazed mushrooms; aaand roasted Brussels sprouts.
I'm making a mulled apple cider to drink. In addition, I'll be serving a dry hard cider of some variety, pinot noir, and whatever guests bring.
As for dessert, I'm having some fun this year and serving pumpkin monkey bread with a pumpkin-butterscotch sauce.

 

[WhatInTheActualFuck]

I go to a big family get together and so I mostly just do desserts. Last time it was a basque cheesecake that everyone loved, so I might do another one this year. I've also previously made apple crumble and a more traditional cheesecake with roasted pumpkin cut into the base and a pecan crust. All were pretty well-received, so I have options.

 

[The Cringe Connoisseur]

I make my cranberry sauce homemade each year, and it’s hard for me to go back to the prepackaged version. If there’s any part of the meal you don’t need someone else to make for you, it’s that. I personally like to add red wine to my cranberry sauce. It gives it more depth of flavor. This is a basic recipe for it, but it’s easy to adjust according to preference.

If you want a quick tasty spread for a turkey sandwich in the middle of the year just mash up the canned jelly and mix it with dukes mayonnaise. Sweet sour and tangy all in one.

 

[Big Miss Steak]

I want to make a Thanksgiving ham but I am intimidated. My pumpkin pie and gochujang cookies are highly requested, so that does bolster my confidence.

 

[There She Glows]

I want to make a Thanksgiving ham but I am intimidated. My pumpkin pie and gochujang cookies are highly requested, so that does bolster my confidence.

Came here to post that I'm doing Thanksgiving ham and looking for a recipe. I've done it with a precooked/presmoked spiral cut ham basted in some sort of glaze and that's super easy, I might do it again but kind of want to do it from scratch this year. Thinking of using Gordon Ramsey's recipe.

Spoiler: Honey Glazed Ham

Ingredients
To cook the ham:
3kg unsmoked boneless gammon joint
4 medium carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
1 leek, roughly chopped
1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
1 tsp black peppercorns, lightly crushed
1 tsp coriander seeds, lightly crushed
2 cinnamon sticks, broken in half
2 bay leaves
1 handful of cloves
For the glaze:
100g demerara sugar
50ml Madeira
25ml sherry vinegar
125g honey

1. Put the gammon in a large saucepan and pour on enough cold water to cover. Add the carrots, leek, onion, peppercorns, coriander seeds, cinnamon sticks and bay leaves. Bring to the boil, turn down to a simmer and cook for 3 hours, topping up with more boiling water if necessary. Skim off the froth and any impurities that rise to the surface from time to time. If cooking in advance, let the ham cool in the stock overnight. Otherwise, allow it to cool a little, then remove from the pan. Strain the stock (you can save for this for soup etc, but you will have gallons of it, and it will sit in the freezer for a year).

2. To make the glaze, put the sugar, Madeira, sherry vinegar, and honey into a pan and stir over a low heat. Bring to the boil, lower the heat and simmer for 3–4 minutes until you have a glossy dark syrup. Do not leave unattended, as it will easily boil over.

3. Preheat the oven to 170°C.

4. Lift the ham into a roasting tin. Snip and remove the strings and then cut away the skin from the ham, leaving behind an even layer of fat. Lightly score the fat all over in a criss-cross, diamond pattern, taking care not to cut into the meat. Stud the centre of each diamond with a clove. Pour half of the glaze over the ham and roast for 15 minutes.

5. Pour on the rest of the glaze and return to the oven for another 25–35 minutes until the ham is golden brown, basting with the pan juices frequently. It also helps to turn the pan as you baste to ensure that the ham colours evenly.

6. Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 15 minutes before carving. Continue to baste as the meat cools – the cooling glaze in the pan will get gradually stickier until you get a fully golden ham with a stunning, sweet honey surface.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

I took the standard cranberry sauce recipe that's printed on the packages (12 oz cranberries, 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar), but doubled it, used dark brown sugar, and replaced the water with orange-pineapple juice. I subtracted the sugar added by the juice which came out to exactly 1/2 cup (decreasing it to 1.5 cups sugar). Added some ginger powder.

Sauce made from 24 oz of cranberries fills a quart jar with maybe a cup extra left over for tasting.

For my remaining 48 oz of cranberries, I'll make a plain one and a boozed one.

 

[Zak_McKrackepidemic]

Advice for if your making deviled eggs this year (or just hard-boiled eggs in general);

most recipes will tell you to boil the eggs with the lid on for 10 minutes and then take them out and chill them in ice water. Don't do this. This leads to hard-to-peel eggs with dry yolks.

Instead, boil them for eight minutes and then take them out and let them slowly cool down by themselves, at room-temperature on the counter. The remaining heat will slowly cook the rest of the egg from the inside, leading to jammier, more flavorful yolks.

 

[Adrian Dittmann]

Friendly reminder it's dressin', not stuffin'.

If you stuff it in a bird's ass it's stuffing.

 

[MerriedxReldnahc]

Tried a new cornbread muffin recipe and these turned out great, they came from a cookbook called Baked Explorations.
There's a little grain from the cornmeal but mostly they're very light and fluffy.
The recipe suggests generous lashings of butter and honey but they don't really need any extra, they're very good on their own.

Recipe: