The Thanksgiving Mega Thread

Anyone have a pie crust recipe? 

I put it in another thread, but I just have to say it again: I am SO happy about ordering my Thanksgiving groceries online! Now I can cook this weekend instead of spending it in Sainsbury's! Woohoo!!!

I've invited my entire research group and most of them are coming, and I'm already starting to get some...interesting...comments. One guy (an Italian) asked me if Thanksgiving was a Catholic holiday.  Another one (this one English) told me that pumpkin cheesecake sounded "bizarre". He also commented that Thanksgiving was so close to Christmas, that meant two big turkey dinners really close together. The look on his face when I said that not everyone had turkey for Christmas was priceless.

My guests are a mix of English, Northern Irish, Italian, Korean, Czech, and one lonely American (besides the two of us). It should be a riot!

Anyone have a pie crust recipe? 

just go by the ready roll pie crust......very easy to use and it is the pillsbury pie crust!!

i made a apple pie with it.....tasty

Is it "real" pie crust? I haven't been able to find it yet

Is it "real" pie crust? I haven't been able to find it yet

yes it is real pie crust...it is made or was made by pillsbury the packaging used to hacve the doughboy on it..but I think they just made it into ready roll...it is a nice pie crust...i use it every year when i make pecan pie and it works great!

The 'jus-roll' shortcrust is in the freezer section. Unless I am feeling really ambitious, that is what I use.

Thanks! I'll look for it tomorrow!

I forgot about the pumpkin, but you can buy pumpkins here too... as well as sometimes finding the tinned stuff.  I just ordered some tins of pumpkin from www.letseatdirect.com

Thank you! Our numbers have doubled and I am short on a few items...This is a huge help!

We are doing:
Turkey
Bread Stuffing
mashed potatoes
Green Bean Casserole
Watergate Salad
Rolls
Apple pie, pumpkin pie, Pecan Pie and Carrot Cake

Each year it gets bigger! I only do the turkey and buy in the stuff you can not get here and pass on a traditional recipe from my family for each person to make and bring. I can not imagine cooking the entire meal in my easy bake oven...anyway everyone gets a kick out of making the dishes. Current numbers are 18 adults and 12 kids! We are taping the football games and replaying them. All I am missing is the Macys day parade. I am starting to get very excited!

I just bought some French fried onions and some canned pumkin online. I used that site Q-G mentioned www.letseatdirect.com  The cost wasn't nearly as bad as I thought.

We have not celebrated Thanksgiving since our oldest was born.  However, we are going to this year. 
During the morning I'll help our youngest's preschool celebrate.  They will bake mini pumpkin pies, do arty crafty stuff, and I will share a nice children's book explaining the first Thankgiving. 
At home we will will have a scaled down version of the 'traditional' dinner.  We will have turkey, sweet potatoes, succotash, and plenty of veg.  For pudding we will have either pumpkin pie or pumpkin bread.  We will focus on being thankful for all we have been given. 
At least that is the plan. 

We're having our Thanksgiving next Saturday just because we have such a crazy week. Another couple is coming over and I am making a traditional meal:
Turkey
Stuffing
Gravy
Mashed Potatoes
Sauteed Brussels Sprouts with Shallots
Honey Carrots
Cranberry Sauce
Rolls
Pumpkin Pie
Chocolate Pecan Pie

We accidentally didn't buy the turkey early enough to defrost it in the fridge, so we ended up having to defrost in the sink. It doesn't seem to affect it at all, it smells heavenly! I can't wait for dinner. 

ETA: We just finished and the turkey was the best turkey any of us ever had! It was so moist, juices just poured out when I was trying to check the temperature of the meat!

DB is also learning about Thanksgiving fullness and tiredness. He doesn't understand how he's eaten more than this before but has never felt so full or tired. He's accusing me of putting sleeping pills in his stuffing! I'm telling him "Happy Thanksgiving! Just wait until our 'real' Thanksgiving on Thursday!"  He's rambling on about the feeling and how he's disappointed in himself. I'm getting such a kick out of this since I'm always around people who just grew up with this feeling! He keeps muttering "Strange..."

You people are evil!  We had the full thing last night.  I cooked all day.

We had
Turkey
Sausage stuffing
mashed potatoes
gravy
mashed swedes
brussel sprouts
carrots
cranberry sauce
home-made rolls
pumpkin pie (and I did the pumpkin myself!)
apple pie. 

I didn't brine the turkey because I didn't have time and then I didn't do my usual basting with butter and wine.  i sort of did Nigella's method.  It was all good though and now I don't have to cook for a week!

I didn't brine the turkey because I didn't have time

Tell me about brining. Does it really make a big difference? We don't do Thanksgiving, and I usually end up having Christmas either with my family or Guy's, so don't have to do the cooking ... but I'm angling to have it at our house next year. Any tips?

We are doing a Thanksgiving in mini format on Thursday -no idea what I will make yet for that one. Then a combined 1st birthday/Thanksgiving meal on Saturday with a few close friends.  Definitely need to make up for missing it last year though I was happy to have my son instead of a turkey!     Hey at least I will be awake this year! It's a bit scaled back from the first two Thanksgivings here in the UK as we had over 20 people each year!

Menu is pretty traditional;
Lots of appetizers: cheese plates, deviled eggs, chips and dips -Ranch, onion, artichoke, bean-, pears stuffed with cream cheese/walnuts, olives, nuts, dried fruits, salmon and whatever else strikes my fancy.
Coke a cola Ham
Turkey
Sweet potatoes
Mashed potatoes
Stuffing (this year we have Stove Top as a base thanks to mom and dad's package that came this am!)
I might make cornbread stuffing too. 
Gravy
Green Bean Casserole
Corn
Cranberry Sauce
Pies (brought by an expert pie maker!  )
and of course a big old chocolate Birthday cake for my baby boy!