The Thanksgiving Mega Thread

No it's not, but it's good and it's never made me sick. Kinda like dirt, it's good, doesn't make me sick. 

On a more serious note, I have had the stuff with real cranberries and it's good but it's just not the same. The stuff out of the can is what I've always had so it makes me happy. Real or not.

Ditto. I love it as a snack and my family gives me my very own can of it on Thanksgiving! 
Everyone knows not to touch my cranberry sauce, I've already prepped DB. 

Ditto. I love it as a snack and my family gives me my very own can of it on Thanksgiving! 
Everyone knows not to touch my cranberry sauce, I've already prepped DB. 

Haha! You sound like me! The first thanksgiving that I was married to my ex we got to my parents late because we had to go to his parent's first(his mom made the kind with the whole cranberries) and I was dying for some canned sauce but when we got there it was all gone. I nearly cried. I got back in my car, went to the grocery store, got 5 cans, took them back and ate one myself and told everyone else to eat the others and back off me. After that dad started getting extra and saving me a can.

That's not even food!! 

I do love my cranberry sauce, but it has to be my own homemade stuff with grated orange rind and lashings of Grand Marnier!

I'll back you up on this one, chary! I'm lazier, though--I just bung the cranberries in a pan with a little water, cook gently until they're tender and popping, add a bit of sugar (not too much--I like it sour!) and stir until it's dissolved. Add a bit of orange juice and try not to eat it all before dinner.  I've discovered recently that a tiny bit of allspice gives it a really warm, rounded flavor.

My absolute favorite thing, though, is the cranberry-orange relish. Fresh cranberries and whole orange(s), ground up and sweetened to taste. The best way is in an old-fashioned meat grinder, which can be hard to find these days--I was SO happy the year my mom got me one for Christmas! The joke in our family is that there's less sugar in the cran-orange every year, so that nobody else wants it and my mom and I get it all to ourselves.

Already bought my pecans from Lidl-so I'm set for pecan pie. 

Lidl has pecans?!! I'll have to go check it out! I asked my MIL to get some from Trader Joe's...and she got pieces instead of halves.

Lidl has pecans?!! I'll have to go check it out! I asked my MIL to get some from Trader Joe's...and she got pieces instead of halves.

They had them during their 'American Week' a while back.   

Absolutely! It's very easy.

You can either grate the zest of an orange, or peel just the zest and cut it carefully into fine shreds. Depends on how much time you have.

Put 2 cups of water, 2 cups of sugar, 1/2 cup of orange juice, and the zest of 1 orange (see above) in a pan. Heat to boiling, then reduce and simmer about 20 mins, until it makes a really thick syrup.

Then add the cranberries, cover and keep cooking until the skins stop popping (you'll have to listen carefully - sort of like making popcorn). It'll take about 5 mins.

Remove from heat and transfer to bowl. Stir in 2 Tbsp (or more!) Grand Marnier. Chill at least 2 hrs before serving.

Makes about 5 cups.

I'm definitely making this

It has to come from the can sliced into round disks and still have the can indentions on it.

I TOTALLY agree! I despise homemade craberry sauce. I have this thing with the texture of my food. Homemade cranberry sauce always has crunchy bits in it. Blech. I'll take a can any day. 

anybody BBQ/Grill a turkey?  foodnetwork makes it sounds pretty easy... i've gotta do 2 turkeys and this is the best option i can think of.  the other one is cooking the day before, and then reheating?

Reheating turkey is fine. I've never tried it on the BBQ though. Do you have it in pieces? Do you have to pre-cook it at all?

foodnetwork says to just bung the whole sucker on the grill... i'm surprised but why not?

my worry with reheating turkey is its dryness.  i'll be brining them to combat that, but reheating might take it over the limit.

I've done it on the grill but you still have to use a pan underneath.  I think I turned one burner off and grilled it on that side.  It was hard to get it all cooked evenly though.

And I'll second/third the homemade cranberry sauce ala chary.  Loads of orange peel and gran marnier.  My son eats it with a spoon.  After making it for the last few years, I'll never go back to the canned. 

Meggles, My brother in law did a turkey on the grill and it was great!! Now I can't remember if it was in a tin pan but I'm pretty sure it was wrapped in foil to hold in the juices. He kept pouring beer over it to keep it moist - and it was great! No you couldn't taste the beer!
Good luck!

ME TOO.  I'll eat the 'real' stuff, but I MUCH prefer the kind out of a can, cut from the can-shaped block.  YUM.

One year, in my late teens/early 20's my grandma and I ended up in our local Chinese restaurant for Thanksgiving (I must have been fighting with my family that year) and they cooked Thanksgiving dinner for us, complete with cranberry sauce from the can, as above. I remember it vividly, couldnt believe they served it that way. The dinner itself was not good. They meant well but I would have been very happy with just plain Chinese food.
Worst. Thanksgiving. Ever.

My parents are coming next week and they missed Canadian Thanksgiving in Canada (oct because they've been traveling.  We usually have it here in the UK sometime between then and Christmas - more of an excuse to cook a turkey than anything else.  So we're having it while they are here. 

The only thing I have a hard time finding at this time of year is the sausage meat for stuffing.  But then again, the first year we were here, I couldn't find cranberries and now they are in abundance. 

Not sure what kind of sausage meat you need, but I've done one of 2 things: some small independent butchers have sausage meat that isn't in links or whatever (it usually comes in a big tube-like shape) OR I just squeeze the sausage meat out of the links. I've done the first to make sausage and biscuits with gravy and the second for soups and such.

Not sure what kind of sausage meat you need, but I've done one of 2 things: some small independent butchers have sausage meat that isn't in links or whatever (it usually comes in a big tube-like shape) OR I just squeeze the sausage meat out of the links. I've done the first to make sausage and biscuits with gravy and the second for soups and such.

I know... I'm just really too lazy to either do the shopping around or squeeze the meat our of the casing.  Also, it gives me an excuse to perfect my mushroom bread stuffing!