A thread to give thanks and to also share all the lovely creations and meals everyone will undoubtedly be preparing!
I am thankful for this forum and all the friendships it has inspired and nurtured as well as the implied friendships of the future
TWSS is +EV

Please share your thanks as well as recipes and pics of your Thanksgiving food, preparations, decorations and festivities!!

You all know that I am a cooking n00b and have 0 skill in this area, but here is a Thanksgiving drink recipe that my mom came up with called the Turkey-Tini!! Would love to hear if anyone tries it!!



http://www.turkeytini.com/

Ha, ha awesome!

I'm hosting my Mom, Stepdad, and Collin's parents. I went way overboard preparing because I was playing the DSE main and was hopeful that I would be in until Tuesday.

I'm keeping it pretty traditional, and have made most of side dishes (and frozen them) already. I even bought a chest freezer for the purpose lol.

The only thing I haven't started is deserts; though I did make my own puff pastry from scratch, which I haven't done since culinary school. Will update with pics soon! GLGLGL all

Ian's (my boyfriend) mom is working Thanksgiving (she's a nurse, she gets time and a half for working holidays), and his uncle has to go for work, so last Friday he came home and asked, "Would it be okay if we went to John (his uncle's house) for Thanksgiving in two days? I already said yes, and they'd love it if you brought rolls and a pie."

Of course I made both rolls (potato) and a pie (apple).

Was fun, though, his family is a little weird but nice.

Potato Rolls recipe one time?

I've started what will end up being 12 days of baking. I normally make a box of holiday treats for my friends, including my Social Media buddies on the strip. Yes, I am crazy making cookies for people that work in casinos with some of the best restaurants/chefs ever but I do it anyways.

So far, I have made Holiday Ribbons (new recipe for me)


and today made Poinsettia Blooms


I need to tinker with the size on these.

Coming up, shortbread, gingersnaps, Russian Tea Cakes, Snowballs, Haystacks, homemade caramels, marshmallow roll and cherry cheese loaf.

+1
I knew u were the awesomest for a reason, potato rolls are my absolute fav

Will post later tonight.

I'm headed down to Houston to be with my mom for the holiday. No doubt we will be dining at some of Houston's finest restaurants and I will be taking lots of great pics. Will post as I consume

I just got a 10lb bag of potatoes for 98 cents. RJ, you better not slow roll us with the recipe.

Oh dear. Sorry, we got the new Zelda game and I spaced last night. But this recipe uses potato flakes, not real potatoes, so I might have slow rolled you anyway.

In any event, here's my mom's recipe for potato rolls. It is the only time we ever used potato flakes in anything. I hate instant mashed potatoes, but they do wonders here.

Ingredients:

1 cup milk
2 Tbs sugar
2 tsps salt
1/4 cup butter
1 cup warm water
1 Tbs dry yeast
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup potato flakes
4.5 - 5.5 cups flour

Instructions:

Combine warm water in yeast in a smaller bowl; stir to dissolve and allow to soften (5-10 minutes). Scald milk, then stir in sugar, salt, and butter, then allow mixture to cool to lukewarm (I put it in the fridge to speed this along). In a large mixing bowl, combine yeast mixture, milk mixture, eggs, potatoes, and 3 cups of flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in enough additional flour to make a stiff dough. Turn onto floured surface, and knead until elastic (8-10 minutes). Place dough in greased bowl (just cooking spray is fine), turn, cover, and let rise until double (1 hr). Punch dough down, then turn onto floured surface and divide dough in half. From each half, form 12 balls - the easiest way I've found to do this is to divide each half into thirds, then each third into four pieces. I just pinch the dough in the web between my thumb and forefinger at the point I want to "cut" it, like I'm cuffing the dough and pinch it off. Place balls into greased 8" or 9" round baking pans. Cover, rise for 1/2 hour. Bake at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes. As soon as they are pulled from the oven (the tops should be golden brown), brush tops with butter.

I only took one picture of these, just after they came out of the oven and had their butter bath. Ian and his relatives love them, all two dozen were gone in 3 or 4 days.

They lasted that long?! Thanks for sharing. Guess I'll have to solider on & find a recipe with real potatoes if I want to have any prayer of using the 10lb bag. They look great though!

You can ship half to me , I ran out of potatoes and I've been grinding hard for the past 3 days so no supermarket for me.

I went to 3 grocery stores yesterday!

Darn, now I'm starting to feel guilty about not cooking this year. Lots of good food ITT.

We couldn't converge on plans, so we wound up deciding to stay local. We've got a friend in town from Texas who likes the Pacific Dining Car near us so we're just going to do that.

Wishing everyone a great holiday.

Shauna

Baking Puppy to the Rescue:



Homemade puff pastry:

Happy Thanksgiving :turkey:

We got a last minute invite to my Aunt's house so I ended up taking my cousin's kids to go see The Muppets (my second time seeing it) this morning to get them out of the house and from under foot while my cousin and Aunt BBQd the turkey and got the rest of the stuff together.

And proving that my Aunt knows and loves me, she made me a Chocolate Peanut butter pie for desert (I don't do pumpkin).

Hope everyone else in the US had a good T-day and that everyone outside of the US had a good Thursday.

So mom and I had dinner at Branch Water Tavern in Houston and it was sooooo good. I for sure had the best pumpkin pie of my LIFE. Here are the pics from our night

I cooked for the whole family this year and it was a resounding success!!!!




Sweet Potato Casserole:


Homemade stuffing:


Green Bean Casserole:


Homemade Miniature Pies:


Relish Tray with Brie Cheese and a Ranch Bacon Cheese Ball:

I spent Thanksgiving with my bro, sis-in-law, nephew, sis-in-law's aunt, and the sig other. My sis-in-law tried something *new* with the mashed potatoes, and it became the running joke of the day. We started calling them deconstructed mashed potatoes. My nephew (age 6) refused to eat them. Line of the day (from my sis-in-law): "There are worse things in life than deconstructed mashed potatoes." The sig other - being the foodie that he is - loved the deconstructed mashed potatoes.

How...
What...



How do you deconstruct mashed potatoes? There's like only 6 or 7 ingredients total, and that's counting the water you boil the potatoes in, and everything else (salt, pepper, butter, cream/milk) goes INTO the potatoes after you mash them.

I'm so confused right now.

We need more details!

I'm guessing some kind of molecular gastronomy hoopla

Too pretty to eat