Show Us Your Life - Thanksgiving Recipes and Traditions

Kelly, over at Kelly's Korner is hosting the Blog Carnival Show Us Your Life.  Head on over there to see all the exciting entries.

I want to share my favorite Thanksgiving Recipe, too.  It's a simple one, you see. 

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The Queen's Recipe for a Low-Stress Thanksgiving Dinner

Ingredients:
Several Men
Several Women
Several Children
Enough vehicles to provide safe passage to all

Directions:

Load men, women and children into vehicle(s).  Use care to ensure all passengers are seated and secured with webbing.  Using vehicle(s), provide safe passage to a pre-determined, meal vending location.  Disembark passengers.  Escort passengers to interior of structure.  Follow instructions for seating and selecting morsels.  Dine comfortably among treasured friends and family.  Pay for meal(s).  Leave substantial tip.  Using same vehicle(s), return passengers to original location.
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Now, in all seriousness, we do go out for Thanksgiving dinner at least half the time.  Quite frankly, our extended family has a lot of very picky eaters.  Planning a meal at home that is satisfactory for all seems to become more difficult as we age.  Let me explain. 

First, there's the turkey issue.  Seems like a given, being Thanksgiving and all.  Nope.  Not so simple.  A couple of folks don't care much for turkey.  Not a problem.  We're a good sized group, so we'll just throw in a ham.  That still isn't enough.  Nope.  We need to add chicken nuggets to round out the meat selections.

Now that we have enough types of meat, we need a couple of green vegetables.  Green bean casserole is always a good choice.  Yummy!  But wait, we have to make something for those who don't like cream of mushroom soup or those crunchy onions.  We'll just make some plain green beans, too.  Good idea.  We'll also serve a mess of greens, probably collards.  That's an easy one.  Either you eat them (gross!), or you don't.  Unfortunately, it's not that easy.  No, we need two different serving bowls of collards.  One for those who like them hot and another for them that like to eat their greens cooked and chilled.  We also need a vegetable for those who don't eat collards.  Let's just make this simple, we'll make squash and carrots and peas, too.  Somewhere in there, everyone ought to be able to find a vegetable made tot their satisfaction.

What about starches?  Don't we need starches?  Of course we do.  Let's start with corn pudding.  But, just like with our green beans, we need to have plain corn as well.  We can't forget mashed potatoes and gravy, lots of gravy.  Mmmmm....  Lima beans.  We definitely need lima beans.  Sweet potato casserole, too.  Oh wait, we have to make two types because we have to have one without nuts.  We need an excuse to make that delicious pineapple casserole, too.

The rolls are probably the easiest part.  We just buy snowflake rolls and serve them warm.

Finally, what do we want for dessert?  Pecan pie, of course.  (I'm probably the only southern woman who will admit to not liking pecan pie!).  Ice cream.  Pumpkin pie. 

I don't know if you've kept count, but in addition to the turkey and ham, there were 16 dishes to prepare in the main course.  Only one of those can really be made ahead.  So, that is 15 dishes to prepare in one kitchen.  Everyone I know has a 4-burner stove, one oven and one microwave.  Even cooking multiple items in the oven at once, it is still very difficult to properly cook so many dishes at one time. 

So, for that reason, we ususally go out.
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Last year, we did something new.  I hope it will become our new family tradition.  Last Thanksgiving, our church hosted a thanksgiving dinner for the community.  Those who are without extended family or who just wanted to come were welcomed at our church.  The deacon body set the simple menu and church members prepared food in their own kitchens to share.  There weren't many from our community who came last year.  Just a handful.  A retired couple.  A small family.  If only one had come, it would have been worthwhile.  We all ate together as a large family.  The food was good, the fellowship was even better.  I hope we can do the same this year.