Auntie Beth knows the holidays can be polarizing, and it’s not just because of voting habits.
It’s the cranberry sauce.
There will never be peace between the warring factions of jarred vs. whole berry.
For the record, Auntie Beth likes them both.
Grandma Kathy’s is a whole-berry house.
Let’s start there and examine the Thanksgiving staples:
Whole-berry cranberry sauce FTW.Also polarizing: green bean casserole. Auntie Beth is a fan.Not a fan of gravy, though.Mashed potatoes with the secret ingredient: cream cheese. Not great for the waistline, but worth it.Mac and cheese with about 27 different kinds of cheese.Dressing (NOT stuffing as it didn’t go in the turkey).Keep the carb fest going with rolls.Roasted carrots with sage and brown butter.A little salad so folks can pretend to be healthy.THE MAIN EVENTPumpkin pies: Libby’s regular on the left, fresh on the right.
For this Thanksgiving, we also had some different choices:
Brie and fig jam puffsDeviled eggsWhatever these are (delicious)
What are some dishes you can’t live without for Thanksgiving? Tell us all in the comments.
My brother insists on cranberry sauce from a can. You open both ends and push it out so it maintains the can shape. I prefer Susan Stamberg’s mom’s recipe. (Susan was the original host of NPR’s All Things Considered.) It includes horseradish. A cranberry-orange relish is a nice change of pace.
Same brother doesn’t like pumpkin pie so I made fudge bottom pie to take to his house yesterday, apple to take to my son’s house today.
Your feast looks pretty extensive. I’ll take the brie and fig jam puffs, please!
I’m also a fan of pearl onions, either roasted with the turkey or served in a cream sauce; and green beans sauteed with slivered almonds.
A long time ago, the day before Thanksgiving, I was at the store buying stuff. It was after school. An Iranian friend was in the cranberry sauce aisle. She told me what to do and she was very adamant about it — and not wrong. Whole cranberry sauce mixed with orange marmalade. If you can’t trust an Iranian for a Thanksgiving recipe, who can you trust?
Observe and report 
My brother insists on cranberry sauce from a can. You open both ends and push it out so it maintains the can shape. I prefer Susan Stamberg’s mom’s recipe. (Susan was the original host of NPR’s All Things Considered.) It includes horseradish. A cranberry-orange relish is a nice change of pace.
Same brother doesn’t like pumpkin pie so I made fudge bottom pie to take to his house yesterday, apple to take to my son’s house today.
Your feast looks pretty extensive. I’ll take the brie and fig jam puffs, please!
I’m also a fan of pearl onions, either roasted with the turkey or served in a cream sauce; and green beans sauteed with slivered almonds.
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I’m not a massive fan of onions, but I’ll happily take the green beans with almonds.
If I’m having the canned sauce, it needs to have the canned shape. 😂
I’ll take both those pies, thank you.
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A long time ago, the day before Thanksgiving, I was at the store buying stuff. It was after school. An Iranian friend was in the cranberry sauce aisle. She told me what to do and she was very adamant about it — and not wrong. Whole cranberry sauce mixed with orange marmalade. If you can’t trust an Iranian for a Thanksgiving recipe, who can you trust?
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That sounds great! Most of the whole-berry recipes call for orange juice and a bit of peel, so that makes sense.
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