Thanksgiving Recipe Swap

Cooking for other people is one of my favorite activities; it makes me genuinely happy. Living alone gives few occasions to do it, so Thanksgiving prep is even more enjoyable.

It’s also an occasion to enjoy my family’s traditions despite the broken family I’m left with. One of the good things my mother did for me was teaching me basic cooking and home economics from an early age (I loved it; I’m domestic). She was a good basic home cook; nothing that would be considered “fancy” today, but everything, though simple, was tasty and cooked well.

Our family won’t be able to have a normal holiday with all the generations ever again. The children don’t speak to our mother, and my brother doesn’t like me, and probably doesn’t like my sister, because we’re not Covidians and now we’re conservatives.

Nevertheless, I enjoy the comfort of serving the same dishes, made the same way my mother made them.

But I also enjoy occasionally adding a new dish to the rotation that I’ve learned from someone else’s traditional Thanksgiving table. So, let’s have a recipe swap. I’ll put down what I’m making, with directions as needed. Your job, reader, is leave a comment with one of your traditional dishes.

Let’s go!

A note on recipes-I share recipes the old-fashioned way, as cookbooks did before the late 20th century. You won’t find exact measurements in every one of the recipes; I assume a basic competence as cookbooks used to do. If you have only ever seen modern cookbooks that baby-walk you through what it means to ‘cream’ butter and sugar, or that give you measurements of salt (for God’s sake, you salt to taste), you may find this to be a lot of ‘adulting’ you weren’t looking for. You can do it all on your own!

The Menu

Turkey with traditional bread stuffing
Scalloped corn
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Green bean casserole (or maybe sauteed brussels sprouts with olive oil and lemon)
Biscuits or Parker House Rolls, depending on my ambition that day
Cranberry sauce
Apple pie

Most of the rest of this article is for paid subscribers (thank you, and happy Thanksgiving!), but Imma give everyone one freebie. Say, “Thank you, Mommie Dearest!”

Scalloped Corn

Ingredients (you can scale this up or down):

-Three cans creamed corn
-4 eggs (rule: one for each can of corn plus one egg for the dish)
-Half and half
- At least one sleeve of saltine crackers
-Diced onion
-Salt and pepper to taste
-Paprika to garnish

Beat the eggs together with about a half-cup of half-and-half, adding salt. Mix well with creamed corn. Stir in diced onion. Crush half the sleeve of saltines and stir in. Pour into baking dish and top with the remaining crushed crackers. Dot top liberally with butter, garnish with paprika. Bake in a moderate oven until done (knife in the center comes out clean, top is golden brown).