<p>All I ever do with sweet potatoes is either boil or bake them and then mash them with orange juice and a little butter (to taste depending on how healthy you want them.) It doesn’t get simpler than that!</p>
<p>Years ago, DH insisted we move to sweet potatoes simply baked and then a dash of salt added. I still remember the very day I realized how good they are without anything. We do add a teeny bit of butter to the skins, to crisp them.</p>
<p>I’m wondering if anyone has healthy suggestions from top sources- we like crudites, veggies, et al, and I am good at adapting. But, anything more complex that starts healthy, low sugar (oops, sorry) and low fat? </p>
<p>Btw, the spinach balls mentioned earlier, are very good. And, we’ve liked everything we tried from Rocco’s “healthy” cookbooks. We don’t have a health mandate here, we just enjoy the new options.</p>
<p>Reading all these recipes makes me kind of “dread” our Thanksgiving. It’s at my brothers house and honestly we have the SAME stuff every year. My niece who is in her 30’s kind of takes the lead for the meal (which I appreciate) by making the turkey and pies (SAME pies) and basically just assigns everyone the SAME dishes to bring. You can offer to bring something else and she will say “sure that’s fine but also don’t forget to bring the “same thing you are always told to bring” dish”. UGh.</p>
<p>And the meal is SO heavy. Stuffing. Mashed potatoes. Corn casserole. Sweet potatoes with the whole marshmellow and sugar thing - SOOOO sweet. Broccoli casserole -creamy and heavy. The saving grace is the fennel-wild rice dish my sister in law makes - a newer dish, and good, but still carb-filled. </p>
<p>I just wish we could work in a couple of not so creamy-carb filled-sweet-rich dishes.</p>
<p>I organize our Thanksgiving, and I do the same as your niece: I assign the traditional dishes and say that if anyone has anything they’d like to bring in addition, to do so. For one day of the year, most people want to eat the traditional foods, even if it’s not consistent with their regular diet. </p>
<p>It seems to me she’s offering you the chance to balance out the meal with what you want, so I hope you’ll take her up on your offer.</p>
<p>I think this holiday is a time when everyone seems to have that one dish they want to see on the table, and largely it’s for sentimental reasons, and one person’s carb heavy plate is another person’s holiday delight.</p>
<p>"I just wish we could work in a couple of not so creamy-carb filled-sweet-rich dishes. "</p>
<p>Why not throw in some oven roasted mixed root vegetables? Sweet potatoes, white potatoes, carrots, turnips tossed with a bit of olive oil salt and pepper,roasted in the oven and finished with fresh chopped herbs? Its a nice change and the roasting brings out the natural sweetness. So many great autumn veggies get the casserole treatment, when in reality the simpler the recipe, the better they taste.</p>
<p>abasket…I hear you. For years H and I were the family rebels who campaigned for some lighter dishes, more veggies, etc. However we were the minority and so our attempts were mostly in vain. We’ve long since surrendered and each year the buttery, creamy, heavy dishes are in full force on our table…heck we’re Italian and my brothers still insist on making lasagna too!! :eek: But hey, it’s once a year…and if they’re happy, I’m happy ;)</p>
<p>I was going to suggest roasting the potatoes as musicamusica suggests. Cut potatoes into chunks all around the same size. I use both sweet & white potatoes. Massage with some olive oil and a few spices altogether. I actually use my hand to do this once they’re in a roasting pan. Roast on a high temperature @450 degrees or so for about 20-30 minutes. Serve with a bit of fresh herbs on top and you’re done!</p>
<p>Add to musica’s mix some sliced celery root, apple (or quince) and fennel, and you’ve got an incredibly zesty, yummy and healthy side dish. I usually skip any heavy casseroles and make a simple feast:</p>
<p>turkey
cranberry relish of some sort
gravy
mashed potatoes
sweet potatoes (boiled in skins, peeled, chopped and tossed with a bit of butter andbrown sugar in a pan)
green (usually spinach) salad
roasted root veggies
some sort of stuffing (this year I’m making the NY Times version).</p>
<p>Makes my cooking efforts so much easier.</p>
<p>sDoncc:</p>
<p>My outlook is the total opposite of yours! 
I enjoy seeing a Turkey each year, but I love when we all experiment with new dishes that no one has ever made before!
It does get boring making and serving the same things each year. I think half the fun is looking up new recipes to try and seeing if people like them or not!</p>
<p>My bummer is that we have nut allergies and dairy lactose intolerant family members and that takes the fun out of it sometimes, since there are so many holiday recipes that calls for nuts and/or dairy!</p>
<p>lje62,</p>
<p>The William Shatner cautionary video on deep-frying turkey is absolutely hilarious, and sobering. Thanks for sharing that one. </p>
<p>Pizzagirl,</p>
<p>Personally, I like simple recipes, not too many ingredients. I think the best way to do great sweet potatoes is to go to a market with very good produce and buy some of the garnet organic yams. They are really pretty, a deep orange. Just bake them nice and slow and long. Then cool a bit, slip them out of their skins and mash with a bit of butter, a touch of cinnamon and just a little brown sugar (or even better – turbinado sugar). Put some tinfoil over to keep warm, maybe nuke briefly in the microwave to warm up a bit for serving.</p>
<p>If i were hosting my own dinner party, it would be entirely different. In fact, one of the reasons I wish I didn’t host was so that I could make more of the things I"d like to make and try, instead of the Turkey and stuffing. I actually make alot more than I should because there are so many things I want to try. I"m not really finding that anyone in our family is bringing extra foods even though I give them that option.</p>
<p>We moved recently and are a very long ways from extended family. Are staying put. Neighbors invited us to Thanksgiving at their shore house but we politely declined. Finally got the dining room “done” and my mom’s 70-year-old china unpacked and we are looking forward to a thanksgiving with just ourselves, although son may or may not bring a “friend”. My menu this year --</p>
<p>smoked alaskan king salmon appetizer (thank you to my old college friend in Kodiak)
Free range turkey from Griggstown, NJ (they are very good)
Crock pot mashed potatoes and musicamusica’s gravy
green peas (frozen and just nuked in the microwave with a bit of butter)
cornbread stuffing (stouffer’s)
my homemade french rolls from Craig Claiborne – will make this weekend and freeze
sliced carrots and celery and radishes and olives (weird but a tradition)
Oceanspray cranberry sauce from the can (what can I say? we like it)
pumpkin pie and whip cream (going to try the vodka crust and a real pumpkin this year)</p>
<p>Planning to make the rolls Sunday, pie and the gravy Wednesday, mashed potatoes in the morning.</p>
<p>I shouldn’t be complaining - I mean, there would be a lot of yellin if there were no mashed potatoes on the table!!! But there are also some of those “always on the table” foods - the corn casserole and the cherry coke jello (double ugh) that seem hardly touched when the meal is finished. But it’s TRADITION so they get made!</p>
<p>The roasted vegetables does sound good. You know what sounds good? Beets. And they would add beautiful color to the table - anyone have a good recipe for beets??? A good way to roast or crockpot them???</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s just that it’s tradition: I think the person who makes it doesn’t realize that people don’t like it… I tried to switch the person who made some of our traditional foods because I didn’t like her recipes. Didn’t work…</p>
<p>lol, my dear mom who is a wonderful cook would make the lime jello/cream cheeze/mandarin orange thing every year. And you know what? My idiot dad and brothers would just inhale it! Gags me to think about it. </p>
<p>The cherry coke jello sounds kind of adorable, actually.</p>
<p>Im trying to think what I can bring on the train to take to my D’s for the holiday.</p>
<p>Im thinking of making some sort of brittle or bark or maybe spiced nuts.</p>
<p>[Be</a> skilled or be killed - Beets!](<a href=“http://beskilledorbekilled.■■■■■■■■■■/post/196770116/beets]Be”>http://beskilledorbekilled.■■■■■■■■■■/post/196770116/beets)
this golden beet salad is really good
or with red beets.</p>
<p>[PCC</a> Marinated Beets | PCC Natural Markets](<a href=“Recipes | PCC Community Markets”>PCC Marinated Beets recipe | PCC Community Markets)</p>
<p>abasket, how is it a problem that it’s the same pies every year? You can tweak pumpkin a bit, but it’s basically pumpkin pie…and how can it be Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie? Pecan pie is pecan pie, with the option to add chocolate or not. I suppose you can get creative with the apple pie because there are more recipes than there are days in a life, but everyone loves the one that we serve. Then you can add one new designated hitter pie that can be swapped around, but then everyone ends up falling in love with that specific pie, to the point that you end up making two of the same pie because it’s so popular. </p>
<p>For the canned jellied cranberry sauce devotees, [My</a> Father?s Cranberry Sauce Recipe | The Daily Meal](<a href=“Daily Meal | Cooking Tips, Restaurants, Food Reviews, Recipes”>http://www.thedailymeal.com/my-father-s-cranberry-sauce-recipe) is the platonic ideal of jellied cranberry sauce. The berries get cooked with a spice sachet which is what ramps up the flavor over the canned stuff. Unfortunately, pushing the cooked berries through a strainer to get that jellied consistency is tedious and slightly time-consuming, but definitely worth it. This recipe makes a huge amount, and could probably be halved.</p>
<p>I always thought I didn’t like sweet potatoes. My family always made the yams from the can with the marshmellows on top. It was only last year I read on CC about baking them plain. My family loves them just baked in the oven. I eat my plain, D and H put a small amount of butter on them. They are sweet without any added sweetener.
I assigned family members dishes but not told them specifically how they have to make it. I figure if I am not making it I don’t have much say in what recipe is used.</p>
<p>Lots of helpful Thanksgiving info:</p>
<p>[Thanksgiving</a> Recipes, Menus, Drinks, and How-to Videos Thanksgiving at Epicurious.com](<a href=“Our Best Thanksgiving Recipes, Menus, and Tips for 2022 | Epicurious”>Our Best Thanksgiving Recipes, Menus, and Tips for 2022 | Epicurious)</p>
<p>Someone just PM’d me re my gravy stock. I said it could be used “on its own”. RESET.
What I meant is that you could use it on its own without the next days roast turkey drippings. But you still need to mix it into some sort of roux. I just mix it into melted butter and flour. I like to make LOTS of gravy. My families favorite after T-give day meal is Turkey Pot pie (made with the gravy).
Last night I bought a small 10 lb frozen bird (on sale for .59 per lb!!) and I will probably defrost and cut up to use this guy for the wonder stock. (After removing the breast to roast with the main attraction, because you never seem to have enough breast meat on the big day.)</p>