<p>Whatcha got planned? Cooking anything special, if so post it. C’mon share. Some of us really do live vicariously through some of you! :)</p>
<p>My son on the year abroad in France has asked for recipes! I think he wants to make a pumpkin pie. My college son will be home the day before and we’re visiting relatives in Boston for turkey day proper. </p>
<p>Question for savvy drivers between Connecticut and Boston: I know that the junction of I-84 and the Mass Pike is a huge backup on Thanksgiving morning. I have been there, done that, and dreading it. Taking 95 all the way is just too long and out of the way, right? What about going up 95 to New London and then up 395 to the Pike? Any ideas? We’re coming from Fairfield County.</p>
<p>My idea was to leave early … like 6 am and hit Massachusetts by 8 am. This suggestion was met with vocal objections.</p>
<p>I will have 22 people at my dinner table on Thanksgiving and then the next day at 2 p.m., my sister is being married in Ohio, a 4-hour drive. By Saturday, I’ll be ready to collapse and watch some football.</p>
<p>Of those 22, 7 are kids at my kids’ parttime college who can’t get to their respective homes for the holiday. I hope they have a fondness for sword-talk and dog hair.</p>
<p>We’re going up to parent’s house, as it is closer to D’s college. I’m so excited to see her! The whole tribe will gather - which doesn’t happen often. We’ll celebrate Thanksgiving and a birthday the day before and one the day after all at once. Cakes, pies, candles, presents, cranberries, all my children under one roof. I may explode from happiness!</p>
<p>We’re flying from VT, picking up son in IA and driving to WI for Thanksgiving with my parents. Looking forward to it!</p>
<p>cnp55: I’m in Fairfield County too. I vote for leaving at 6:00 AM. Tell the passengers they don’t get a vote. They can either get up at 5:45 AM and sit in the car for three hours, or get up at 7:45 AM and sit in the car for five hours. Hmmm. Which to choose . . . </p>
<p>Both S1 and S2 will be home, one from DC and one from NH. And so will both my H’s brothers. Who are in their 50s. And live together. And don’t work. And won’t leave when we’d like them to . . . </p>
<p>Sigh. Well, at least we’ve got the whole weekend with the kids.</p>
<p>Our daughter is coming home the Fri before, and we are flying out next morning at 6 am to Club Med. No cooking, no relatives, no football, no blackberry service, just sun, sand, blue water, and lots of pool drinks, YEAH… We reserve xmas for our lovely relatives.</p>
<p>^^I suggested the same thing to my H for Christmas and failed to get a positive response every year. We did go to Hawaii one Thanksgiving a couple of years back. This year we have to stay home so that DD can do her college applications.</p>
<p>My brother is getting married the day after Thanksgiving, so d arrives from NYC Tuesday night, we get up EARLY wed to drive three hours; then…</p>
<p>—host bridesmaids’ tea
—attend rehearsal (h and two sons are groomsmen and I am reading)
—attend rehearsal dinner</p>
<p>Thanksgiving is with ALL the extended family…the bride’s dad is cooking :eek:</p>
<p>Friday…wedding</p>
<p>Sat…d flies back to NYC and we all go home and collapse…</p>
<p>Fun time with family, though. We are excited. :)</p>
<p>I spent 10+ years with in-laws who said they didn’t like turkey. Then suddenly they did like it and wanted me to roast it. Nothing easier! But it’s also fun to have Thai, Chinese, Deli food or whatever. Being thankful is the main event.</p>
<p>i’m making apple crisp.</p>
<p>recipe:</p>
<p>prep time: 20 minutes
cook time: 1 hour
makes: 10 servings</p>
<p>needs:</p>
<p>5 cups red delicious apples
grated zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg</p>
<p>for the topping:</p>
<p>1 1/2 cups floud
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 pound cold unsalted butter, diced</p>
<p>preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. butter a 9 by 14 by 2 inch oval baking dish</p>
<p>peel, core, and cut the apples into large wedges. combine the apples with the zest, juice, sugar, and spices. pour into the dish.</p>
<p>to make the topping, combine the flour, sugars, salt, oatmeal, and cold butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. mix on low spead until the mixture is crumby and the butter is the size of peas. scatter evenly over the apples.</p>
<p>place the crisp on a sheet pan and bake for 1 hour until the top is brown and the apples are bubbly. serve warm.</p>
<p>it will more then likely be my parents and my sister and me and my grandparents. i’m not sure if my boyfriend will be there or not since he has things with his family to be doing.</p>
<p>The usual–staying home with H and kids. Oldest S stays at school in CA and will have dinner with local roommate. Menu?–Turkey, stuffing, cornish hens, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, green beans, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, etc., etc.</p>
<p>cnp55- Fairfield County here as well. Do you normally run 15 to 91 and pick up 84 in Hartford? I95 to 395 will work, it will add a bit of time, but it should be moving traffic at or about the speed limit. Another option is to pick up I 84 in Danbury area, and run it straight through, but that’s no picnic either with the killer stretch in Hartford from Sigourney to the I91 merge. Again, a bit more time, but a bit more scenic, and traffic should be moving around the speed limit until you hit that awful Hartford stretch.</p>
<p>We used to do the 3 am leave time (which varied between 2 & 4 am depending how quickly I could get the wife and kids into the car) when the kids were small and we pulled the 17 hour straight thru runs to Prince Edward Island and the Canadian Maritimes. We planned it so our vacations normally started mid-week, and I wanted to be in into New Hampshire or Maine by the morning rush hour. It does makes for a long day, particularly if you have a full scheduled planned on arrival. Never seemed to bother the wife or kids though… they were back to sleep a half hour out of the driveway.</p>
<p>atomom - for how many people are you cooking for? That sounds like a lot of food.</p>
<p>Just the d, s, wife and her mom and brother.</p>
<p>The wife hasn’t cooked a Thanksgiving turkey in the thirty years we’ve been married… it’s a normal workday for her (health care professional).</p>
<p>The first five years, we had dinner at her mom’s, but the last twenty-five, I’ve done it all. Whole bird, (I’d prefer just to do three breasts, but d likes the dark meat) usually about 24-28 pounds, 'tuffing, the creamed onions, from scratch cranberry sauce, potatoes normally mashed, but some years I’ll get creative; I leave the veggie suggestions to the kids or grandma and do two options. Wife will normally do cranberry and pumpkin bread the week-end before. Pies are frozen… I don’t bake.</p>
<p>Wife gets to come home every year to a fully prepared meal. My kids are no help other than for cleanup, and my d has worked also the last two years and is scheduled again for this year.</p>
<p>I usually make 3-4 pounds of turkey salad immediately after dinner, and there’s still plenty of leftovers for a meal for her family and ours.</p>
<p>It’s going to be an interesting Thanksgiving this year.</p>
<p>Around our house I put on Thanksgiving every year more or less single-handedly. Which earns me all sorts of praise for being a man who can pull off a decent Thanksgiving dinner alone. It’s a lot of work, but I find that you get a lot more credit for it than the actual effort and hassle would justify. This custom dates back to the very early years of our marriage when W always had to work on holidays, which left the big cooking to me. Since I’d already learned how to cook a turkey and everything else, there was no point in starting all over again with a new cook once she changed jobs. I try to improve it in some way each year, and in all modesty, I think I put on a fairly good Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>But this year is different. Except for providing one side dish, I’m not cooking. 16-year old D2 and her 18-year old (non) boyfriend (We’re just friends!) are proposing to cook Thanksgiving for both families in a combined dinner. I’m highly dubious of all this. But okay - whatever you say.</p>
<p>My big fear is that failure will rear its ugly head at some point and suddenly the project will be thrust back on me, and I’ll have to figure out how to throw it all together at the last minute when the stores have sold out of some key items. Like I said, it’s going to be interesting.</p>
<p>I’ve used the same cookbook, Silver Palate, for nearly 25 years. I don’t think I ever messed up a Thanksgiving dinner. It’s hard to ruin a turkey. They are tough bird!</p>
<p>At our house–Me, H, D and S, plus my mom, my sister, H’s sister, her boyfriend, and hopefully her 8 year old son, if custody arrangments are worked out for the day (aggh), plus, possibly some of my D’s coworker/friends who don’t have family nearby.</p>
<p>Dinner will be pretty traditional–turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (no marshmallows, but with apples), cranberry sauce, salad, what we call turnips but is really a mashed rutabaga , mom’s special broccoli dish, crescent rolls, and SIL’s bf’s pies.</p>
<p>My favorite cooking part is making turkey soup the next day!</p>
<p>We’ll be at the interesection of I 84 and the Mass Pike on Wednesday night. I don’t expect it to be much fun then either! Not sure what we’ll be doing foodwise yet. We’re going to the big reunion of my mother’s side of the family. It’s been at least 15 years since I’ve been.</p>
<p>Dinner is in our home with family. Menu will be Trurkey, gravy, stuffing, cranberry relish, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes (DS who is in college requested this), salad, and dessert. Oh, I am kicking off the dinner with cheese and crackers, served with warm spiced holiday wine.
Of course, we’ll serve other drinks for those who don’t care for the spiced wine.</p>