Thanksgiving produces happy thoughts of families gathered around the table eating, visiting together, and making memories. Unless you are the host. The hungry hordes are descending. What are you going to serve?
Lifestyle
Looking for Thanksgiving Menu Ideas? Look No Further.
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Traditional Thanksgiving Menu
Photo: Flickr/hildgrim
A traditional Thanksgiving menu starts with the bird. While most prefer the traditional roasted turkey, in recent years the succulent deep fried turkey has become quite popular as well. Following the bird comes the ham – spiral-sliced, glazed or not glazed, with or without pineapples. The choices are endless. An easy favorite is Crockpot Brown Sugar Pineapple Ham.
The sides come next. Do you prefer stuffing or dressing? Either way, recipes almost outnumber the cooks. Texas dressing has a base of cornbread, onion, celery and boiled eggs. If you want to get fancy, throw in dried cranberries, walnuts, prunes or water chestnuts. Most Texans keep it simple, though.
What’s Thanksgiving without green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and giblet gravy to pour over it all? In addition, you need the staples of candied yams and fruit salad. Finish it all off with cranberry sauce and piping hot yeast rolls dripping with butter.
Healthier Holiday Choices
Photo: Glenda Thompson
Today, many people pay more attention to what they eat in an attempt to keep their weight under control or for other health reasons. Some alternatives for a healthier holiday menu include Citrus Herb Roasted Turkey. Stuffings include quinoa stuffing, zucchini stuffing with mushrooms and garlic, or bulgur fruit stuffing.
Looking for some healthier sides? Try roasted pumpkin, sweet potato, and brown rice pilaf. Accompany it with Brussels sprouts and roasted grapes or maybe green beans with lemon and thyme. Roasted cauliflower mash can substitute for mashed potatoes and you can top it all off with mushroom garlic gravy.
Recipes for all of the above and other healthy treats can be found here.
Desserts, Desserts, and More Desserts
Photo: Wikimedia/Evan Amos
What is Thanksgiving dinner without a long line of desserts tempting you after the meal? Some eat dessert immediately after finishing the turkey. Others take a little nap first.
Thanksgiving wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie. Other great desserts include apple pie, pecan pie, peach cobbler, German chocolate cake, cherry pie, caramel pecan cheesecake pie and cherry topped cheesecake.
If you are looking for healthier desserts you might try pumpkin pie with a whole wheat crust, an apple crisp or maybe even red wine poached pears with marscapone.
