Celebrating a Western Canadian Thanksgiving

[jamiemaw]

Ouch. I can feel the pain already. Friday, a smallish family celebration for eight--turkey, stuffing and the usual accesories. Saturday, baked ham and scalloped potatoes at our neighbours. Sunday, dinner for 16 with friends--more turkey.

What are your plans and what will you serve?

[Vancouver Lee]

Ouch. I can feel the pain already. Friday, a smallish family celebration for eight--turkey, stuffing and the usual accesories. Saturday, baked ham and scalloped potatoes at our neighbours. Sunday, dinner for 16 with friends--more turkey.

What are your plans and what will you serve?

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Thanksgiving dinner is one of our favourite meals of the year. For us, a Western Canadian thanksgiving means one without any extended family to share it with, so we've invited some good friends to join us for dinner.

Thanksgiving dinner for us is a traditional turkey with sourdough stuffing and an apple cider-and-thyme gravy accompanied by an old family recipe for mashed potatoes (you whip the potatoes with sour cream, goat cheese and milk, top them with fresh shaved reggiano parm then bake). Sides include homemade cranberry sauce, fresh and hot blueberry muffins, steamed green beans and cider-glazed carrots. Dessert is the usual pumpkin pie, assuming there is room.

[SBonner]

We are doing dinner (actualy late lunch) for 10. Turkey for sure along with maple glazed sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, tarragon-sugar baby carrots, and Yorkshire pudding as well as several bottles of Pinot Noir, sparkling shiraz, and a bottle of Aussi sticky to finish off an old school sticky toffee pudding with Devon cream.

My mum will most likely start off dinner with a hearty bowl of tomato soup and regail us with stories of surviving the blizt, putting us through public school, and how lucky we are compared to her generation.

Something to be thankful for.........

Cheers,

Stephen

[Ling]

Our Thanksgivings are a hodge-podge of traditional western dishes, and Chinese dishes. I usually do the western dishes and the desserts, and my mom does the Chinese dishes. My dad is in charge of the turkey and the gravy.

This is what I typically cook:

-this sourdough, artichoke, and sausage stuffing (the recipe I use is on Epicurious, but I use like three times the amount of sausage it calls for. Plus I dump in a whole bunch of cheese...it bakes up in a gooey, porky mess but it's so delicious. This is always the most popular side dish.)

-creamed spinach

-some sort of potato dish (gratin or mashed with lots of butter, sour cream, and chives)

-cornbread...I confess I like the Yankee cornbread more, so yes, I do the version with the sugar in a cast iron skillet

-a selection of desserts, but cheesecake is always something I do on Thanksgiving. I've done the Cappucino Fudge cheesecake on Epicurious before, and sometimes I do a caramel one.

-at least 2 more of the following: classics like apple pie, pecan pie, lemon tarts, and I did a chocolate, chestnut, cognac mousse cake a few years back. I've done sticky toffee pudding several times too.

-sometimes I do a cookie tray too, with the same stuff that I do at Christmas--gingerbread, shortbread, and a few other new recipes that catch my eye

-this year I'm adding some sort of cheese/bacon biscuit, profiteroles (Pichet Ong's recipe) stuffed with smoked salmon and cream cheese

We only have one oven so I do everything on the days before Thanksgiving, and reheat the day of the dinner. The cheesecake is done 4 days in advance, and the pies and cakes are baked 1 day in advance.

My mom does a bunch of traditional Chinese dishes, like the Buddhist feast, braised shiitake and greens, these little egg crepes filled with minced, seasoned beef/pork, prawns, a bunch of Chinese vegetable dishes that only the adults eat, and some sort of Chinese soup (my favourite is fish maw!)

And then after dinner, we usually pig out on chocolate and alcohol.

ETA: I forgot, I also do a plain cake (usually chiffon) for the old Chinese people who don't like desserts that contain chocolate, or are too rich.

Edited October 2, 2005 by Ling (log)

[Ling]

Sides include homemade cranberry sauce, fresh and hot blueberry muffins, steamed green beans and cider-glazed carrots.  Dessert is the usual pumpkin pie, assuming there is room.

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Are the muffins served with the main course, or after dinner as a dessert?

[Foodie in Vancouver]

Nels and I traditionally run away from the family at Thanksgiving. This year we will be enjoying a meal at Fresco in Kelowna. And picking up more wine - in case the cellar runs low.

[Andrew Morrison]

Staff meal and Stella.

[Matt R.]

For the last few years, basically since we've had children, my mother-in-law drives here from Nelson and brings some interesting fowl for me to cook. We've had goose and duck and turkey, all of which come from a Doukhoubour farm near her place, or someone down the road from her house with a few birds for sale. Always excellent!

Since she is a better cook than me it's always a good time for eating in my house, when she's here. Last year's pumpkin chiffon cheesecake was memorable. I wonder what she will bring this year?

I will undoubtedly be posting photos.

-- Matt.

[Zucchini Mama]

My in laws are quite traditional, and serve up a lovely Thanksgiving feast for about twenty of us. The turkey is always cooked in the BBQ and served with a fantastic Riesling. My MIL makes brussel sprouts, mashed squash, and roast potatoes. There is never enough stuffing! She makes a wonderful uncooked cranberry-orange relish. I usually make a pumpkin cheesecake with pumpkinseed brittle on top. Besides all this, we usually start with bubbly and end with some form of dessert wine, so you know where I get my love of alcohol from! ( I married into a good wine cellar--single eGullet grrrls take note!)

Vancouver Lee, I'd love the recipe for your gravy--sounds delicious! Maybe we'll make that for our Rocky Mountain Christmas.

Yes, everyone post photos please. Thanksgiving food porn is the best!

Zuke

[Vancouver Lee]

Sides include homemade cranberry sauce, fresh and hot blueberry muffins, steamed green beans and cider-glazed carrots.  Dessert is the usual pumpkin pie, assuming there is room.

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Are the muffins served with the main course, or after dinner as a dessert?

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With the main course. They rarely last until dessert.

[Vancouver Lee]

Vancouver Lee, I'd love the recipe for your gravy--sounds delicious! Maybe we'll make that for our Rocky Mountain Christmas.

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It's right out of Fine Cooking's November 1998 issue, and is available online.. I don't usually like gravy, but this stuff I love - it rocks. We cook our turkey as per this recipe, too, and it's terrific.

Edited October 2, 2005 by Vancouver Lee (log)

[Brenda]

We do turkey with all the trimmings:

Sherry gravy, cranberry sauce with orange zest, sausage apple stuffing, sour cream mashed potatoes, steamed green beans and, this year, mashed sweet potato with cilantro and chipotle (a new recipe).

There will be viognier or gewurtztraminer to share and pumpkin and apple pies to finish, of course.

Usually, we start with old fashioned tomato juice and a crudite platter with olives, followed by shrimp cocktail (how 50's) or cheddar soup. But this year, my father is rather frail, so we cut down on the courses. I'm getting hungry here...

We do it on the Sunday so Monday allows for turkey sandwiches and "Turkey Curry Surprise."

[Pam R]

Since Thanksgiving falls right after Rosh Hashana and just before Yom Kippur I think my family will probably go out for Chinese food. Isn't that a Western Canadian Thanksgiving tradition?

[Jamie B]

I usually eat with my surrogate family at Chianti's. Although I normally don't eat there, the staff invites me to a pot luck dinner that is made in the restaurant. Essentially everyone tells the G.M. what they want to cook, and she makes sure that it is in house, and then everyone crowds into the kitchen and cooks arounds the cooks during service. When the restaurant closes down we all eat. Candied pureed yams are always on the "menu" and I look forward to them every year, but the neat thing is that because of the number of people/cultures, I always get to taste a bit of someone elses version of "Thanksgiving".

They relegate me to the gravy station everytime....

[Badiane]

It's all about tradition at our family thanksgiving. This year my siblings and I are giving thanks for the fact that we still have both our parents, relatively intact and unscathed after a hard year of health issues.

We are gathering at Mom and Dad's, and it's been the same dinner for as long as my memory stretches back. We once tried to talk Mom into just doing turkey breast, because it's easier. She's still mad at my BIL over that one, especially after he offered to buy them. Three years and she's still giving him the hairy eyeball. No one holds a grudge like a grandma who thinks her kids are trying to take over her kitchen.

It will be, as it always has been, Turkey, herbed bread stuffing, mashed spuds, gravy, fresh cranberry sauce, Jello salad (orange, with carrots and pineapple) squash with butter and brown sugar, corn, peas and carrots, brussel sprouts with cheese sauce and buns. Dessert will be Pumpkin Pie...made by Mom and slightly burned on one side because the oven is hotter at the back and she forgets to rotate - and a pineapple square that I'm pretty sure is just tinned pineapple and whipped cream on a graham wafer crust.

Family holidays at Mom and Dad's are not a time to experiment. You want to serve squash soup and pumpkin flan, you better do it in your own home on some other day. Wouldn't have it any other way.

[Vancouver Lee]

Family holidays at Mom and Dad's are not a time to experiment.  You want to serve squash soup and pumpkin flan, you better do it in your own home on some other day.  Wouldn't have it any other way.

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I completely agree. Dinner at my Mom's place for Thanksgiving (any holiday, actually) is the same now as it was 20 years ago. Nothing fancy, but good solid home cooking that nourishes the spirit as much as it nourishes your body.

[Marlene]

My husband is from Saskatchewan, does that count for me to make this a Western forum post? We will take the RV up to my brother's this year for Thanksgiving and park it on their rather large lot. Friday night is a roast pork on the BBQ. Sat, we haven't decided yet and sunday will be our Thanksgiving dinner. We'll do a boneless prime rib on the BBQ and I'm going to do Turkey a la Brooks in the oven. I'll make cranberry sauce this week (never done that before) and we'll have mashed potatoes, glazed carrots done in the slow cooker and I'll make a rustic apple tart for dessert. Much wine and specialty coffees afterwards will be a main part of the festiviites.

We don't usually do much to celebrate Thanksgiving, but this year, we've got a lot to be thankful for.

[Brenda]

"Jello salad (orange, with carrots and pineapple)."

I'll never forget the Thanksgiving that my Mum, who was in the kitchen getting the desserts ready, said plaintively "Oh, I forgot to serve the jellied salad!"

A great cheer went up from her (grown) children. Luckily, she has a sense of humour and laughed and laughed.

And jellied salad has not made an appearance since then

Edited October 3, 2005 by Brenda (log)

[jamiemaw]

"Jello salad (orange, with carrots and pineapple)."

I'll never forget the Thanksgiving that my Mum, who was in the kitchen getting the desserts ready, said plaintively "Oh, I forgot to serve the jellied salad!"

A great cheer went up from her (grown) children. Luckily, she has a sense of humour and laughed and laughed.

And jellied salad has not made an appearance since then

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I dunno. Aspic's making a comeback.

Edited October 3, 2005 by jamiemaw (log)

[bigdaddy]

The vedder river that runs in front of my house is chock-full of fresh salmon after the heavy rains earlier this week. We'll be eating a coho that I catch cause that "hunter-gatherer" thing seems so appropriate for Thanksgiving. Gotta have it with a big steaming bowl of heavy cream/butter/truffled mashed potatoes to counteract out all those healthy omega oils. And lotsa nice wine...maybe will have my first taste of the 04 Alibi...spend the rest of the evening with something red by the Glaetzers. (life is really tough...)

[baconburner]

"Jello salad (orange, with carrots and pineapple)."

I'll never forget the Thanksgiving that my Mum, who was in the kitchen getting the desserts ready, said plaintively "Oh, I forgot to serve the jellied salad!"

A great cheer went up from her (grown) children. Luckily, she has a sense of humour and laughed and laughed.

And jellied salad has not made an appearance since then

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Brenda

I can't resist a good pun. Are you sure that wasn't from her groan children?

Cheers

Baconburner

[Bubbalicious]

One year I was living in a large house in Whistler with six others. We had all moved in in October of that year and didn't know eachother at all so didn't really have much of a Thanksgiving. One of our roommates was American and we decided to throw him an American Thanksgiving. We extended the table, I borrowed some linen from work, and we scrounged the house for chairs and 25 of us sat down for dinner. Five courses. I cooked for three days and shopped for two. One of my favorite photoes of my time in Whistler is me stuffing the 23 pound bird. My roommates pointed that I had a 'double-chin-of-concentration'.

Out of all the dishes that we had on the table for the main course, the one that everyone loved the most was the dish that our non-cooking American roommate had us prepare. He got the recipe from his mom. We were all pretty skeptical as we assembled his side dish, but it turned out to be amazing, especially with the turkey. It involved canned pineapple and marshmallows. Baked. I think it may have even had some evaporated milk as well. None was left at then end.

I had completely forgoten about this. Gonna email him and get his mom to email me the recipe. Yum.

[Badiane]

The vedder river that runs in front of my house is chock-full of fresh salmon after the heavy rains earlier this week. We'll be eating a coho that I catch cause that "hunter-gatherer" thing seems so appropriate for Thanksgiving.

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Did you already catch one or are you just hoping you will get lucky? Been down there all bleedin' weekend and nary a bite....so good luck to you

As for the jello salad, I don't think anyone but mom and I actually eat it...but it's a nostalgia thing and you have to have it on the plate...unless you forget it in the fridge, like we almost always do Forgetting the jello salad gets almost as many laughs as the time my mom served mincemeat with rum sauce instead of her Christmas pudding. She's still ticked at us all for eating it without saying a word - she would have put it back in the jar and used it for a pie the next year!

[Brenda]

"Jello salad (orange, with carrots and pineapple)."

I'll never forget the Thanksgiving that my Mum, who was in the kitchen getting the desserts ready, said plaintively "Oh, I forgot to serve the jellied salad!"

A great cheer went up from her (grown) children. Luckily, she has a sense of humour and laughed and laughed.

And jellied salad has not made an appearance since then

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Brenda

I can't resist a good pun. Are you sure that wasn't from her groan children?

Cheers

Baconburner

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Ha!

[bigdaddy]

Did you already catch one or are you just hoping you will get lucky? 

...got one (now frozen) already, so I'm covered if my luck runs out...