Easy Recipes for Thanksgiving or Christmas Family Gatherings!

I'm determined not to kill myself cooking this year's Thanksgiving meal. Yeah, right. I say that every year and every year I cook 'til I drop. After the meal, I tiptoe back in my room, enjoying the noise of the boys and their dad as they watch games, and eat, and watch games and eat.

I turn on the Lifetime channel, and overdose on chick flicks, occasionally shedding a private tear here and there at the passage of time and sweet memories. We've had times of plenty and times of skimpy, but always time for a huge Thanksgiving meal.

I love the history of family foods, and we are habitually naming our favorite dishes crazy names. I thought I'd share with you Our Thanksgiving Family Table, and would love to inspire you to share yours either in a hub, or in comments below!

Our table always contains the traditional mouthwatering dishes, and as many side dishes and desserts as can be scattered, stacked, and tucked around every surface in the kitchen and dining room. Meals were showtime, baby! If you liked it, you cooked; and if you could bring it, please do!

My parents worked in the space program, so I grew up in New Mexico, about 10 hours away from the generations of talented and chubby cooks my family was famous for! Whenever we could, we'd eagerly drive the 10 hours it would take to come back to our roots in Oklahoma just to enjoy the feasts. It was worth the drive, anticipation making every mile tantilizing torture.

If I had known then how much those times would mean to me, I'd have canned them.

Some of my favorite Thanksgiving dishes are:

• Aunt Gussie's Blueberry Cornmeal Griddle Cakes (no flour, just cornmeal and you can't eat just one!)
• Aunt Lady's Green Beans, meaning Italian green beans cooked with grated onion and crisp bacon complete WITH all the drippings
• My mother, Snook's Moist Cornbread Dressing (no large pieces of onion or celery, not baked hard, but left moist and coarse, 3 parts freshly baked cornbread, 1 part dry white bread, crumbled) - See below.
• Lynn's Slow-Cooked-Not-For-The-Dog- Best Rubbed-Brisket (it was one time stolen by a dog and has forever since been named, thus)
• Marisue's Sneaky Rice (includes broccoli chopped so fine you can hardly see it, otherwise Lynn won't eat it)
• Grandma's Tender Turkey (18 - 22 lb Turkey, baked 3 hours, at 300 degrees, covered in Foil, never basted, with a whole onion stuck in the Turkey's cavity, seasoned with chicken broth boiled the night before)
• Lee's (also my mother, different nickname) Flaky Cinnamon Butter Apple Pie
• Aunt Cally's Peach Brandy Apricot Cobbler - (or Butter Rum?)
• Aunt Lady and Marisue's Surprise Pumpkin Bread (we changed it over the years to include a secret ingredient)
• Uncle Finley's OH NO, HONEY, Plain Baked Ham (he said "Why ruin my sweet corn fed hog's butt with honey?")
• Marisue's The Night Before (Christmas or Thanksgiving) Anything Turnovers (sometimes crabmeat, shrimp, chicken, or ground beef) - See Below
• Mama's (in this case, "Marisue") Everything in the Blender Dip - See Below

There are many more. Every year, the menu grew with someone else's favorite dish, causing us to lie often about our sampling...."Oh yes, I ate some, it was so good, I'm going to eat more in a minute!" There was no way you could take a bite of everything, so you lied your way out of it...sooner or later, you'd make room... promising yourself to nibble all during the day.

Do you have memories of food that makes your mouth water? Add your own creations to your Thanksgiving, and may you and yours be safe, and well, and together.

I hope you enjoy the recipes below and the stories that go with them. Though long gone, I hear my aunts in the kitchen as I type.

Marisue's The Night Before Anything Turnovers

This got it's name because the night before a big meal is always hectic and I'm looking for something simple and deliciously memorable! The test is, it must make the request list. If no one asked for it next year, well, it flunks.

Now, to keep this simple, I suggest using store bought refrigerated pie crust in the biscuit section of your grocery store. However, if you make your own crust, here's a simple method.

Easy Pie Crust:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/3 c shortening
• 1/3 c unsalted butter (not margarine)
• 5 tbsp cold water (keep ice filled bowl nearby)

Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add shortening and butter and begin to cut with a pastry blender until mixture is coarse. Sprinkle with the ice water one tablespoon at a time, tossing with a fork until the mixture begins to cling together and "follows" the fork around the bowl.

Roll out the dough to about 1/8 inch thickness on a floured surface. OR, purchase the popular ready made dough as suggested. As much as I love my aunts' pie crusts, today's ready made pastry dough is hard to beat and fool proof. If you handle the pie dough too much, it toughens, if you don't keep the butter and water cold enough, it's not flaky.

Now, cut pastry rounds to about 3 1/4 inch size, or use a large sized drinking glass as your pressing tool. Just dip the rim in flour and cut your circles. You will need them to be big enough to fold over and stuff, without loosing your stuffing out the sides.

Crabmeat Turnover Stuffing (or, anything!)

• 1 tbsp margarine or butter
• 2 tsp (or less) of minced garlic, to taste
• 1/4 c finely chopped onion, green onions are good too, or even chives, but alter the amount to 2 tsp
• 1 can crabmeat, drained and flaked and chopped fine, OR, shrimp, boiled and chopped, OR, chunked crabmeat from the deli, pre-cooked, of course
• 1 plum tomato, chopped AND peeled, if you want extra delicate flavor
• 2 tbsp chopped stuffed olives
• 2 tsp finely chopped fresh parsley, or 2 tsp dried, but fresh is better
• dash of Worcestershire sauce
• Dash of cayenne pepper
• dash salt
• If crab mixture looks too dry, add cream cheese, a tsp at a time.  (Remember:  cooking is learning as you go!)

In skillet, melt butter, add garlic, onion, and saute until tender. Add all other ingredients. Stir. Spoon a generous teaspoonful of the crabmeat filling onto the middle of each pastry round. Dampen edge of pastry with water and fold in half, pressing the edge together with a fork to seal. Prick tops with a fork, arrange on a cookie sheet, brush tops with melted butter and bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm.

Remember, this is supposed to be simple, so add easy sides such as fresh asparagus or a green salad.

Everyone has a favorite dressing recipe, but my mother finally stuck to what was proven time after time to be the best. The more we "messed" with it, such as adding cream of chicken soup, mushrooms, sausage, well, the more we wished we hadn't. For our family, keeping it simple got rave reviews, even from the kids! Just let it be the compliment to the bird that it was meant to be.

Over the years, we discovered that the dressing really depended on moist and delicious cornbread. Also, kids would dive in, when the onions and celery were almost invisible in the final product, so keep the chop size to "fine."

Make the best cornbread recipe you can find, it needs to be moist! Try a buttermilk recipe for extra moist cornbread dressing, it really does make a difference, as does using bacon drippings for your "oil" in the baking pan of the cornbread!

• Your favorite, best-baked cornbread, crumbled into a 9 x 13 inch baking pan
• 8 slices of dry white bread, or wheat, hand crumbled fine
• Season to taste with poultry seasoning, start with 1 tsp, you'll soon discover your nose, knows!
• 1/2 tsp sage, go easy!! Too much sage makes the dressing bitter!
• 1/2 tsp cracked or coarsely ground black pepper
• 3 stalks celery, chopped small, to 1 - 2 cups (your taste) tough ends removed
• 1 large onion, finely chopped to 2 cups,
• 1 large green bell pepper, chopped fine
• 1 1/2 sticks butter, unsalted
• 4 cups chicken stock, fresh, or canned
• 1 cup fresh turkey pan drippings, or canned
• 2 large eggs, or 3 medium eggs, beaten slightly

Procedure:

1. Saute onion and celery in butter until tender, not brown!
2. Add to dry bread mixture, and add seasonings. Use your nose to guide you. The spices should be distince, but not overwhelming. You can always add more, but you can't take it away, so "sprinkle!"
3. When you think it's properly seasoned, add your liquids and mix well.
4. Bake in a 375 degree oven.
5. After about 20 minutes into the baking, rake through the dressing with a fork, pulling the dressing away from the sides and into the middle. If we did not do this, we found that the edge of the dressing got too hard, and no one ate the sides, anyway, but, if you like a more crusty dressing, just let it bake.
6. Sneak a taste, the eggs will have cooked enough and the seasonings will have begun to release their flavor. If you need more, add a tiny pinch at a time, but remember with dressing, LESS IS MORE. Too much sage gives your guests heartburn and can even have the side effect of upset stomachs! If the dressing is drying out during baking, add a little chicken stock and rake it through the dressing, so it doesn't sit on top. Bake for about 30 - 45 minutes. Most people over cook their dressing. Remember, it will continue to cook for awhile after it's removed from the oven, and it will dry out as it sits.

Keep your guests and young ones involved. Treasured memories will result, even when there are cooking mishaps.

No one was excluded from the kitchen during cooking, except those who didn't follow the rule of "grab a spoon and come here." Strong hands held heavy batter bowls, helped with hot platters taken from steaming ovens, young hands dried the dishes, measured ingredients, kneaded dough, and put spices away only to get them out again and again. Men came in to stir fudge, make their own specialty, and take out the ever full trash can. Mainly, they just came in to ask for the 100th time "Is it ready yet?"

I'll add the other recipes to other story filled hubs, coming up before the Holidays, so stay tuned for more!

As a tickler, here's a great vegetable dip for those game hours:

Blender Everything Dip

• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 generous dash Worchestershire sauce
• 1 dash Tabasco sauce
• 1/3 c green olives
• 1 green bell pepper, chunked
• 1 onion, chunked
• 1 stalk of celery, chopped in large  chunks
• 1 tsp salt, or seasoned salt
• 1 pinch of paprika
• 16 oz cream cheese, sofened and chunked

Place all vegetables and seasonings added last, into blender. Cover and blend on high until vegetables are chopped to a fine texture.  Add cream cheese, a few chunks at a time, until mixture is smooth.  Remove blades and scrape into container, chill.  Serve with chips, crackers, or veggies.  Also very good with crabmeat turnovers above!