Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Turkey Day preparations...

Today we are making homemade fudge, as well as a 7-layer salad as our contributions to the family Thanksgiving dinner. John will be working as he does every Thanksgiving- a small price for having Christmas Eve and Day off. We will have our own little turkey dinner here at home on Sunday for him. And for us. You can't have too much turkey! And I do make a yummy one, if I do say so myself.

On our own menu, our usual list of favorites....

...turkey
...sage stuffing (aka, "turkey butt stuffing", something I named it as a kid and refused to eat it because I really thought it came from the turkey's butt)
... cranberry sauce
...mashed potatoes
...sweet potatoes with cranberries
...green bean casserole
...7-layer salad (yep, another one. It's my dh's favorite, so we need one for him.)
...rolls
...pecan pie
...pumpkin pie

Enjoy your holiday! Yum!

4 comments:

Allison said...

I enjoyed reading your blog! What's in the 7 layer salad....sounds interesting!

mel said...

Ah yes, 7 layer salad is in keeping with the American holiday tradition of taking otherwise healthy foods and drowning them with unhealthy ones. :) This is so unhealthy that I'm embarrased to type it. But hey, it's Thanksgiving. I only make it a couple of times a year.

There's variations using different vegetables, but ours layers 6 cups of salad greens (I just get the premixed bags of salad), 1 cup of sliced celery, 1 cup of sliced radishes, and 1/2 cup of sliced green onions. Feel free to make substitutions for any veggies you don't like, but lots of color is pretty in a glass bowl.

Here comes the fattening stuff. You sprinkle on 12 slices of cooked and crumbled bacon on the top, and then spread a 10oz bag of thawed and drained frozen peas over that. Then you spread 1 1/2 cups of Miracle Whip over the top, kind of making a seal over all the veggies and bacon. You can also use mayonnaise. I don't care for Miracle Whip, but it is good on this. Then you sprinkle 1/2 cup of cheese over the top of the whole thing. I like parmesan best, though I've seen cheddar used too and it was good. Wrap or cover the bowl and let sit in the fridge for at least 2 hours, but no longer than 12 hours.

This says 6 servings, but I think it would serve twice that with a big Thanksgiving dinner. When I make it just for us on Sunday I will half the recipe. The kids don't like it, and the leftovers don't keep very well because the dressing is already on there.

Have a great turkey day!

Kelly said...

I want to know how you make a good turkey! I was thinking of buying one when they go on sale tomorrow... :)

mel said...

Salt! Salt is the secret to a great turkey. You take a container of salt....not a shaker, but the big blue container of salt, and you pour some in your hand and rub that bad boy down, covering the skin with salt. That's it. My dad is a chef, and that's how he makes his turkey. It's fabulous. The salt holds in all the moisture in the meat so even the white meat stays moist, and it draws it out of the skin and leaves it nice a crispy. It won't taste super salty because most of the salt will run off with the drippings during cooking. The *drippings* will be really salty, so be careful using them for gravy. You won't need to salt your gravy at all, that's for sure!