Would love to see some recipes for your family favorite side dishes that you serve at Thanksgiving, but recipes that are not part of the traditional cranberry/sweet potato/corn pudding scheme of things. We do the traditional dinner with things that could, more or less, be seen as part of the first Thanksgiving, but somewhere along the line we started adding one or two things that really caouldn't be considered traditional. I'm thinking of a specific spinach casserole that the kids ask for every holiday.

Here's the spinach:

Aunt Gen’s Spinach Casserole

1/2 c butter
(2) l0-oz. pkg frozen chopped spinach
14-oz. can artichoke hearts, cut up
1 pint sour cream
1/2 c finely chopped onion
1/2 c grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 t salt
1/4 t pepper

Cook spinach as directed on box. Drain. Sauté onions in butter. Mix all ingredients together and place in casserole, sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top. Bake at 350 deg. F for 25 minutes. Serves 6. Very good. Aunt Gen, Spring 1972. Best spinach recipe ever!

How about yours?

Sophie

It would be hard for me to imagine Thanksgiving without that green bean cassarole thing. Mushroom soup, with dried onion ring topping. I think the recipe is on the cardboard can of Duncan Hines dried onion rings.

Maynard

German Red Cabbage is a tradition in my family. I think that I've already posted the recipe here.

One that's become a big favorite for the last few years is Ina Garten's Spinach Gratin. The recipe is already posted here.

Since my father is Czech, (Bohemian), Thanksgiving turkey was always accompanied with dumplings (either bread or flour) and sauerkraut. I never knew about mashed potatoes or gravy or green bean casseroles.

I hope people keep adding to this post. It is great for me to read. Memories and new ideas and big surprises. The surprises to me were the red cabbage and the sauerkraut -- but why not? I haven't fixed the green bean casserole for years; had almost forgotten about it. The spinach reminds me of our spinach, and the mushrooms sound divine.

sophie, these types of topics are always nice. I only have one question...how in the world did November and Thanksgiving creep up on us so FAST!? It seems like July 4th was just a couple months ago.

Man! Do I ever agree with that one! I'm going to be anything but ready for the holidays this year. I'm already begining to stress out. So much to do and so little time.

LOL, Leni...we should start a support group for that!!!

I've always included green beans cooked one way or another, and the relatives have always loved what I make. This year I'm trying a different green bean method that I've already tested and I like the best.

Instead of using traditional green beans, I buy the cellophane bag of French green beans at Costco (very thin and very sweet). Then I buy a bag of frozen pearl onions at the market and cook these in a skillet with a little butter, olive oil (to keep the butter from burning), salt and fresh-ground pepper until the pearl onions have softened. I continue to cook until the onions start to carmelize (brown). I cook my beans in the microwave (of all the ways to cook beans, I like microwave the best) then add them to the carmelized onions and sautee together, adding a bit more oil or butter and salt or pepper to taste. The beans are crisp and the onions are sweet Sometimes I add sliced almonds before serving. VERY easy when I'm juggling a zillion other dishes for Thanksgiving. These beans are not muddled with tons of other flavors so they don't fight with the many different dishes served at Thanksgiving.

Champagne

asked how did the holidays get here so fast? A wise man once explained to me, that for a five year old person, one year represents 20% of his/her experience in life. If you are 65, one year is; (well you do the math).

Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.

Thought I'd add this cheerie observation for your holiday season.

Maynard

so at 45 yrs. old, my life is reduced to TP? Thanks alot, Maynard.

!!!



Maynard, maybe not so cheerie but, as usual, very funny...and TRUE!!! Plus, I guess funny equates to cheerie...

Champagne, my version of Maynard's version of how time goes by so fast has to do with pie (I'm so glad it's an appropriate topic )

When you have your first birthday the pie represents one whole year, and it would be a pretty big bite to eat. When you're two, half the pie is yours.
And so it goes. By the time you're ten, the slices are getting pretty thin and close together.

So, it goes with the years, we view each one in terms of the whole - whether that whole is 10, 20, 50, 60 years, whatever, and those ever shorter years are just like those ever smaller pieces of pie. (When it starts getting to me, I consider the alternative.) That little story about the perception of time is the only thing that made sense to me when I heard it.

Don't take down the Christmas lights if you're over 50; otherwise you'll have to put them back up in the morning.

sophie, such wise words! I love your time perception with the pie; it's right on...

I still remember trying to wrap my mind around the concept of waiting 1 hour for something when I was little...it took an e t e r n i t y!!!