[Steve C.]

If you're preparing a big Thanksgiving dinner, then you don't want to leave out the most popular side dish, do you? But what is the most popular side dish?

Apparently some think you guys out in California like salad. And in Florida it's Mac & Cheese, while here in Texas we eat cornbread.

https://blogs.sas.com/content/sastra...ing-side-dish/


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[DanC]

Corn bread dressing has always been my "most important" side!

For those who may wonder WTH is corn bread dressing? It is similar to stuffing, made with the same ingredients, has corn meal added, then baked in a pan .

[marxjunk]

i like green bean casserole and sweet potato casserole too...the rest doesnt mean much to me..although garlic and dill new potatoes done right is very hard to beat...

desert??? sweet potato pie over pumpkin, every time...

my mom did the stove top stuffing....still today, it makes me shiver thinking i have to eat that crap..she brutalized that stuff..ewww..in my house it was somewhere between a runny mess to wall paper glue...mostly heavy on the glue...

oh..deviled eggs...nom nom nom...

[Steve C.]

Shiver no more ! They say you can fix up Stove Top Dressing.....

https://www.geniuskitchen.com/ideas/...-6203?c=397760


And then, the horror of the canned, jellied cranberry sauce...... how many make their own ?




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[ponyakr]

We always had Turkey with cornbread dressing, cranberry sauce, green beans, sweet tater casserole, brown-n-serve rolls, and a type of fruit salad we called "pink stuff", made with fruit cocktail, red jello, cottage cheese, whipped topping, & pecans.

For dessert, we had punkin pie & Millionaire pie. I loved it all !

My dad's mom made her cornbread dressing with LOTS of onions. It was even better raw that cooked. I remember me & all my cousins lining up to get a bowl of the raw dressing, before it was cooked.

TJ found a simple recipe for dressing, which we call grits dressing. You don't have to bake any cornbread. The grits take the place of cornbread. She's used both shrimp & chicken in it. Good both ways.

TJ's mom always had green peas, candied sweet taters, & for dessert pecan pie & coconut pie. I remember us eating dinner with TJ's folks, then going to my mom's, to stock up on leftovers for our supper, PLUS a few meals for the next few days. My mom always cooked a LOT extra so we could all have all we wanted, for days. We have VERY fond memories of our 2 GREAT moms !!!

[necdb3]

No mash potatoes and gravy? Green bean casserole with onions on top is another classic.

[Fullsize455]

Originally Posted by necdb3

No mash potatoes and gravy? Green bean casserole with onions on top is another classic.

Yeah, I'm confused about this.. salad? No turkey? No turkey sandwiches! No turkey salad! No turkey gravy! Turkey hash! Turkey a la king! Or gallons of turkey soup! Gone, ALL GONE!

Thanksgiving isn't thanksgiving without a hefty side of potatoes and gravy, baked beans, squash and yams, cornbread, cranberry sauce, all manner of casserole, green beans with bacon and onions, baked macaroni and cheese, pumpkin pie, etc etc.. Ain't no room for salad!!

[locomotivebreath]

I only like a drum stick washed down with something brewed local . I can high ball everything else .

[ponyakr]

Originally Posted by necdb3

No mash potatoes and gravy?...

My mom made mashed taters & gravy quite often, as well as rice & gravy. But, I don't ever remember having either at Thanksgiving or Christmas.

She did make what we called giblet gravy, to pour over the dressing, so it wouldn't be so dry. It was made with some of the turkey drippings, milk, water, & chopped up gizzards, livers, & boiled eggs.

The gravy for her mashed taters & rice, was made of bacon grease, flour & water. She 1st fried up a mixture of bacon grease & flour, into what the Cajuns call a roux, then added the water & let that simmer for a while.

My grandma made it very similar to that, but made it much thicker, by using more flour. She called her gravy "Thicknin Gravy". And it did indeed get thick, as it cooled. After being in the fridge overnight, it would be thick enuff to cut with a knife & pick up squares of it with a fork or spoon. Good stuff, & GREAT on hot homemade "cat-head" biscuits ! Hey, my mom made biscuits from scratch, almost every morning of her life, thru my school years & beyond. I suppose she probably made tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of biscuits in her life.

Hey, it ain't no wonder I was always bigger than I should'a been. It was my mom & grandma's fault. But I don't hold it agin 'em.

[rustedgoat]

Mashed potatoes, corn and stuffing, that's a given

Cornbread pudding is what my family always asks for, not sure if its the same as what everyone is referring to as dressing. I was down south at a restaurant and got a recipe from a cook and it was awesome. I thought it was some secrete family recipe, then I found out it was the same one on the Jiffy corn bread box.

[ponyakr]

I love the cornbread TJ bakes in an iron skillet, using the Jiffy mix.

I also loved my mom's cornbread, which she also baked in a black iron skillet. But it didn't have any sweetener in it. She'd make several pones, when it was time to make cornbread dressing. My favorite non-holiday cornbread meal was cornbread & home processed purple hull peas.

Mom always made enuff cornbread so that we could all have some cornbread & milk, mixed up in a glass & eaten with a spoon. It was one of our favorite nighttime snacks, growing up. TJ said that she & her dad liked buttermilk with their cornbread. I reckin cornbread has always been a staple food in the South.

[TAKerry]

My wife is not much of a cook, I do the turkey, but she makes a mashed potato with cheese. It has become a standard at our house on holidays. It is really tasty and we jokingly call it the 'wall paper paste'. Also, fresh creamed mushrooms.

['ol Pinion head]

For many years, we had Thanksgiving at my Great Uncles, usually the weekend before or after Thanksgiving. My great uncle raised my mom & her 4 siblings & he was like my grandparents i never had. Like clockwork, typ once a month we had a good sized family gathering at my uncles farmhouse, that was at least up into the mid 80's. Miss those get togethers, at least 12 adults & usually 9 kids in a under 1000 sq ft small country home with 7 foot ceilings. it was tight, windows all fogged up, if it was warm enough, several of us would typically go out & get a game of horseshoes going.

The feast was alway awesome @ Thanksgiving, nearly the exact same spread as mentioned by Don (ponyakr). I don't remember any rice, & we never had shrimp. my Mom's cornbread dressing was always the one Thanksgiving dish I went after, never mushy, & she typically baked two large Pyrex dishes full, so always loaded up on dressing, turkey, & giblet gravy. Don, somewhere above believe i read mention of the bowl of pink stuff, believe that is called "Fluff", made from red jello & whip cream or cool whip. My wife's family consider it a holiday side, I've never got into it, always saving room for REAL desert. My family has always showed up with homemade pecan pie (we grew & cracked the Paper shells), Coconut Cream pie, of course, homemade pumpkin pie w whipped cream. At Christmas, at least my Mom & an Aunt also each made a chocolate pie with broken pecan top...then the homemade peanut brittle, Aunt Bills, some spun candys I can't remember their names, choc/caramel brownees, waay too many choices for sweets.

[Stuart]

You guys realize those clickbait stories are all made up, don't you? They just want to get people to visit their website, then tell others about the outrageous 'statistics' so they'll go to the website too.

[ponyakr]

"... i read mention of the bowl of pink stuff, believe that is called "Fluff", made from red jello & whip cream or cool whip..."


Yeah, when I mentioned this, TJ said she was gonna make us some this week, since she can only remember making it once, since we've been married. We always ate some that somebody else made. But, those great ladies are gone now.

Anyhow, she Googled some recipes for it. Seems it has different names & can be made in lots of different ways. TJ said her mom used green Jello, instead of red.

https://www.google.com/search?q=pink...hrome&ie=UTF-8

She's also gonna make us some homemade sugar cookies, from a recipe she got from her aunt. They're actually called Teacakes, I suppose, because they are big & soft, sort'a like a plain vanilla cake, in cookie form. And they are SOOOO good. They're actually better AFTER the 1st day. AND, the raw dough is delicious ! I always get to scrape the mixing bowl & get a big bowl of dough to eat. I like to eat dough the 1st day, then start on the cookies the next day.

She just said the rest of our Thanksgiving food will include shrimp & grits dressing, cranberry sauce, green peas, & punkin pie. Hey, I can enjoy me some of that, for 2 or 3 days !

[David Jones]

Fresh grated sweet corn cooked in the skillet tops my list. Then some sort of cranberry concoction...even if it's just dumped out of a can. After those, anything you can dump gravy on...which pretty much covers everything else.

[necdb3]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agheaxNwonE

[Steve C.]

I'll bring this on for one idea after TAKerry's fun comment about the mashed potato with cheese.....

Cheesy Potato Casserole Recipe

https://www.southernliving.com/recip...sserole-recipe

I'll add this one as well for another potato related dish. I make this exact recipe and everyone finds it a winner....

Potato Gratin with Gruyère and Crème Fraîche

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/f...fraiche-107310


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[ponyakr]

Originally Posted by Steve C.

I'll bring this on for one idea after TAKerry's fun comment about the mashed potato with cheese.....

Cheesy Potato Casserole Recipe

https://www.southernliving.com/recip...sserole-recipe



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I love mashed taters & cheese. When at Golden Corral, I get about half a plate of mashed taters plus mac-n-cheese, then cover both with lots of melted cheese from the taco section. Yum, Yum !

[Firedup6975]

Scalloped potatoes with cheddar cheese and bacon.