Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Thanksgiving is for the birds...

yep, turkeys of course! I love Thanksgiving and the food that goes with it. The memories that go along with the food is what I am the most thankful for.

My grandmother (my maternal) always made the best pumpkin pies and cream cheese stuffing for the celery. She also made this wonderful cranberry-jello-orange salad. You have to use that weird food grinder clamped to the table to make this salad...what, use the food processor...oh heck no! You have to clean up the juice from the berries and oranges for days, lol!

I know this is a quilting blog but we have to eat too, don't we?  I am into the cream cheese stuffing, ya gotta love it.

Beau Monde celery stuffing
1 8 oz brick cream cheese
  Soften cheese on counter (grams recipe!) in a bowl for a few hours. Add:
     1 teaspoon each: thyme, savory, marjoram
     1 tablespoon Beau Monde seasoning
     1 tablespoon water
     1 tablespoon dried parsley, crumbled.
Mix everything together and stuff celery, yummo!

Cranberry salad
Put thru grinder: 1 package cranberries, 1 orange (quartered...peels and all), 1 cup walnuts.

Make 2 big boxes black cherry (the cranberry jello wasn't out yet while gram was alive) with 1 1/2 cups boiling water. Open 1 small can crushed pineapple and drain juice...add the juice with water to equal 1  and a half cups, add to jello. Mix 1/2 to 1 cup sugar into cranberry/orange mixture, fold into jello, refrigerate.

I have tweaked the recipe over the years and have no idea what the original really was, lol. I have found that the few people like this salad. My son loves it and I am glad. Maybe he will include it in his family traditions in the coming years.

And speaking of family traditions, the "pumpkin pies" tradition. I have tried to make them, I really have. They just don't scream grandma. So I buy mine. I know, gross. Does anyone have any suggestions for pumpkin pie?

What does Thanksgiving mean to you? Do my bloggy friends in other parts of the world, Germany (hi Liz), Sweden (hi Stina), Australia (oh dear, where do I start...chookyblue, Rhonda, Lizzie, Janet, and bunches more) have a similar celebration?

I have some sewing to do before I get my shopping list for all the things I forgot...lol. Have a great day, Elaine

6 comments:

  1. No, we don't have anything that's like your Thanksgiving celebration! We have Australia Day in January, Queens Birthday Holiday (just a day off work really) and several others including a day for a horse race here in Victoria?? State Show days etc, today is just another (rainy) work day here.
    Hope your Thanksgiving is wonderful Elaine.
    Lizzie
    XXX

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  2. Happy thanksgiving Elaine... I'm with Lizzie [we don't have anything like your holiday - maybe we should]! It's hot where I am in North Queensland and very humid. May rain!
    Rainbow smiles... Gloria PS Do you know anything about round robins?

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  3. Gloria...from what I understand on the round robins, the first person makes a center (of a quilt) and sends it off to the next person to add a row around it, who sends it off to the third person to add another round of piecing...etc. I have seen where the originator will send their own fabrics or maybe just ask for certain colors to be used. I have never done one before but would probably be interested. The neat thing about doing one of these is that the originator has no idea what she will get back from her original block as it is kept quiet until she gets it back! Is this what you meant?

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  4. Oooo! In all my years I never knew anyone else made this kind of cranberry "relish"! I make this EVERY year as did my gramma, but never with nuts. Yes, she used the food grinder and it was messy. I use my little food processor and just make sure I dont grind it too tiny. Did you know it freezes well too? We will be having this today with our roasted chicken. It is the only kind my kids like...that canned stuff is foul!
    Have a blessed Thanksgiving, thank you for all the inspriation and I'm looking forward to keeping up with you during the holidays :)

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  5. Have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving, I use to do it here, but we don't have that in my country, the most similar thing is christmas, we don't eat turkeys, we eat tamales!, I miss to eat turkeys and pecan pie!

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  6. Happy Thanksgiving to you! The one food that I miss from childhood celebrations is borscht - my aunt's mother-in-law always made it, she was from the Ukraine and I can still taste it. It was amazingly delicious.

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