The best Thanksgiving dish you ever had

We hosted Thanksgiving one year and did pork tenderloin instead of turkey. I'm not sure where the recipe is, but off the top of my head: Zest a bunch of lemons and mix the zest with some olive oil until you make a thin paste. Slather that all over the tenderloins and then brown them on all sides in an iron skillet. Then put the skillet (that's what the recipe says; I ususally just put the pork on a baking sheet) in the oven -- probably at 350-400 -- until cooked through. Good, good stuff.

Maybe not until cooked through. Use a meat thermometer to figure out when it's done.

 

That did puzzle me since the recipe pretty much is Cream of Mushroom Soup and French Onions on the top. Pretty hard to screw that one up.

 

That's because the french never want to thank anybody for anything.

 

There is a restaurant, a huge one, in the otherwise tiny town of Meredith, New Hampshire called Hart's Turkey Farm. It is Thanksgiving every day there. They have roast turkey, of course, and every concept of what do with leftover turkey you can imagine on the menu. And it's all delicious! It gets 99 percent of its business in the summer, as its in a resort area. It's also three hours from my house, or we would so be there next Thursday.
No offense to anyone here, but people who don't eat or serve turkey on Thanksgiving are Communists.

 

My family is very small and our Thanksgiving consists of 4 adults and 2 kids (who won't eat anything besides mac and cheese or plain pasta). My cousin is a great cook and usually makes about 8 side dishes, each enough for like 8 people. It's crazy. She cooks all day for 4 people and has a ridiculous amount of leftovers. It's a very traditional meal and it's the same things every year. I'd give anything for something new or different. It's all delicious, but I'm tired of it.

 

It's once a year. How tired could you be?

 

Believe me, I am.

I'm down on Thanksgiving in general lately. Like I said, I have a small family. The biggest Thanksgiving dinner I've ever been to was 10 people and that was about 15 years ago. I'm envious of people with their big family dinners and fun traditions.

 

You mean like your cousin hosting everyone, preparing a huge lavish meal and everyone joking about the kids that won't eat it?

I think what you have is pretty cool.

If you want to do something fun, bring a bottle of crappy wine and a bottle of good wine, crappy beer and good beer and crappy soda and good soda and see who drinks what.

Do that every year. In fact, I may start that in my house.

 

It's my cousin's family (husband and two kids) and my mom and me. No one jokes that the kids won't eat any of it. It's a pretty boring day and anything I've tried to liven things up is met with "I don't think so" or blank stares. While your idea sounds good, it wouldn't work. They only drink super expensive wine, none of us drinks beer and soda is not allowed on the Thanksgiving table - it's wine or water (milk for the kids). Plus, I arrive by train and can't shlep a lot of stuff.

 

Best dish I had was when my cousins deep fried a turkey.

A close second is the Holiday Sausage Stuffing I make every year.

 

Dyno, splurge on some extra nice bottles of wine as gifts and help drink them. That should ease the boredom of your taste buds.

 

That stuffing sounds good.

I've always mentioned to my wife (and when we lived in the Midwest, my mother-in-law) that the "first Thanksgiving" most likely featured venison.

Maybe we'll eat some venison chili this Thanksgiving!