Several years ago when Rebekah was going to College in Niagra New York, we took the opportunity to go to NY and spend the Thanksgiving Holiday with my cousin Robyn Sherwood Drey at their home near Palmyra. My other cousin Mini Sherwood Packer and her family would come over from Kirtland, Ohio as well. It was great fun spending time with family and Robyn LOVES to cook and makes the most wonderful food!
My cousin's lived in the Islands for many years - Samoa and Hawaii, and they make some delicious island foods that they have incorporated into their Thanksgiving meals. Along with that, with Rebekah having lactose issues, Robyn spent time during the year Rebekah was there coming up with recipes and substitutions to help her and it was rolled into things like Coconut milk in the pumpkin pie and a sweet potato souffle with Coconut milk. http://www.sherwoodohana.com/SweetPotato.html
What yummy treats! Along with those Robyn's husband Mark makes kalua pig (in a crockpot or on the grill overnight, not a whole roasted pig in the ground, but it's pretty darn close!). http://www.sherwoodohana.com/Kalua%20Pig.html
He also makes pans and pans of pot stickers, or gyoza as my kids know them. There is baked taro in coconut milk - very tasty, and I've been trying to figure out if there is somewhere local I could find some taro...http://www.sherwoodohana.com/taro.html we make a pan or two of Pani Popo, which are rolls in sweetened coconut milk. http://www.sherwoodohana.com/RobynsPanipopo.html
Pani Popo | |||||
Spray baking pan (lasagna pans work well for this) with Pam.
Place frozen rolls 2 inches apart and let rise. It will take 3-4 hours for the rolls to rise. 30 minutes before baking, rolls will have risen and you can pour pe'epe'e over rolls, it will seep through the pukas between the rolls and pool under the rolls. Bake at 350° for 25 to 30 minutes. Take out and let cool before eating. | |||||
Along with those foods and many more, are many of the traditional thanksgiving foods. We spend two or three days cooking morning till night. We all loved helping make all the fun food, and of course eating it for days afterward as well!
Along the years I have picked up a few recipes that are must haves during thanksgiving for our family. The first one came along when we lived in Germany. Bill was deployed to Saudi Arabia, and I spent Christmas week with a good friend of ours. While I was there (a couple of hours away from where I lived), we made a thanksgiving Christmas meal for some of his soldiers. He had some foods that were 'must haves' from his childhood and called his mom in the states to get a recipe that he tells me all these years later written on the napkin or envelope that he wrote it on that day. I have had to call him or write him a time or two over the years to get the recipe again, when my stuff was in storage, or we were on vacation over the holidays... It has become a must have for Bill and I as well. Last year I found it on cooks.com and had it bookmarked in a recipe file. I'm sure glad, since today I couldn't find it online anywhere, then thought to look under the recipe tab of book marks, and I had saved it, yay!
| CRANBERRY JELLO SALAD WITH TOPPING | |
1 (13 oz.) can crushed pineapple
2 (3 oz.) pkg. lemon Jello 1 (7 oz.) bottle ginger ale 1 (1 lb.) can jellied cranberry sauce 2 oz. pkg. Dream Whip 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened 1/2 c. chopped nuts
Drain pineapple, reserve syrup and add water to make 1 cup. Heat liquid to boiling and add Jello to dissolve. Gently stir in ginger ale. Chill to partially set.Blend cranberry sauce and crushed pineapple and fold into Jello mixture. Pour into 9x9 inch pan and refrigerate to set.
Prepare topping, fold in softened cream cheese. Toast nuts in 1 teaspoon butter for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Spread topping over set Jello, then sprinkle nuts over top. | |
Another must have for our Thanksgiving table is a sweet potato casserole. When I was growing up we had sweet potatoes straight out of the can poured into a pan topped with marshmallows and cooked. That was it. I hated them! Sometime along the way I someone made this delicious sweet potato casserole. It was a hit! I was a fan! (I have made it pretty much every time we've had turkey for more than 20 years. I don't honestly even use a recipe anymore, and don't know where it is at.) I may not know exact amounts, but it isn't rocket science... I use more if I'm making it for a bigger crowd, a bit less if it's just a small family affair.
Sweet Potato Casserole
2 lg cans of sweet potatoes (or more)
1 can crushed pineapple (I think the original recipe calls for a small can) drained
1/2 - 1 Cup of chopped pecans
1/4 C melted butter
1/4 C brown sugar
Mini Marshmallows.
Mash drained sweet potatoes. Add melted butter and brown sugar and mix. Mix in crushed pineapple and pecans. put in a casserole dish. Bake at 400 for 25 minutes Top with mini marshmallows. Bake for abt. 10 minutes or until top is lightly browned.
Well, there you have it. Our family's favorite Thanksgiving recipes. We had a pumpkin desert pie That Rebekah got from a classmate at a class party in kindergarten. We generally don't love regular pumpkin pie all that much, so I don't make it. We did make this desert pie for quite a few years also.
Bill also makes apple pie. We call it a frumpy apple pie as it is stuffed to the gills! (we got that idea from eating at Robyn's years ago when we lived at Ft. Irwin Calif and we would drive down to Robyn's house when the kids were small. Robyn made an apple pie that was over stuffed and I believe she called it a Fred pie, since it reminded her of someone their family used to know named Fred who had a bald bumpy head and the pie reminded her of that. ;)
We aren't big fans of the 'traditional' green bean casserole, so we just have regular green beans, and as a kid growing up my mom always served creamed corn. I didn't like gravy when I was young, and I used to use the creamed corn like gravy on top of my mashed potatoes.
I also remember my mom serving black olives and small pickles (sweet gherkins I think). Sometimes I remember this little thing and want to add this to my thanksgiving dinner as well for the sake of tradition
