We’re hosting Thanksgiving at our house this year, and I’m already looking forward to being with family, to playing games, and to preparing (and eating) those delicious foods associated with the holidays. Which means I’m already thinking about food! What’s new, huh?
Are you a “traditional Thanksgiving dinner” family? Or do you cook something different? Like Mexican food? Or steaks with potatoes? Or Beef Burgundy?
We’re a “traditional dinner” kind of family (at least most years), and this year we’ll have turkey with cornbread dressing and all the fixings. Each family will bring their favorite dishes to share.
I’ll prep some old favorites like Mammy’s Fruit Salad, Aunt Lyda’s Sweet Potato Souffle, and Mimi’s Delicious Biscuits (Mimi was my Mom), and also her yummy Chocolate Cake!
I actually keep my favorite recipes (especially the oldies from family members that are on recipe cards) in a picture file on my iPhone so that, if I’m at the store and need to be reminded of the recipes, the recipes are handy! Does anyone else do that?
When my daughter Kelsey was young, she used to love helping me while I baked. With “help” being a relative term . . .
I love to cook. But I really love to bake. Baking is relaxing for me. Sometimes when I’m writing and I get stumped as to where to go next, I’ll head to the kitchen to bake up something sweet and yummy. And Keto, of course, in keeping with our lifestyle choice.
There’s just something comforting about preparing foods of your heritage, foods you’ve enjoyed with family and friends through the years. Especially now that the years are flying by and so many of those loved ones are gathered Home with Christ.
Maybe that’s why I include so many recipes in my historical novels. Recipes from the past. I LOVE it when friends send pictures of recipes they’ve made from one of my novels. Recipes like Mam’s Irish Butterscotch Pie from Colors of Truth, a Carnton novel that just released. Thanks, Jan!
So tell me, are you a traditional Thanksgiving dinner family (Turkey and dressing, etc…)? Or do you break the mold with something new and different? What are some of your favorite family recipes to make during the holidays (and who passed them down to you)?
Much love, friends, and I look forward to hearing from you. I love our community here at Inspired By Life & Fiction!
Tamera
GIVEAWAY TODAY HERE ON INSPIRED BY LIFE & FICTION
I’m giving away two fabulous hardback cookbooks today—here on this blog post. Cookbooks filled with yummy sweet desserts to get you started thinking about your holiday baking!
Simply leave a comment below and your name will be added to the hat. (If you’re not interested in winning one of the books, just add a quick comment stating that in your post.)
GIVEAWAY ENDS at 8PM tonight when I’ll draw two names at random and post the winners here by 9PM. Due to postage costs, winners must have U.S. mailing addresses, please.
. . . who won the cookbooks! Donna Howe won the First Prize Pies and Brooke T. won the Loveless Cafe!
Ladies, please email me here with your snail mail address and I’ll get your books in the mail! Thanks, everyone, for your comments and sharing. What a fun exchange today!
Tamera Alexander
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Looks amazing
Thanks, Ciara!
My MIL always hosted Thanksgiving for the family. Turkey and all the trimmings. I always made cheesy carrots. A family favorite. I really miss those special times with my hubby’s large extended family since my in laws have passed away.
I miss those times, too, Jocelyn. Those cheesy carrots sound delish!
We are traditional. Since my husband and I live with my grandmother, I actually help her with the cooking and have learned her secrets. My husband’s family is mostly traditional, but they will have roast, potatoes and carrots with the cornbread dressing. My father-in-law always makes the roast. He passed away unexpectedly last week so I’m not sure how it will go this year but we will still get together. It may look different, but it will be nice to be together.
Love and condolences to you and yours, Stacey, on your father-in-law’s passing—and as your Thanksgiving table looks different this year. Hugs!
Thank you for the recipes. I can’t wait to read this cookbook. Thank you for the chance to win it.
You bet, Susan.
We’re pretty traditional, too. I love hosting & serving the turkey, Mamaw’s sweet potato casserole, homemade green bean casserole, & at least 1 dessert. Family & friends fill the table with more of their favorites. The best part is, leftovers…some of the time. 😜 Soooo looking forward to it this year!!! 🥰🍗🥧🍁🍽
Yes to those leftovers! Best part, Becky! ; )
We also have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with my husband’s family. When I was first married (25 years ago), they assigned me to make macaroni and cheese (since all the other traditional foods were ‘taken’ by another person). So, I attempted to make ‘real’ macaroni and cheese – not the box stuff! Ha! However, I didn’t calculate the double recipe quite right and, well, there was not enough cheese, too much milk and it tasted like noodle. Since then, they only ask me to bring the drinks. Hahahaha! Perhaps your recipe book will help me! hahahaha!
Have a very happy Thanksgiving!!!!!
LOL, Rachel! Love that story! Thanks for sharing.
For most of my life, both my Mom and then me were both traditional Thanksgiving folks. However, now that it’s just hubby and I and as we get old, we came to the conclusion of if we want turkey why feel like we have to wait until Thanksgiving to have it. That being said it means that we may or may not have the traditional meal on Thanksgiving.
An example is, believe it or not, we got the urge for dressing with all the trimmings this week. So last night we had chicken a dressing with all the normal trimmings at our house for a “Thanksgiving” meal. Believe me, I gave thanks not only for the delicious meal, but also that I was able once again to get it on the table and that it tasted so delicious to us both. We laughed as we were eating and said “Happy Thanksgiving” to each other when we sit down to eat.
Being a month off, by Thanksgiving we might have the urge again and then again we are just as apt if weather permits to have a grilled steak or even a big pot of homemade chili if weather is cold and dreary. Time will tell as we get to the week prior to Thanksgiving.
Two recipes that we love having when enjoying a Thanksgiving type meal is a Green Bean & Shoepeg Corn Casserole (which was my Mom version of the typical green bean casserole) and Three Day Coconut Cake for dessert (which is an adaptation of my Mom’s fresh grated coconut cake from when I was growing up). I’ve included those recipes here.
Green Bean & Shoepeg Corn Casserole
Serves 8
Ingredients
1 can French style green beans, drained
1 can white shoepeg corn, drained
1 can celery soup, undiluted
1 ½ cups grated Mild Cheddar
½ cup sour cream
½ cup chopped onion
1 can water chestnuts, finely chopped
1 roll or tube of Ritz crackers
1 stick of butter, melted
Spray casserole dish with non-stick spray.
Place drained green beans in casserole dish.
Top with drained shoepeg corn.
In bowl mix celery soup, cheddar cheese, sour cream, onions and water chestnuts until combined. Spoon on top of veggies in casserole dish.
Crumble crackers in bowl and drizzle with melted butter. Stir to coat crackers. Sprinkle over top of cheese mixture in casserole dish.
Bake in a 350 degree oven uncovered for 40 minutes.
NOTES: This goes great for a potluck dish. It’s great hot, warm, or room temperature. It never seems to make it to the refrigerator as leftovers but I’m sure it would reheat nicely too.
Three Day Coconut Cake
Ingredients
1 box of Duncan Hines Butter Cake mix
3 pkgs of the fresh frozen coconut (freezer section at WalMart usually during holidays or Kroger year round) thawed
8 ounces of sour cream
2 cups sugar
Directions
Prepare cake mix according to package directions.
Recipe calls for 3 layers – this gal now used the 9 X 13” pan and then just split the cooled cake into two layers.
Cool 10 minutes and then cool on racks.
While cake is baking make the icing.
Mix the sour cream and sugar stirring until sugar dissolves – DO NOT BEAT.
Then stir in the thawed coconut and place in refrigerator until ready to ice cake.
When cake has cooled spread icing onto cake already on cake plate that has a sealed cover like Tupperware. Top with layer(s) and finish icing. Cover with lid, seal and place in refrigerator for a minimum of three day before eating. I check once a day and if any liquid comes off cake I spoon back to top of cake. If you do the sheet cake with two layers, you can also put first layer back in pan, put half the icing mixture, top with top layer and then top with remaining icing. Doing it this way you don’t need to check it daily. Just put in refrigerator and forget it for 3 days.
After three days, you will never know there is sour cream in the icing and it’s the best moistest cake you will eat. It will just continue to get better. It will never dry out. The longer it sits the better it gets IF you can have it last long enough to find that out. It also freezes very well.
Thank you for the fabulous chance to win a new cookbook! Shared and hoping to be the fortunate one selected.
Love all this, Kay! Bless you for sharing. My sweet Mom had a fresh coconut cake that she made too, and I still make it as well during the holidays. It has sour cream in it. My dad used to call it the “3-minute cake” because he would take it to work and it would be devoured in 3 minutes. Blessings, friend!
We’re traditional with extended family. Alone for the holidays, we’re more likely to make breakfast for lunch — chocolate gravy, biscuits, sausage gravy, and scrambled eggs. Yum!
LOVE chocolate gravy, Kim!
Oh my goodness! Butterscotch Pie and Wellington, Texas! You’re my favorite friend! My Mom made the best Butterscotch pies! I’m so glad she had the patience to teach me how to bake them, too! And, Wellington is just down the road from where I grew up in Turkey, Texas. 😊 So, you know we celebrated Thanksgiving in a big way! 🦃 I love your posts, your books! What a blessing you are to me! If you only knew! PS I’d love to be entered in the cookbook giveaway! Blessings to you and yours!
Hugging you from here, Suzanne! I love these connections in our lives. Thanks for your kind words, too. Much love.
I LOVE baking. I always do the baking for family Thanksgiving and Christmas! It is so much fun!
Baking Sister after my own heart, Jessica! ; )
Since I’m diabetic and on the Weight Watchers diet, I don’t need one of those fabulous dessert cookbooks, but I wanted to comment on Thanksgiving dinner. My family always has a traditional Thanksgiving menu of turkey, corn bread dressing, sweet potato casserole, a non-starchy vegetable (usually green beans and perhaps asparagus), a fruit salad, dinner rolls, and pumpkin as well as pecan pie with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. Please note that I don’t eat all of those items, but they are on the menu to satisfy the preferences of different members of the family. One of the best parts of the meal is having leftovers for several additional meals.
I’m right there with you, Suzanne, on the avoidance of sugar. Joe’s diabetic, too, so the Keto lifestyle suits us well. Do you ever make a Keto pumpkin pie? Oh my word…so good!! Thanks for sharing!
I’m a traditional Thanksgiving baker. I love the huge meal that takes hours to make and minutes to scarf down. A recipe favorite of mine is for Sweet Potato Casserole with a brown sugar/pecan crumb topping–a recipe from a friend. Yummm
I’ve always had the traditional Thanksgiving menus. Nine years ago was the first holiday that my (future) son-in-law joined us, and I did not know that he was a wonderful cook. The following year he asked if he could help, and now he makes everything except for one family favorite (scalloped corn, my mother’s recipe.) He sends me the recipes so I can shop, and these new recipes are now our new must-haves of the day. My daughter loves to bake so she takes care of the desserts.One year my daughter-in-law was gluten/dairy/sugar free, and he was able to adjust everything to include her restrictions. He has a spread sheet that he works from so that everything is done at the same time too. So now most years I rake leaves! And wash dishes…
Linda, could you share the scalloped corn recipe?
When my mom passed away last year, we took her handwritten recipes and created a recipe book that was printed through Walgreens photo department. A picture was on the front cover of her in the kitchen cooking. The cookbooks were given to her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren for Christmas. It was a special gift that they will treasure for life.
We always have the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but I wouldn’t be opposed to a simpler meal since I do the majority of the cooking and cleaning up afterwards! Have a beautiful holiday celebration with your family!
I LOVE Thanksgiving! I adore October and all the pumpkins and falling leaves and apples…but I’m really looking forward to November and Thanksgiving. We are a traditional meal sort of family. I’ve always loved hosting, but since we are living in an RV right now, that’s not happening. We can’t even fit a turkey in the oven! (But I purchased a turkey roaster oven years ago, and it is a wonderful oven saver!). LOVE the old recipe cards. I have some of those as well. Happy Thanksgiving!
We are a very traditional family during Thanksgiving time!! All the usual favorite MUST be made! Something that I started making in 2017 & is now requested by my mom & sister is the pumpkin bread recipe from the back of Christmas at Carnton! It makes 3 loaves & I am “required” to share these loaves as soon as they’re finished. This will be the 4th Thanksgiving where Andrew’s Favorite Pumpkin Bread will grace the dessert table & I want to thank you for including it in the back of your book! It’s a new family favorite!!
I enjoyed seeing your handwritten recipe cards! I still have a recipe my grandmother sent me in the mid 80s in her beautiful handwriting!
Love thinking of my Grandma’s + my Mother’s & Mother-in-law’s baking/cooking too. How sweet that He gave us family & food 💟
I must admit I love to bake as well – cook not so much. Fortunately I married an Executive Chef, so I don’t have to cook :). Thanks for the giveaway – they look like they would be well used at our house!
We make all the traditional things for Thanksgiving too! My favorite is sweet potato casserole with a brown sugar and pecan topping!
We usually travel to visit my elderly mom and I try to cook something in her sparsely furnished kitchen needing to shop for everything after a two-day trip. Ugh! I’m happy to say we have moved living 3.6 miles from her so this year it will be all the trimmings and things we enjoy! It will be just the three of us but it will be fun to make new memories in our new home and celebrate with my 93-year-old mom! I’m excited! Love your hand-written recipe cards! Too precious! Thanks for the opportunity to win!
We usually have a huge Thanksgiving with my husband’s side of the family (he’s the youngest of 10!) but this year we’re having our own day at home.
On one hand it’s a little sad but on the other, we’ve been married over 20 years and I’m looking forward to having our own day and leftovers, as opposed to making 10 pounds of mashed potatoes and not having anything to eat later, haha.
Thanks for the opportunity!
I’m definitely a traditional holiday eater, especially during Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday. This includes turkey, dressing, sweet potato, Donna’s salad (a quickie with whipped cream, pistachio pudding mix, can of crushed pineapple, cottage cheese and marshmallows), green beans casserole, with a variety of pies. Yum!
BTW, our family absolutely delights in reading your books, learning more about history. Thanks for sharing your love of writing with all of us!
CONGRATS, Donna, on winning the First Prize Pies cookbook!
Tamera, Awesome! Thank you! Can’t wait to see it and try recipes. 👏🌹
We do a mix of traditional favorites and new recipes . Of course it depends on which food restrictions the group has (Gf, vegetarian or vegan , paleo, keto). I’d be interested in what yummy keto recipes you’d recommend.
Our. Thanksgiving is always traditional. I cook for about seventeen people, and I love it. My one rule is no Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving.
Oh my we have our Turkey , and homemade dressing my youngest daughter makes it is so yummy and Tamera I Love all the great recipes you have shared I Love cooking and baking also I don’t do it as often as I use too but I would love to try your recipes they all sound yummy Please enter me in the giveaway for the amazing cookbook! Blessing’s from Ohio!
I love to bake, too. I used to say I love to cook, but with two small kids who are extremely picky eaters, day-to-day cooking has become more of a chore. Sigh. We are a traditional Thanksgiving dinner family but tend to mix it up more at Christmas. One thing we always have, though, is garlic jalapeno cheese grits.
That butterscotch pie looks delicious! Pie is a favorite at our house. We usually have traditional holiday meals but sometimes we vary things a bit too.
We love to have traditional thanksgiving food. My favorite thing to make is rolls. It’s something my mother and grandmother did and now my kids call them “moms famous rolls”
I too love to bake. It’s relaxing for me to bake something for others to enjoy. I have so many favorite recipes from my grandmas and my church grandmas. Thank you for sharing some of yours with us. The cookbooks look amazing and I’m pretty sure they have some wonderful recipes inside. As for the Holidays I’m the cook for my family of four and extended family. Everyone gathers at our home and we serve! Love every minute of it.
CONGRATS, Brooke T.! You won the Loveless Cafe cookbook! See the link in the post for where to send me your snail mail.
We have a traditional Thanksgiving meal – Turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Over the years I’ve added a broccoli casserole that everyone loves and requests. I also make corn pudding that my mother handed down (who’s been in heaven since 2004). My daughter-in-law makes candied yams. For dessert we have three kinds of pies – pumpkin, chocolate, and mincemeat (my husband’s favorite). We just have a small gathering now, son, daughter-in-law, granddaughter, and a family friend. Our daughter and her family live in California, and my sister, nephew and his wife will not be traveling because of Covid. For the last two years, my son has cooked the turkey and probably will this year, too. Like, you, I love to bake. I’m including the corn pudding recipe that was in an Amelia County, Va. church cookbook. The entry states that it came from a church member who passed away in 1977 at the age of 99.
Corn Pudding
2 eggs
1/3 cup sugar
1 heaping Tbsp. flour
1 cup sweet milk
1 large can cream style corn (pt.)
1 heaping Tbsp. butter, melted
Nutmeg
Beat eggs until fluffy. Mix flour and sugar and milk to eggs. Add corn and melted butter. Pour into buttered casserole (I use 8×8 square Pyrex dish). Set casserole in shallow pan of hot water. Sprinkle nutmeg on top of mixture. Bake 1 hour at 375°, refilling water in pan as needed. Check, using knife that should come out clean when done. I double this recipe and bake in 9×13 dish for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other large gatherings.
YUM!!! ; )
We do a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with our children. We decided years ago to stay home and have our own Thanksgiving. Now it is our favorite stress-free holiday.
Nothing like recipes handed down in their own handwriting. Thank you for sharing. Blessings
I loved your post!
We are definately a traditional Thanksgiving family.
We came to Colorado 50 years ago and over the first few years discovered we had no family. We had college friends who moved here as well and decided to “make” our own family. Our children all thought of each other as “cousins” and do to this day. In fact while in college a friend of my daughters asked one of the “cousins” why he didn’t date his good friend, Abby. Matt said, “Eeww, that would be incest.”😃
Back to Thanksgiving.. I host each year and provide the turkey and appetizer and each family brings a side and dessert from their family tradition. We expect these dishes every year. Yum!
I love baking too! Cookies, brownies, cake, cupcakes, muffins…I find it relaxing. I’m not too proficient with pies yet, but one of my favorite memories is spending a day with my grandmother and two of her sisters to learn how to make “light and flaky pie crust.” Then every November I go up to my other grandmother’s house and together we bake homemade dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls for the holiday season.
We mostly stay pretty traditional except for the last couple of years (and maybe this one) when hubby and I have been alone. Too much food to prepare. So last year I made lemon teriyaki sea scallops which were to-die-for!!
My favorite family recipes are creamed onions, apple pie, and stuffed dates. Not sure what I am planning for this Thanksgiving. Maybe chicken breasts & thighs over bread stuffing, butternut squash, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. Thanks for the opportunity to win. I also love to cook and bake!!
I love baking. I’d love to win! Thanks for the chance!
I love seeing the old pictures. We always make my nana’s stuffing and trade off between her potato salad and mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving.
We have a traditional meal with chicken instead of turkey, my Mom is allergic to turkey. I love the dressing best of all!
I love seeing the pictures of the recipes from youR sweet mama. Those are treasures for sure. Thanks for the giveaway.
Our family has a traditional meal. I usually fix cranberry salad, pumpkin roll, and stuffed celery.
Your giveaways are so fun. Thanks for all you do. You have touched so many lives, including mine… by just being you.
We are a traditional Thanksgiving dinner family. My Mom always wants to try something new 😊 but I crave the old fashion recipes that have been passed down through the generations. My Aunt Ida’s pea salad and her chocolate sheet cake and her carrot cake….oh I could go on and on. I did pick up a new family tradition from reading your books… southern tea cakes. We make them every Christmas now. 😍
Sending you love!
I am definitely a traditional thanksgiving person! My mom’s chocolate custard pie and my grandmother’s from scratch cornbread dressing are must haves 🙂
Thank you for the chance. We have both traditional Turkey, candied yams,cranberry sauce, apple walnut dressing (Grandmothers) and pumpkin pie. BUT my Grands LOVE my homemade mac & cheese and ask for it every year along with my strawberry rhubarb pie and walnut crust cherry cheesecake.
We’re a traditional Thanksgiving family. Beyond the typical turkey and dressing we always have corn casserole which started as a pantry dump by my aunt’s mother.
Corn Casserole…
Cream of mushroom soup
Rice Roni – chicken flavor
Salsa – I swap for Rotella
Velveeta – half a block
Frozen corn
Canned mushrooms – I skip these
After cooking the Rice Roni and corn, you combine all ingredients with the Rice Roni until the cheese melts. Once melted everything is added to a baking dish and placed in the oven at 400° for 20 minutes.
We all put our own twist to the basic ingredients. Grandma used leftover cheese dip with chili one year. My aunt tends to forget to cook the corn. I like corn so I typical add at least 2 cups, but no one really set how much there should be. Some years Grandma makes it dry and other years it’s bubbling over; I prefer the latter.
Love to try new recipes during the holidays. Hope to try something new from the cookbook and recipes posted. Thanks
We are a traditional Thanksgiving family, but we always try a few new recipes each year just to add interest! Our family’s women collect cookbooks and we love to share recipes with each other!
We have traditional foods at Thanksgiving. Growing up we lived too far away from family to be together, so we would invite anyone over who had no place to go that day. Then my Mom would cook up a feast of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, etc. and we would enjoy the day with church friends who have become like family to us over the years. We moved away when I was in college, so had to begin new traditions, but we always seem to have some sort of traditional meal no matter of we are eating in a college dorm/apartment or enjoying a meal with my sister in laws’ family and extended family. My paternal grandmother made a fresh cranberry relish one year for Christmas (when we were together for the holidays) and we loved the recipe so much that we make it every Thanksgiving (or when turkey is on the menu). She has since passed away, but we always think of making her tasty cranberry relish when the holidays roll around.
THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR SHARING TODAY! What fun this was.
CONGRATS to Donna Howe and Brooke T. who won the cookbooks!
Much love, friends!
Tamera,
I don’t think you ever received my email with my address. I’ve tried several emails to your web page. Am I still able to get the book? This is Donna Howe, one of the winners. Thanks! Continue having a super day.
Linda, could you share the scalloped corn recipe?
We have traditional Thanksgiving with my favorite which is my Momma’s cornbread dressing. Since my Mom will be 85 in November my sister helps her fix the dressing. She boils lots of chicken and also uses the turkey’s juice which is very rich. She puts a good bit of sage in it which we love and it’s juicy enough you don’t need giblet gravy. My brother brings the best ham ever. I always fix 2 pecan pies, 2 French coconut pies and potato salad. Them we have numerous other dishes from the younger bunch.
For Christmas we just do finger foods and sweets because by that time we have been to so many traditional dinners we are tired of the same things.
Thanks for the chance to win. Love to cook and bake and Thanksgiving is a great time for this. We always have Pumpkin and apple pies and always my Pumpkin Swirl bread