Our Thanksgiving Menu

I have always attended two Thanksgiving dinners, one at my Great Grandmother Gray’s and the other at my Granny’s. The meals were your traditional Thanksgiving menu complete with green beans, mashed potatoes, biscuits, gravy, ham, and of course turkey. 

Both of my Grandmother’s always cooked enough food to feed two or three times the number of people attending, and it always astounded me. It seemed impossible for that amount of food, to come out of those small kitchens, in that limited amount of time. But nevertheless, they always did, like magic.

This year Husband and I will be spending Thanksgiving here in ol’ South Dakota. Ironically I thought last year how I looked forward cooking my own Thanksgiving meal one day, not that I wanted it to be this soon of course.

We debated whether to totally change up the menu and go not only with a vegetarian meal, but also throwing tradition to the wind and incorporating some new dishes. We ultimately decided to that we should take baby steps. This year is already chocked full of big changes, and the missing of our lifelong traditions. So we are keeping our menu pretty traditional, but with a few minor changes.

For one, neither of us really care for turkey, although we would have made an exception if Husband had had a chance to shoot a wild one. Since that didn’t happen, Husband really wanted cornish game hens, but apparently they don’t exist in Rapid City. I contemplated having fish or even some sort of bison steak or roast, but I believe we have settled on a whole roasted chicken. 

As our sides we will be going with old fashioned mashed potatoes…

vegetarian stuffing…

a roasted brussels sprout dish I came up with last year…

Mamaw’s scratch-made biscuits…

and for dessert, Hubs special sweet potato pie (made without the traditional spices, because I detest them).

The plan is to spend the day cooking and relaxing, drop by a few select stores Friday on our way out of town, then to check into a hotel in Deadwood for a night of gambling, good food, and pretending like we are on vacation. 

If we can be home for the holiday, might as well make it as special as possible right?