Homegrown Thanksgiving?

We''ve scheduled the turkey dispatch, have grown corn for cornbread dressing. potatoes for mashers, hoping the Brussels sprouts will survive the next freeze (if not, the hoophouse is FULL of greens for winter - bless you Eliot Coleman), been gifted a squash for pumpkin pie (duck carnage destroyed our hopes of winter squash this year) and will make blackberry-applesauce this week because a cranberry will never grow here.

What homegrown dishes will grace your (American) thanksgiving table next week?

We haven't yet decided if we will be serving fresh young turkey or fresh young pork. And we have plenty of veggies to choose from. I'll be harvesting potatoes and sweet potatoes this week. The snow peas and green onions will be ready. There are beets, turnips, rutabagas, broccoli, taro, and carrots but we'll mostly not use these for a thanksgiving unless one of the guests would prefer them. Salad will be romaine lettuce, okinawain spinach, and avocado with a lilokoi dressing. Dessert will be fresh fruit salad - papaya, pineapple, bananas, coconut, and macnuts served with homegrown coffee or tea.

99.9% of the meal will come from our self sufficiency efforts including even the salt and pepper. We don't normally use butter but I plan to make some for this meal. I don't have a milk cow, but we trade our produce for fresh milk. I picked a coconut today for using with the sweet potatoes. Everything else has been harvested or will be shortly. The only item that is store bought is the apple cider vinegar that I'll be using in the salad dressing.

No cornbread or bread of any kind. Not because we can't eat them, but because we haven't progressed to the point of growing enough of our own grains yet. Truthfully, we've gotten out of the habit of eating breads. So I probably won't bother going back to breads because of the work involved.

I'm gonna go overboard this year. I'm boning out a chicken, a duck, a rabbit and a suckling pig. These will be stuffed/rolled into each other according to size and flavor profile. Obviously the pig will be the outside layer. Roasted slow until cooked through then the heat will be cranked up to crisp the pork skin. oh... there will be some vegetables too. all home grown of course.

my friends and i bought a live turkey from a farmer friend down the road for 45 bucks. gonna process it on monday, brine the heck out of it, and eat it on t-day. 45 bucks for a fricking 30 lb free-range turkey!!! what a great deal!!! i'm sooo excited. this is the first year i haven't done thanksgiving with my family so i was kinda bummed about that but getting to process our own turkey where we know the people who raised it is super duper exciting and special to me.

also yes i realize 30 lbs is fricking massive.. but i have a lot of friends and we're all poor and will gladly be eating leftovers for weeks lol.

Homegrown thanksgiving meal is a goal 0f mine I'm hoping to fulfill next year. The easy parts are turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatos, pumpkin pie.

The turkey is from our flock. The potatoes from farmer's market. Guests are bringing all else.

My homegrown efforts were not impressive this year, but there's a winter squash to roast and a pumpkin destined to be pie. Both plants volunteered and turned out to provide the best parts (in my opinion) of the meal. For that I am extremely grateful!

My effotrts were thwarted by a dry Spring & wet June, but I am Thankful for all I learned in my garden and all that did well! Our meal will be graced with butternut squash soup, raspberry wine & apple pie.

We will be eating one of our homegrown heritage turkeys! This is a big first for me, and it's really exciting. We took one of our smaller hens to a friend's house 2 weeks ago for a trial run. It was amazing!

Thanksgiving?? That was a month ago! I cooked our "accidental turkey" - heritage - to a group of friends who also contributed dishes. Yes, there *is* as story behind that....

Pumpkin pie is the best - made with homegrown pumpkin, our ladies' eggs, and crust made of 1/2 butter/ 1/2 chicken fat from out chickens. I've got to grow more pumpkins next year.

No celebration planned for this week, but I sooo... wish you'd loose that "Black Friday/Cyber Monday" thing - it's contaminating my country now. If every American Permie simply stayed home and gardened those two days, would it make a difference?

No homegrown bird.

Potatoes, green beens - for the side.
Apples - to go with the store-bought goose.
Cider, black currant juice - to wash things down.
Gooseberries - will do something.

Turkey, I raised 5 for friends and family this year, they dressed out at 26 lbs, 24 lbs, 20 lbs(mine), 16 lbs and 15 lbs. Phew, that 26 pound tom was a monster!
Apples and pumpkins for the pies. Had a bumper squash year got 15 pie pumpkins from one hill! Damn chickens ate all my arugula so the arugula/apple/goat cheese w/balsamic salad I usually make won't be mine except for the apples.
Squash, I've chosen some pretty delicatas for the holiday.
Sweet potatoes.
Yukon gold potatoes for the mashed potatoes.
Everything grown/raised organically.
Yum!

Pumpkin roll and pie from pumpkin grown by my 12 year old. Neighbor made pear wine from my Dads tree. Coleslaw and salad with ingredients from the garden. Cant wait....13.5 hours!

Our family tradition has always been for Thanksgiving Dinner to have only foods we grew or foraged ourselves. It felt just right to preserve the intention of gratitude for the bountiful earth.
HOWEVER one year we moved to a new home the week before Thanksgiving. There was just enough time to grow some sprouts. The wild foods were scarce but enough to bring flavor and teas to the table. (Fortunately for us my parents invited us to join them for a "normal Thanksgiving" at their home later in the day)

Sarah, welcome to the forum!

These perennial threads are great, thanks for reviving this one.

Did your family raise their own turkeys or pigs?

Our tradition for several years was to have tamales for Thanksgiving so that would have been hard to forage.

sarah pyne wrote:Our family tradition has always been for Thanksgiving Dinner to have only foods we grew or foraged ourselves.

That is a lovely tradition - although I think I would have bent the rules a bit that year!

I will make a crisp out of pears from our neighbors’ tree and Himalayan blackberries from our property line. A salad of dark greens from the garden and chickweed and violet leaves from the yard. A Cajun rice stuffing with ground venison from a friend.

My carrots and potatoes failed. Again. So that is from the store. Candied carrots, and rosemary buttered new potatoes. And of course, the turkey.