Thanksgiving Where I Come From (+ our favorite holiday green bean recipe)

     Large families gathered around an equally large dining table, the turkey and carving set strategically placed in front of the grandfather - that's the visual we all have of a Traditional Thanksgiving; and yes, that's exactly the Thanksgiving I grew up with. Life was good. Later, as the family outgrew even the largest of tables, and particularly after the family cook aged past the point of serving dinner to our huge crowd, we often had a more casual buffet style dinner. But the menu remained pretty close to the original, with the exception of our beloved cook's yeast rolls; nobody has ever been able to duplicate them.

Mama Hazel's Thanksgiving Spread
Turkey
Dressing (a casserole, as opposed to Stuffing, often contributed by a daughter or family friend, could be
     cornbread or even sweet potato based)
Gravy often w/ giblets and a hard-boiled egg
A sweet congealed salad or pear halves w/ a dab of mayo and grated cheddar
Mashed potatoes (later, on buffets, a rich make-ahead version called Party Potatoes)
Sweet Potato casserole topped w/ marshmallows (yams, actually - later version had brown sugar pecan top)
Green Beans w/ Sour Cream - her original recipe, to the best of my knowledge, which I'm grudgingly
     sharing with you ;-)
Lima Beans &/or White Acre Peas
Pickled Peaches
Maggie's yeast rolls
Cranberry sauce - the congealed style
Sauerkraut

     Judging by the number of serving dishes on the table, there was more. But I must not have, as a child, liked the other dishes, as that's all I can remember. Other than the desserts, of course:

Pecan Pie by my eldest aunt's mother-in-law
Martha Nell's Chocolate Cake, which was actually a particular recipe of white cake w/ chocolate icing
     by my youngest aunt's mother-in-law, added to family tradition in the 70's
Cookies - Chocolate Chip, Icebox, Grandmother Wilson's Hermits - basically a headstart on Christmas
     baking
Pound Cake or Caramel Cake and more
(At Christmas, Fudge and Divinity would be added to this list, and maybe a Lane Cake.)

     Fast forward to the late 90's. I'm once again living in my home town, surrounded by family, but now with a family of my own added to the ever-growing clan. And now I, too, have a big, beautiful old house. So I decide it's our turn to host Thanksgiving Dinner for the family. Thanks to folding chairs and tables borrowed from a church, I seated 42 friends & family in luxury, most in my enormous foyer.

     The house was beautifully decorated, the table settings ornate, a huge centerpiece of fruit, greenery, flowers & pheasant feathers crowned the main table, chandeliers glowed. Where did I ever get the energy to pull all that off? (I'm thankful for such a helpful husband!) And not only did I have our traditional menu, but a friend roasted a whole pig on a spit out back and I added, in honor of our Mayflower ancestry, devilled crab, oyster pie, cranberry pie, corn - all the Plymouth Plantation-themed dishes I could come up with. It was an amazing day. Too bad our cameras back then weren't digital or I'd post pics.

     Well, I no longer feel energetic enough to put on such elaborate spreads, my house now doesn't accomodate so many or have the ceiling height for pineapple-topped centerpieces, and you're more likely to get disposable plates than not. But there's one thing no holiday dinner at our house ever lacks:


Mama Hazel's Green Beans in Sour Cream

2 T butter
1/2 t salt
1 t sugar
2 T flour
1/4 t pepper
1/2 t minced onion

8oz carton sour cream

2 cans green beans, drained (regular, not french cut)

1/2 lb Swiss cheese, grated
French's fried onion rings

Melt butter, stir in next five ingredients. Add sour cream, heat on low. Fold in beans. Pour into buttered casserole. Top with grated cheese. Sprinkle canned onion rings on top. Bake at 400F 20 minutes. Note: when doubling or tripling recipe, layer some of the grated swiss into the casserole, but it's not necessary to fully double the amount of cheese or onion rings. Single recipe fills a standard square baking dish.


     This recipe will give you one more thing to be thankful for! I hope you love it as much as my family always has, and that it becomes part of your holiday tradition, too. Consider it a link between our families and an expression of my grandmother's God-given gift of hospitality - and she wasn't even born in the South!

BROWN-BAGGING IT

My husband's a ship's captain so he goes to work a month or more at a time, and has a cook aboard ship. But when he's home he fills in on our local ferry when somebody needs a day off. On those days, he takes a lunch to work. THIS IS WHY I LOVE LEFTOVERS, which also makes to-go food a suitable subject for a blog about eating in! Kevin's always willing to take leftovers to work, particularly if they're from two nights before, so that he isn't eating the same thing two days in a row.

He's a big salad eater, too, and for the longest time he thought I was slaving over these amazing salads that the other guys were jealously eyeing. He finally figured out that I was buying small containers of different salads at the deli, which I emptied onto a bed of organic greens. If a bit more dressing was needed, I simply picked a complementary commercial dressing from the fridge or used oil & vinegar.

The deli salad might be all veggies, such as a Greek salad, or even a rice or noodle based salad. It gave him a great variety - never boring - and saved lots of time. Dressings I like to keep in the fridge: Ginger-Sesame for Asian salads, poppyseed for fruity spinach salads, Greek or Italian which are good for many salad varieties, and a simple Balsamic Vinaigrette which you can use any time you don't know what else to use - for example, over Moroccan Chickpea Salad on greens. If I haven't been to the deli recently and just have greens left, I top them with Pear-Bleu Cheese dressing - it's so delicious he can't complain about the lack of other ingredients.

Now my son is working, too, and he works 12hr shifts. He gets up at 4 in the morning and never takes time to eat before he's out the door, on the way to the ferry on his bike in the dark, to cross to the seaplane terminal where he has his first real job, as a dockhand. Even packing two meals for him, he comes home ravenous. And I'm finding he's a bit more challenging to feed than his dad. He's not wild about sandwiches, doesn't like leftovers other than pizza. At work he only has access to a microwave and boiling water. Even though I loathe microwaves (I don't trust them, health-wise, and no longer have one in my house), I realize that it's the only way for my son to heat or cook his food at work, so I'm having to be flexible. And I do admit to loving the easy option of sending a frozen entree with him occasionally, but I do not want him eating two frozen packaged microwave meals a day - I'd feel like I was poisoning my child. And a hot breakfast isn't the easiest meal to brown-bag without turning to frozen sausage biscuits or other unhealthy packaged entrees. So I found a variety pack of organic instant oatmeal which he & his dad both enjoy, today I packed a hearty vegan muffin for him, but for tomorrow I'm going to try something different.

He loves eggs - LOVES eggs. So tonight I'm going to use a refrigerator container, or maybe even just a ziploc bag, to hold a couple of raw eggs, scrambled, with a splash of water, salt & pepper, and I'll send a mug or measuring cup for him to cook them in. He'll have hot scrambled eggs for breakfast. I'll fry a package of bacon (free range, no hormones) this afternoon and send a couple of slices with him which he can crumble into the eggs or eat on the side. Less than 2 minutes in the microwave and he'll have a hot, hearty breakfast.

Let me know your ideas for healthy meals to go - dineintable@gmail.com.