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Serate
Member
08-21-2001
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 3:07 pm
I LOVE the no cook noodles. Barilla is the kind I can get here, and they are just the right size for my pan. And if they aren't they are so easy to break and make your noodles fit. I got a recipe from my friend's mum in Australia that is neither low fat or low calorie but it's so yummy. I don't make it too often because of it being so unhealthy - and that in turn makes it special each time we have it.
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Tishala
Member
08-01-2000
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 3:12 pm
She used the no-cook noodles, so I guess they really ARE a good idea! I didn't even know about them because I pass by lasagna noodles in the market very quickly. Maybe I'll have to give lasagna another chance. After all, it does freeze really well and it's cheap to make.
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Texannie
Member
07-16-2001
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 3:17 pm
You can use regular lasagna noodles for no bake, you don't have to buy the special ones. You just up the liquid a little. I make a it all the time using whole wheat noodles.
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Lumbele
Member
07-12-2002
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 3:18 pm
Tishala, when using the no-cook variety I have learned to add extra sauce (than the recipe demands) under the noodles. They tend to go a little hard otherwise.
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Tishala
Member
08-01-2000
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 3:19 pm
Wow thanks everybody! I'm going to make a butternut squash lasagna tomorrow.
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Vee
Member
02-23-2004
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 3:43 pm
Hey, wait a minute, this is the Thanksgiving thread, not the Monday evening supper thread! LOL!! Hope you enjoy your butternut squash lasagna, Tishala. Report back wouldja and let us know how it turns out...maybe someone will make one for Thanksgiving. Texannie, Wednesday through Saturday does sound like a long time to spend in purgatory. Hope you find a way to make it a lot of fun. I can't imagine anywhere you are not being a good time. Serate, I'm glad you are so anxious to move that giving up Thanksgiving isn't such a big deal. Will you celebrate after you get settled or just move on with Christmas preparations? Best wishes with your move...wish I could come help you with the packing and hauling! I love these virtual offers...grin.
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Reader234
Member
08-13-2000
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 3:53 pm
LOL! I wonder if I can sneak away and not do dinner until Thurs, Wed I plan on making pies!! DS is looking forward to apple, and after watching the Food Network's look at the pie contest, I have a couple of good ideas on making my apple pie!! Now ds gf would like pumpkin, as would dd, and dh... 2 pies for Wed, then I think I'll work on the table decorations, and maybe some homemade cornbread for the stuffing!!!
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Vee
Member
02-23-2004
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 4:16 pm
Sounds great, Reader, but you know we'd like the details...what sorts of table decorations?
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Tishala
Member
08-01-2000
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 4:23 pm
Vee, I promise tomorrow's will be a run through for Turkey day! And I'll be sure to report back.
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Weinermr
Member
08-18-2001
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 4:54 pm
Hey Tish! I liked the recipe for butternut squash lasagna too! I bought all the ingredients, and they're sitting in my kitchen waiting for me to cook. In fact, the basil is starting to look a bit tired, so I better make it this afternoon. I'll report back too.
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Urgrace
Member
08-19-2000
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 5:15 pm
We will be spending our holiday week with my ds family. We are taking a roasting pan, pie plates, tablecloth and even the table and chairs! Åfter we arrive we will be shopping and then making pies the day before Thanksgiving. My dd family cannot make it because my oldest granddaughter is a cheerleader for the senior high football team, and they just won their way to the Superdome for the State championship games next weekend. Yay Other Special News: The local newspaper just did a special half page article on my granddaughter for overcoming a disability to become a cheerleader. She was also featured on three network news programs all on the same night a few weeks ago! (She is a living doll! but I'm not prejudiced - much LOL) My husband likes butternut squash halved then stuffed with sausage, but I like mine with melted butter and brown sugar baked in the oven until done. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone
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Serate
Member
08-21-2001
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 5:28 pm
Vee actually it's a major blessing that I'll be busy this weekend as hopefully it'll keep my mind in a good place. It's my first w/o my mom, and Thanksgiving was Mom's favorite holiday - she loved to cook and bake and make candy for Thanksgiving & Christmas, and started the weekend before T-day. We have turkey 5 or 6 times a year at the least so it's no big deal. We've been invited to our landlords' house for dinner, dh doesn't care one way or the other, but I am just not up to it. We're supposed to get my girly girls [step daughters] this year for Christmas so we'll actually celebrate and decorate and crap if we do. I just never know they are coming until my dh calls and they are in the car with him and on the way here. I just cannot understand how a woman who actually wants little to do with her children refuses to let them spend time with their dad more than once or twice a year. Oh, I took it off thread again. To get it back on again - our Thanksgiving dinner this year. Decorations: Well stack boxes in the shapes of Turkeys all over the apartment and house, starting a new tradition of the Thanksgiving Maze. Meal: Take 2 pieces of bread, put a piece of American cheese and a piece of baloney and make a sammich. Take 2 more pieces of bread, spread with Miracle Whip, add a piece of baloney and make another sammich. Put on plates - paper as the real ones will probably be packed - add a handful of Doritos Black Pepper Jack tortilla chips. Serve the baloney & cheese with a cold Diet Mountain Dew. Serve the baloney & MW with a cold Diet Pepsi - leaded as it's a holiday, might as well get a caffeine high! And a wonderful end to a wonderful meal - Blue Bunny Sweet Freedom No Sugar Added Ice Cream Sundae Cones. [actually this will be the best of the meal, and we like them better than the original Drumsticks!] And to combat those extra pounds sometimes gained due to the Thanksgiving dinner before and after we eat we'll lift weights [boxes], use the stairmaster [walk up and down the stairs here at the apartment, and use the treadmill [walk to and from the the new house]. Then we'll fall in bed exhausted, unable to sleep because the cat will be so excited about all the newness and wildlife nearby that will cause him to round all around the house, bang on the windows to let us know something unfamiliar is outside, and jump on us when nothing else wakes us up. All in all I predict an extremely happy day, because it's not about what you eat, or what you do, it's about realizing what you have, how blessed you are, and being thankful for all.
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Urgrace
Member
08-19-2000
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 6:12 pm
Serate, your Thanksgiving will be a blessed one that you will cherish for years to come. I am very happy for you to be leaving that place for the 'farm' and feel your excitement.
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Reader234
Member
08-13-2000
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 6:37 pm
{{Serate}} I bought a $3 vinyl table cloth from Kohls, last year I bought a table runner on clearance for a $1! I am so talented!! (not!) I have a pine tree outside, so I grabbed some pine cones and put them in a "Cranberry" glass container that was grandma's. I'm thinking of buying some oranges and cloves and having dd make some cute decorations, and pom. thingys to give as gifts. Dkiddos went out to the movies at 1pm, and just got in, at 5:30 we gave up on them and went out for a burger. They just came in (7:30 here) annd asked "what's for dinner?" My answer - "whatever you make" DS 16 went to his gf's house!! I promise I'll cook tomorrow! I'm telling you the food sales this week are wonderful!! 45#'s of potatoes (buy one get 2 FREE) for $2.50, my turkey was only $5!!
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Vee
Member
02-23-2004
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 7:48 pm
Serate, your plans sound just fine, hon. You'll look back on this time as a very special one, I'm sure. Next year you may feel more like being the keeper of Thanksgiving the way your mom once was. Either way, it's all good because it's just as you said, it is all about "realizing what you have, how blessed you are, and being thankful for all." Very nicely put! Oh goodie, Weinermr is going to check in...he's going to beat you to that butternut squash lasagna, Tish. That doesn't mean that you're off the hook for reporting back yourself, however. Reader, your decorations sound very festive and clever, too. I love the natural look so I am feeling it. This is one of my favorite holiday decorations...good for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Cut a large orange in half and enjoy (eat it!) the orange while preserving the skin. Place a votive candle...some complementary color of your choosing...inside the orange and fill in around the votive with real cranberries. Accent with a cinnamon stick and set the whole thing on a small dish. I often use my extra candy dishes/relish dishes for this purpose. It looks very quaint and "natural" for lack of a better word. Urgrace, what a marvelous family celebration you and yours are going to enjoy. Hope that you have a photo to post of that granddaughter of yours. No wonder that you are as proud as you can be of her.
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Texannie
Member
07-16-2001
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 9:21 pm
Grace, congrats to your gdd!!! (((Serate))) those first are so tough. Vee, love your idea! I am going to steal it!
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Reader234
Member
08-13-2000
| Sunday, November 21, 2004 - 9:46 pm
OK I'm going on information overload here!! Was watching Alton Brown on Food Network (not obsessed, not obsessed...) last year (or the year before!) I tried the brine turkey, mine turned out salty, so never again... but, here's the thing I've seen lately, put the turkey in a 500 degree (F) oven for 30 min then turn it down to 350 for the remainder, until the internal temp is 161 in the breast (and I had thought to stick the thigh!) and then he puts a turkey triangle of foil, as opposed to the aluminium foil tent!! I was sold, am I nuts?? Speaking of nuts, after visiting 5 stores I found my hazelnuts (or filberts!!) I take a pan, add butter, then crush those hazelnuts and cook in the butter, till brownish, then I throw in green beans, coat with the mix, I like my green beans snappy, not mushy... For an aspargus side, I cook them in the microwave, or in the toaster oven... I sprinkle with a touch of olive oil, then I grate parmesean cheese and seseme seeds, and after the aspargus is warm and snappy (dont like mushy veggies!!) I sprinkle with balsamic vinegar!! (sometimes I eleminate the cheese, but love the balsamic and seseme seeds on the aspargus!!)
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Vee
Member
02-23-2004
| Monday, November 22, 2004 - 6:37 am
Those sides look wonderful...I'm taking note of them right now because I also have texture issues with mushy veggies... Texannie, I'm glad that you liked that little idea. You will have to refresh them every so often... Just read Jackie's update, excellent as always, by the way. Anyway, she mentioned that this thread has stories about Thanksgiving memories past and present so I thought that it probably should... I'll start with my very worst Thanksgiving memory, which happened the year I was seven. We visited my aunt and her family that year. She has five kids, two of whom were girls who were expected to cook and clean, etc. I, on the other hand, was not. So you may imagine my shock when it was decided that "the girls" would be washing and drying the dishes after our meal without any help from the adults. To this day, whenever I feel overwhelmed, I can trace that feeling right back to that moment. It was way too much for me, a seven-year old, to adequately cope with that's for sure! Okay, happier childhood memory! One Thanksgiving my parents hosted a big feast. This was rare because they were the only kids to "move away." This meant that everyone else had to travel a couple of hours to our home, but nearly all the cousins (there were eventually 16 of us on that side of the family) and my aunts and uncles, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother, too, came to our home that year. What a wonderful full house. It was a happening! And afterward, we all went out to play football on the back lawn. Can't think of it without getting a big old nostalgic grin on my face. So what about you guys...any memories you'd like to share?

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Hootyhoot
Member
12-18-2001
| Monday, November 22, 2004 - 6:57 am
Here's a memory that always makes me laugh: My friend Rhoda had a five little kids (three in diapers), a nice but helpless husband, and many many relatives ... all coming to her house for Thanksgiving. She is one of those people who you always wonder just how she is managing to cope! She lives in a big old rambling farmhouse with lots of nooks and crannies and sheds. When she went to look for her roasting pan, it wasn't anywhere in the kitchen where it should have been. She finally found it in the shed off the kitchen ... and last year's turkey carcass was still in it! This story always makes me feel better about my own slapdash housekeeping! Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
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Reader234
Member
08-13-2000
| Monday, November 22, 2004 - 7:38 am
*chuckle How about this? One year before I was married, my parents had moved from a rambling 4 bedroom, full basement house to a nice 3 bedroom (small) townhouse. My mom came down with the flu. No one was coming but my boyfriend (current dh) so no big deal, we can order out mom says... ummmm no mom, I can do it! (I was in college, so of course I knew everything!! How hard can it be for goodness sakes, just follow a few recipes, mom had gone to the store it was all here!!) Well about an hour into cooking the turkey, you guessed it, we smelled icky smell. My father, God bless him, always ate whatever I cooked, and always seemed so pleased (like brown scrambled eggs, sugarless desserts etc) just told me it smelled good. I remember going upstairs to ask mom for help, but quickly realized one shouldnt bother someone who is bowing to the porcelin god... And like so many stories on tv, yep, I had forgotten to take out the plastic bag of 'garbage'... and let me tell you I was mad!! I took it out from the big end, who knew they hid a bag in the neck end, I was so angry at that turkey company! Well, at least it was edible, and no one laughed at me!! From then on, I was bold enough to bring the dressing/stuffing (or make it, buying all the ingredients)at my boyfriends house (now my mil of course!) over 25 years now, minus the last 3 we havent gone... she always made the Stove Top Turkey stuffing, and I wanted Grandma's stuffing!! Her family used to love that I'd make that too. It such an easy recipe, but by making those recipes from grandma, and her grandma, it brings it all back...
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Urgrace
Member
08-19-2000
| Monday, November 22, 2004 - 10:44 am
Looks like this year's memory will be of the flood of 2004! Our city's largest river floods at 13 feet. It's already at that stage and is going to get 16 feet by 5 o'clock. My own family is not in danger of heavy flooding, but I do pray for those near the rivers. Imbewitched is in this area and she's on my mind. Her home is right next to a large river.
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Secretsmile
Member
08-19-2002
| Monday, November 22, 2004 - 11:24 am
Thanksgiving is one holiday I stole for myself. Because my husband and I often had to work on the official day we always have our meal on Friday or Saturday. We start cooking two days ahead of time, I bake the sweet breads. The next day is for baking pies and putting the turkey in it's brine. I also make a salad, that is called 24 hour salad, that has to be made the day before. Of course most of the work has to be done the day of the meal, I'm lucky in that my husband does the turkey so I can concentrate on the stuffing and vegetables. (Also in wrestling help from my family to peel potatoes, carrots and set the table.) This is the one meal a year when I use the china and crystal and my family aren't allowed to wear jeans. For the past several years my daughter has assigned herself as decorator and does a beautiful job with the table. I try to make this a special meal for my family, I'm no Martha Stewart but on this day, little extras are the way I go. I blow the budget and the diet, go with real cream and butter and even grind my own coffee beans for after dinner dessert.
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Pcakes2
Member
08-29-2001
| Monday, November 22, 2004 - 11:37 am
I always like to have "a little something" for guests dropping by during the holidays. I make assorted candies, cookies, etc, but have started giving "do it yourself potpourri" I take a tin or a mini gift bag and place in it an orange, a lemon, a couple of cinnamon stick and some cloves. I make up a note card with the directions...fill a pot of water, cut lemon & orange...squueze juice into pot of water, drop in pieces of fruit, cinnamon sticks and cloves...let simmer on the stove. It smells absolutely wonderful...fresh cirtus...warm spices. BTW, I started making this because my husband hates when I burn candles...he is very sensitive to even soy candles...this is a great alternative.
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Jagger
Member
08-07-2002
| Monday, November 22, 2004 - 12:13 pm
I usually cook up a turkey with stuffing and mashed potatoes and the cranberry sauce ( don't like real cranberries) and the buttermilk biscuits along with Pumpkin pie and Whipped Cream. This year I've decided not to do this, it will be a day to sit around and watch football and hang out with the dog. If I feel ambitious I may cook up a couple of turkey legs and instant potatoes if I remember to get to the store to buy the stuff.
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Ginger1218
Member
08-31-2001
| Monday, November 22, 2004 - 12:32 pm
I am not cooking this year. I have absolutely no desire to cook in this apartment. I hate the kitchen, I hate the apartment. I am not cooking until I move back into my apartment. Hopefully by March (fingers crossed) Going out to eat this year.
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