Hello DanLikesToEat Readers! I want to wish you a very happy thanksgiving from Texas. I am thankful for YOU! Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays for many reasons: some old, some new. Two things stay the same: Good people, and good food! I’m going to use this post to share some of my favorite thanksgiving traditions and foods, old and new.

Old Thanksgiving Traditions

As a kid we would get together with everyone on my mom’s side of the family for the first part of the day. All of us cousins would just play for hours while our moms and Grandma got the meal ready and our dad’s watched football. (The Lions always lost when I was a kid). Then for the second half of the day sometimes we would stop by to see my Dad’s side of the family – everyone all in one day! I am so thankful to have many amazing thanksgiving memories with my family from when I was a kid.

Two of my favorite memories from Thanksgiving as a kid…

1. Eating my Mom’s pecan pie every year. I’m so sorry but no other pie has ever come close to being as delicious as this one. Load it up with whipped cream and you’ve got heaven on a plate.
2. My Cousin Lindsey introduced me to putting ketchup on the turkey and I may or may not still eat my Thanksgiving Day Turkey with a little ketchup, haha. I will always remember the first time Lindsey ran and grabbed the ketchup bottle from the fridge and said with a mischievous grin “have you tried this?!”. My life changed forever that day 🙂

Holidays changed

When my mom died in 2012, the holidays changed forever. Anyone who has lost an important person in their life can probably relate to this. Now, most holidays come with some anxiety over who is going to plan it, where it will be, and how it will go, expectations of the past, etc. etc. There is also always a lingering grief over loosing how it used to be. We long for those special times with our mom, and our family the way we all were. There’s no way to recreate it since our family isn’t the same. So we move forward.

New Thanksgiving Traditions

How do we move forward? Create new traditions and new memories! Although I miss the old get togethers with the whole family, I am so thankful to be able to spend Thanksgiving with Stephanie, her husband, and anyone else who comes to join us.

Since 2013, I have gone down to South Texas to visit my sister Stephanie almost every year and we have started our own little thanksgiving traditions. Each year we plan the menu and cook and bake to our hearts content. We spend hours in the kitchen moving around each other and it just feels right letting our creative ideas lead the way as we decide how to make each thing a little more delicious. Give us a recipe and we will be sure to stray from it (except for the pies). Our favorite things to bake include Dutch Apple Pie (Steph makes it) and Pecan Pie (mom’s recipe I actually stick to, I make it). We make the crusts homemade and make a grand mess in the kitchen.

One of the things my mom always made for almost every family gathering were her famous Beer Rolls. Hot and yeasty, fresh from the oven with a smear of melted butter, they were simply out of this world. Those Beer Rolls are something that we’ve never quite mastered and I’ve never tasted one exactly like my mom’s. Instead, Stephanie and I have been baking homemade Hawaiian rolls for thanksgiving and they really hit the spot. The Hawaiian rolls are a nice tribute to mom’s fresh baked rolls and they are delicious, and different enough to enjoy it in a new way.

Thanksgiving Day Menu

In case you’re curious, here’s what we made this year to share with some friends and family. Some things are old faithful Thanksgiving dishes we’ve eaten for years. Some things we are just adding to the menu this year (like the Brussels sprouts dish!).

Mains

We did everything completely homemade…

• Turkey, obviously – we stuffed butter and stuffing under the skin, in the cavety, and rubbed it down with fresh herbs, butter, garlic, salt and pepper. The herbs we used: Rosemary, Oregano, Thyme, Sage, Chives, and Green Onions.
• Homemade stuffing (for in the turkey and as a casserole) – We use this Recipe as inspiration.
• Homemade Hawaiian Rolls – We use this Recipe as inspiration and did a pineapple egg-wash before baking and a pineapple butter glaze before serving.
• Mashed potatoes (As my sister Marissa always says “More butter and more garlic!”).
• Homemade Cranberry sauce – Stephanie makes it super yummy and put orange zest from an orange picked out of the grove across the street from their house. See the recipe on Instagram here.
• Roasted Brussels Sprouts with a butter and cranberry sauce glaze. These were amazing!
• Green Bean Casserole – This is a staple from our childhood and only feels right to have it on the table for Thanksgiving.
• Roasted Sweet Potatoes – this year a put pecans, and Michigan maple syrup on them and they were yummy.

Desserts

• Dutch Apple Pie with a crumble crust topping (Mom’s recipe)
• Pecan Pie (Mom’s recipe) – We’ve tried to make it “healthier” but this is one area of my life where I decided I do not WANT it to be “healthier”… I want to to just be exactly the way it’s supposed to be 🙂
• Homemade Whipped Cream to top the pies.

Thankful for wonderful times through the years

I collected a few photos from over the last few years doing Thanksgiving with my sister so I thought I should share a couple of them here.

Going to Mexico after Thanksgiving – another new tradition

Usually the Saturday after Thanksgiving we drive 5 miles down to the border of Texas and Mexico, pay a dollar, and walk across the bridge to do a little shopping and relaxing. Here are a few photos of us at on the mid-point on the bridge over the Rio Grande river from over the years. If you need any inspiration on why you should travel more, check out my article about why you should travel more here.

Thanks for reading everyone and happy thanksgiving!

And one last photo of us inspecting the Turkey 🙂