Welcome to the first day of the Frugal Thanksgiving Mini Series. Tune in each day this week to read about and share your best frugal Thanksgiving ideas.
Today we are concentrating on “Side Dishes”.
Yes, the turkey is the main event-Thanksgiving wouldn’t be the same with a big old pot roast sitting in the center of the table instead! But there are only so many ways to cook a whole roast turkey. You can roast it, deep fry it, or grill it. That’s pretty much it. Not a lot of “scope for the imagination” there (to quote Anne of Green Gables).
Side dishes however, well, they can steal the show! Fluffy steaming mashed potatoes, mouth watering stuffing, smooth shiny gravy, ruby jeweled cranberry. . . .those are the things that transform what could be a plain old “meal” into a FEAST!
Every family has different traditions when it comes to side dishes. Some go with the classics-nothing wrong with that-there is a reason something becomes a classic. Then there are those who like to give an old classic a new and unique twist. Still others have items that are tradition in their family or their heritage, but are not seen on the average table.
For example, my Italian Uncle Al wouldn’t dream of cutting the turkey without a big bowl of pasta steaming gently somewhere on the table. My mother annually made mashed rutabaga and those tiny little creamed onions-both dishes that several of my friends look at me strangely for associating with Thanksgiving. My mother in law feels the table is naked without scalloped oysters-a dish I had never even heard of before marrying into the family.
So come on, share with us!
Be it classic or gourmet, simple or special-your recipe could be the one that provides a special inspiration for someone else looking to pep up their table with a new twist this holiday season.
Participating in the series is easy! It’s just three simple steps
1-Post your favorite side dish recipe. It’s fine to dig through your archives and find a good one you posted last year, although personally I would just repost it as a “Best of” . Make sure you let folks know that you are entering it in the Frugal Thanksgiving Mini Series.
2-Enter the link in the Mr. Linky below. Please put a clue in parenthesis next to your name like this :
3-Grab the badge code from my right sidebar and share the love! The more folks who participate, the better resource this series becomes for all of us.
And you know what? If you don’t have a blog, that’s ok too! Just send it to me via my comments form, and I’ll give you your very own post here at Frugal Upstate and do the linking too.
Make sure you tune in all week for the rest of the series. Tomorrow (Tuesday) is Best Thanksgiving Dessert Recipes, Wednesday is Frugal & Fun Decorating and Crafts, Thursday is Frugal and Fun Thanksgiving Traditions, and Friday is Best Frugal Ideas/Recipes for Turkey Leftovers. Saturday will be a roundup with links to all the previous days and my favorite link from each.
I am definitely adding the sweet potato spoon bread to my dinner this year…I am also going to be adventurous and try making homemade cranberry sauce…we never had cranberries for the holidays when I was a kid (the side dishes were more ethnic), and when I got married and did my own dinner I bought a can for those who might want it and became addicted to the whole sweet-and-savory…Never really thought about making it from scratch, even though almost everything else in my kitchen is cooked from scratch….guess the berries were still too new to me, so thanks fro the recipe, I can’t wait to try it…
Hi, I’m looking forward to reading all the posts in this series. I love holidays and learning new ways to enjoy the holidays with my family 🙂 Thanks for a fun idea!
Kaye
What a great idea! I actually had way more Thanksgiving side dish recipes that I could have linked, but I didn’t want to be greedy. 🙂 I’m posting my last two tonight for Tempt My Tummy Tuesday tomorrow.
Wow! Great recipes everyone!
Bookmarked this post so I can find it next month when I’m trying to plan out Christmas dinner.
Looking forward to the rest of this week’s mini-series.
Thanks for hosting this great Thanksgiving Mini-Series. What a great way to share recipes. I look forward to reading through them!
I’m glad that so many of you are joining in, and also finding some great new recipes to try. Yumm, I just can’t get around to eating them all in one day. Maybe Thanksgiving should last a week. . .
Thanks for hosting this list! I’m linking this post to my post on “Planning on Thanksgiving”…there are some great ideas here.