Thanksgiving Recipes

Thanksgiving has always been a cornerstone of family bonding and culinary creativity for us, and this year, we’re sharing how our traditions have grown over time. Melody talks about stepping into her mother's shoes as the Thanksgiving chef, shifting from her mom's extravagant solo efforts to a team-based feast where everyone brings a dish. We unveil some of our favorite recipes that have become staples, like a turkey-themed cheese ball that kids adore and Candi's uniquely festive apple dish using red hot candies. Whether you’re hosting or bringing a dish, we believe these ideas will add a little magic to your holiday table.

Transcript

0:00:00 - Melody

Hi, I'm Melody and I'm Candi, and you're listening to Quirks, Bumps and Bruises. Well, we thought on this episode of Quirks, Bumps and Bruises, we would talk about something, Candi, that is probably in every other break that we do on the morning show at Joy FM Food, Food. 

0:00:19 - Candi

Yeah, every other, or every one? 

0:00:20 - Melody

Well, yeah, yeah, so we know the holidays are coming up and, in particular, thanksgiving is honestly right around the corner, right Less than a month, because we are now into November, yeah, and so we've got Thanksgiving coming up very quickly. So I cook a lot for Thanksgiving, yeah, and so we thought, you know, it'd be fun to do some recipes that go over really well at our Thanksgiving lunches or dinners, whichever you do at your house. 

Yeah, now, the reason this got brought up to me is just this past weekend I pulled up a Word document. I literally have a Word document for Thanksgiving, like filled with food and all stuff, like the recipes, like everything laid out that we will have on Thanksgiving. 

We do a Thanksgiving lunch at about one o'clock. Now let me preface that by saying, up until about seven years ago maybe, my mom always did Thanksgiving and she would not let us help do anything oh my word. And she had a spread on that table. I mean it was everything, but she wanted to do it. And she would always say to us it's like my gift to you all for Thanksgiving. 

But, she would almost, and one time did. I shouldn't tell this about her. She's passed on. Now she's with Jesus, but she was so tired and this was maybe about seven or eight years ago, maybe one of her last times that she did it. She was so tired that I looked over during dessert and she had her hands like cupped underneath her chin and she was asleep. 

0:02:05 - Candi

Oh, that's, how tired she was. 

0:02:06 - Melody

So I said, mom, no more, no, we have. 

0:02:10 - Candi

It's ridiculous we are going to help you do it. 

0:02:12 - Melody

So we did for the next couple of years, yeah, until she passed away, obviously. And then I became I inherited having to do thanksgiving, which I don't mind do you let people bring stuff, though? 

0:02:21 - Candi

I'm like what are you bringing? Right, you're coming, you're bringing. No, I'm not gonna be the martyr, like my mom was. 

0:02:23 - Melody

I do a lot of it because, don't mind, do you let people bring stuff, though? I'm like what are you bringing? 

0:02:25 - Candi

Right, you're coming, you're bringing something. 

0:02:26 - Melody

No. I'm not going to be the martyr like my mom was. 

I do a lot of it because it's at my house. Yeah, but no, you're going to bring stuff. Participation is the key, yes, and so we thought we would tell you a few fun recipes that you may want to try with your family. That's hits with us. Yeah, and I thought I'd start with an appetizer. Okay, if you want to do it like a little appetizer, if you're having everybody over, you know the cheese balls. You can make your own cheese ball or you can go and you can buy those. Yeah, already done. Put that cheese ball on a plate, take pretzels and make little turkey, like the little legs of a turkey with pretzels. 

0:03:06 - Candi

I can see the picture and it's adorable. 

0:03:07 - Melody

Yes, and then you can take a bagel chip and put it on top of the cheese ball. Now, this is looking down onto a plate, right? You can make the bagel chip and then you can take whatever to make the face on the turkey, and you can Google a picture of this. 

0:03:24 - Candi

What would you call? It Like a cheese ball appetizer turkey, turkey cheeseball appetizer. 

0:03:29 - Melody

Okay, but the feathers of the turkey is alternating pepperoni and then different kinds of cheeses Pepperoni, then different kinds of cheeses, pepperoni and it's on the plate and if you've got a lot of kids, they will love that. Oh yeah, they will love that. Oh yeah, they will love that. So that's just a cute little something you can think about doing for an appetizer. Now, Candi, do you have like a good side dish that? 

0:03:52 - Candi

you do. I have several that I do and that we love. You've got to have like the broccoli and cheese casserole, things like that. But something that I'm going to try this year and it's funny because I just made them last night for the first time I saw a recipe for it I thought, man, those sound really good. I made them. I think they're wonderful and I want you to try them, and I think they would be wonderful for Christmas or Thanksgiving anything. And they're the easiest thing in the world. You take some apples, you just peel them, slice them into just little slices. You don't want any of the peeling on it because you know that's the healthy, not good stuff. 

0:04:32 - Melody

Yeah. 

0:04:33 - Candi

So you set those to the side. I took about six to seven different apples and then I had a pot on the stove. Do you know the red hot candies? 

0:04:42 - Melody

Oh, I love those the little bitties oh, I love those, me too. 

0:04:45 - Candi

You take those, a whole little box of those, you take some sugar and some water and you boil that together. So you boil that little concoction together and then, once you've done that and all the candies have melted, you put your apples into that and just let them saute and soak that juice up. And just let them saute and soak that juice up so that when you're done you turn it off, let it cool and then you put it in your bowl and you pour the juice back on top of it so the apples become red, so they're pretty. So to me, christmas, I'm going to start doing those at christmas, but they they can work for thanksgiving too. 

yeah, but, yeah, they're so good and they're just. 

0:05:22 - Melody

They look like you spent a lot of time on them, and it was no time at all, time at all. That's the kind of recipes I love, me too. Speaking of apples, one of the big hits that I do and you, I think you know this particular recipe, Candi is my cranberry apple crisp. Yes, and it's so easy. It's just three cups of chopped apples, just chop up some apples. Two cups of chopped apples Just chop up some apples. Two cups of cranberries you can buy those in the bags at the grocery store A cup of sugar and then about three tablespoons of flour, and so the first thing you're going to do is just combine all that the apples, the cranberries, the flour and the sugar. Just combine it, pour it into a baking dish. I would definitely grease that baking dish first, and then, on top of that, about a cup and a half of cooking oats you know oatmeal? Oh yeah, another half cup of flour, a half a cup of packed brown sugar and then a half a cup of butter. Stir all that up. 

Hey, that's healthy if it's got oatmeal in it and apples we won't talk about all the sugar, but um, and then you're going to just cover the apple mixture with that crumbly topping and then you just put it in the oven about 350. It needs to bake about 55 minutes because those apples have to get kind of soft and it is delicious. It's just enough tart and sweet and then that crumbly topping delicious. I'm sure that goes so good with turkey, or ham it does. 

It is an absolute, perfect Thanksgiving dish and is also absolutely perfect to take to a church potluck. If your church does like a Thanksgiving, like ours does. We do a Thanksgiving dinner together, like the Sunday night before Thanksgiving, and so a great, great dish to take like that. Another one involves corn. If you loved creamed corn and you want something that is absolutely so delicious, take your crock pot. Now, this is what you're going to do. Y'all this is like just throw it all in this crock pot kind of recipe. That is my kind of food. You are going to put about 32 ounces of frozen corn you can buy that just in a bag or whatever Just dump it in the crock pot. Then you're going to put a whole block of cream cheese in there. So you already know this is good, because if it's got cream cheese it's good. Then a third cup of heavy cream, a fourth cup of butter, two tablespoons of sugar oh my word. Put a little bit of black pepper and a little bit of salt. Okay, put all that together, stir it up as much as you can, and then put your crock pot on low oh, at least an hour or two, and that cheese, that cream cheese, is going to melt into all that corn and butter and I'm telling y'all I could eat. I think I could eat a whole thing of that sitting down. It is absolutely delicious and it's so easy and that is a staple at our Thanksgiving table. Wow, always I love a crockpot dish and that I'm telling you. It's delicious and it's easy. 

Let's talk turkey. Yeah, now, Candi, what do you do for turkey? Do you go buy a turkey that's already cooked for you? Do you do it yourself? Like what do you do we? 

0:08:35 - Candi

do it ourselves. We, you know, put it in the oven for a while. 

0:08:38 - Melody

Do you do that? 

0:08:39 - Candi

Yeah, I mean I have not done it every single year, but yeah, I think I did it last year. 

0:08:43 - Melody

You put your hand in that turkey and pull out all that mess.

0:08:47 - Candi

Yes, and I am not a fan of that. Honestly, I have thought about buying it already done like going to those places that already have it done. To me, that little bit of extra money would be worth it. For that, yeah. Some things are just worth paying for they are Now. 

0:09:03 - Melody

I used to. Before my daughter married my son-in-law, who should be a chef. Before she married him, I just ordered a turkey, already cooked, from the grocery store. I know that you may find that shocking about me. I do. 

But that's one thing I don't do is to turkey. I'm going to let somebody else do that, but now my son-in-law. He loves to try everything, so he does. He has a fryer like a turkey fryer, so he does a deep fat fried turkey. Oh my soul. And I will tell you that is the best turkey that I've ever had, because it is so moist. Well, I was just going to ask. I feel like it would be dried out. It's not. It's got that nice crisp on the outside skin and then just so good. So he's the turkey maker from here on out. 

Oh yeah, I've already told him I will buy the turkey. 

0:09:54 - Candi

Yeah. 

0:09:55 - Melody

And it takes a lot of oil too. So I said I'll buy the turkey and the oil if you'll just do it, yeah, and cut it up and bring it Right. And so he goes ahead and cuts it up. It's on a platter. Oh, that's wonderful. So that's how we do turkey at our house. Now let's move to dessert, because we've got an appetizer, we've got a couple of sides for you. We've talked about the turkey. Oh, I almost forgot. Before we move on, chicken and dumplings is a staple at my house. 

0:10:23 - Candi

Do you have chicken and dumplings? 

0:10:24 - Melody

with the turkey. I do, and I don't know why, other than my mother did that. My whole life we always had chicken and dumplings and you can go buy frozen dumplings now, but I don't do that. I hand roll out real dumplings and here's the trick for me. I do it about two weeks or more before Thanksgiving and I put those in the freezer. Okay, so you can freeze those, you make them and you put them in the freezer for a couple hours and you pull them back out and then you can stack them up in some foil and put them back in the freezer. So on Thanksgiving Day they're ready to go. That's wonderful. You don't have to thaw them, you just drop them in the hot broth. 

0:11:05 - Candi

Yeah, I use Ann's Dumplings. 

0:11:07 - Melody

And they're delicious. 

They are, but they are. They are so hard to find as you get closer to Thanksgiving, but they are good. Honestly, I will be honest with you and tell you I don't know that you can really tell much difference between my homemade ones and those, but it's just something traditional, you know. So we do have those chicken and dumplings. Now here's the cute thing. My dad, he will be 94 in December and his participation for Thanksgiving is this I buy a big chicken, whole chicken. He cooks that for me and pulls all the chicken off of it for the dumplings, yep, and he puts the broth in something that we can freeze until we use it for Thanksgiving. Oh, my soul. 

So, that's his, because he said I can sit and do that. 

0:11:56 - Candi

That's awesome. He doesn't have to. You said he cooks. 

0:11:57 - Melody

He cooks it too. He cooks the chicken and he pulls all the meat off of the chicken and then he puts the broth in a big container that he puts in the freezer and he puts the chicken in the freezer. That's a huge contribution. I cannot even tell you how much time that saves me. No kidding, I haven't talked. I need to talk to him about that because I hadn't kind of mentioned that to him lately, so I need to do that. So chicken and dumplings and turkey at my house now. So we've talked about an appetizer, we've talked about a couple of sides, we've talked about the meat. So what do we got now? Candi dessert. 

0:12:32 - Candi

Let's talk on some dessert and I love that you're still on this Word document. 

0:12:40 - Melody

Oh, you know, we didn't finish kind of talking about that Word document, but what I do is lay out everything I'm bringing, everything my daughter and son-in-law are bringing, everything that my son and his wife are bringing, and it's color-coded, of course it is. 

I have to keep it organized, otherwise I don't know who's doing what. That is hilarious and I keep them accountable that way too. Like where are the rolls Right? Who forgot the rolls? You know that kind of thing. Let's go back and look and make them feel very guilty about that. Yes, absolutely. It's the holidays. 

Because, you've got to have rolls because you've got to take those rolls and make some leftover turkey little turkey sandwiches with it. Anyway, back to dessert, the most important part. What does your family do? Sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, what do you do? 

0:13:23 - Candi

You know we do more like we've done banana pudding and things like that but we do the pumpkin pie. My mother-in-law does that a lot. It's funny because her mother my husband was just talking about this. My mother-in-law's mother used to like have the pumpkin. She would grow her own pumpkins. Scoop all that mess out, do all that, make it with real stuff. Now we use the can. My mother-in-law uses the can pumpkin, which I can't tell the difference. 

0:13:47 - Melody

You cannot. 

0:13:48 - Candi

Yeah, but you got to have some. You got to have a sweet potato or pumpkin pie, but I am a pumpkin pie fan, more so than I am sweet potato. 

0:13:55 - Melody

I agree. My best friend's mother used to win the pumpkin pie contest at the fair every year. Oh my word. And so she. When I got married, she passed. She was just a fabulous cook, and so her wedding gift to me was a recipe book with all of her recipes in it. Oh my goodness, Still have it to this day. And in that book was her recipe for her award-winning pumpkin pie. Is that what you make? Well, for all the years since I got married up until Lindsay got married, it was a tradition to make that pumpkin pie. Lindsay has now taken that on, so I don't have to do it anymore. Whoa, yeah. 

0:14:35 - Candi

Is this a difficult pumpkin pie to make? 

0:14:37 - Melody

It's not difficult. No, do you use canned pumpkin? Well, in her she used a real pumpkin. So back in maybe my first year of marriage, which was almost 40 years ago, I did it with a real pumpkin and I said to myself self you will never do that again, because you can go to the store and buy a can that tastes exactly the same and it's just so much that pumpkin doing that pumpkin. There could be some listeners like, no, you've got to use a real. Well, you just go right ahead. 

0:15:08 - Candi

Yeah, that's not me no. 

0:15:11 - Melody

I will tell you that some of her I don't know if it's secret ingredients for everybody that makes pumpkin pie, but she has a little bit of orange juice in her mixture and her grandfather was a beekeeper Honey and so there's honey for sure in her pumpkin pie recipe. But she won blue ribbons every year at the fair in our area for that. 

Wow, so Lindsay does that. Now that's another thing off of me. I don't have to do that, but we always have to have my mom's pound cake. My mother was known for her pound cake. Who makes that? I do that. Yeah, I do that one. 

0:15:49 - Candi

I think we covered it all, didn't we? I think so, and now I'm hungry. 

0:15:53 - Melody

Well did you say that you brought some of those apples with the red hots? There you go. Well, you're right, there we go. 

0:15:59 - Announcer

Thanks for listening to the Quirks, Bumps, and Bruises podcast with Candi and Melody. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment to subscribe, rate and share the podcast. You can learn more at joyfm.org.