Questions for Americans and keen cooks.

[purplecat]

My sister-in-law is American (Texan to be precise) and I offered to do Thanksgiving this year. However, she had now arranged to go back to the States to see her family but is, nevertheless, sending her husband and children to me. The upside of this is that I do not have to recreate an authentic Thanksgiving only one which conforms, more-or-less to the children's memories. The downside, of course, is that I won't have an authentic American around to help out.

Turkey I can manage.

Should I buy cranberry sauce or try to make it? I'm not a jam or chutney maker and I'm appalling at gravy but I can manage simple sauces. My in-laws always have mashed sweet potato for Thanksgiving - would it be sacrilege if I roasted the sweet potatos? Is there anything else I need to include?

Comments

[sixgun45lc.livejournal.com]

For sweet potato, I've typically heard of it being roasted with little marshmallows on top, although my wife doesn't do them that way. For mashed we typically use plain old potatos. For cranberries, the vast majority of folks I know that like them at all will just buy a can of cranberry sauce and call it good. My mom did make her own one year, though, and my wife did two years ago. It was tasty but a bit of a hassle. The only other thing I think would be necessary is stuffing/dressing. That and turkey are the defining bits for Thanksgiving to me. Good luck. :D

[purplecat]

The turkey and stuffing aren't too scary since we do those for Christmas. At the moment I'm planning regular roast potatoes (the way my Mum and Grandmother do them) and mashed sweet potatoes. Mashing them with Maple syrup has been suggested which sounds good assuming I can source any decent maple syrup round here.