This is my family's traditional holiday dinner (typically for Thanksgiving & Christmas), with some updates for my allergies, stuff my wife likes, and cooking for not-a-crowd. Note: I substitute fake butter anywhere a recipe says "butter", and it works perfectly - the leftovers even keep better, especially for mashed potatoes & stuffing. Also, according to my dad, real butter is getting worse & fake butter tastes better than comparably priced real butter now (this was not the case 5 years ago).
This recipe is based on my mother-in-law's, but jazzed up a bit. The idea is to be dead-easy, free up the oven for the casseroles, and let me forget about the turkey all day instead of babysitting it.
Homemade gravy is so much better than store bought and it's actually not too hard! You should make this right before eating, but it actually keeps quite well for leftovers.
I use the pepperidge farm stuffing recipe. It works with any boxed stuffing; I just get what's available.
I prefer simple, no-frills mashed potatoes. I use a mashed potato recipe I found online. I sub the heavy cream with a vegan heavy cream (country crock or trader joe's - they're the same)
I use the campbell's green bean casserole recipe. I replace the total liquid volume (condensed soup + milk) with an equivalent volume of a vegan mushroom or celery soup, whatever I can find.
This is my mom's recipe. It is the best sweet potato casserole recipe ever. You can prep it a couple days in advance & just pop it in the oven the day of.
The liquid should add up to about a cup, and I use half oj / half spiced rum. It tastes good with only orange juice, but not with only rum.
The ingredients without amounts are to taste / how you like it.
I make a half batch, and it fits perfectly in my large rectangular pyrex with room for marshmallows.
This is my mom's recipe. I really expanded the directions because once I figured out what I was doing, I didn't want to forget the things I did to make it work. I also had to adjust it for shrinkflation - the original recipe was for 16 oz of cranberries and a standard bag is now 12 oz.
Compared to canned cranberry sauce, this is sweeter, just as smooth, and has a much brighter color.
If you are doubling the batch, you will have to cook the cranberries (step 2) longer - I had to decrease the cooking time compared to the original recipe. For reference, the original recipe with 16 oz of cranberries was 20 minutes instead of 15.
If it doesn't gel properly, it's still really yummy & is really good in holiday cocktails & mocktails!
Remember to note the cooking temp/time before opening the package because it is annoyingly hard to find that information on the internet. They generally cook at the same temperature as the casseroles, so you can stick them in at the same time if there's room.
I include 2-3 vegetables that are easy to prepare. As an adult, I ended up actively wanting something green on my plate to contrast all the casseroles.
My wife really likes applesauce so we serve it. It ends being similar to the vegetables in that it provides a nice contrast to all of the casseroles. I'll forget to make sure we have some if I don't list it.
I have really cut back on pie baking because I was making way too much pie for a house with just 2 people. I'll typically make 2 of the following now.