I hate to say what I’m about to say. There are some things that are almost too embarrassing to say out loud.
I have never had mashed potatoes with a Thanksgiving meal. Until yesterday I honestly thought I was in the majority of Thanksgiving diners. But 90+ comments later, wherein the majority of y’all professed an undying love of the Thanksgiving potato, have opened my eyes to the cruel reality that is my life.
I have been deprived of an additional carb at the Thanksgiving table. I feel like I’m on an episode of Maury Povich and can hear the studio audience audibly gasping as my darkest family secrets are revealed.
But let me state for the record, P’s family never served mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving either. Which leads me to believe that God brought us together so that we can share our common grief over what were, obviously, deprived holidays. It’s a wonder we survived, what with just the turkey, dressing, cranberries, and green bean casserole.
The horror of it all.
Anyway, several of y’all asked for the recipes I mentioned, specifically the Broccoli-Rice Casserole and my mother-in-law’s dressing. I am more than happy to share those recipes with y’all along with my recipe for mashed potatoes.
Oh, that’s right. I’ve never had mashed potatoes with Thanksgiving dinner.
Obviously I’m trying to block that out.
Broccoli-Rice Casserole
1 medium onion chopped and sauteed in 1/2 stick of butter
2 packages of frozen, chopped broccoli
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup cooked rice
1 8oz jar of Cheez Whiz (personally I prefer the spicy Cheez Whiz)
Salt and pepper to taste
Combine all ingredients and bake at 350 in a greased 9 X 13 baking dish for 1 hour.
Don’t let the sophistication of this recipe scare y’all off. I know just the thought of using a gourmet food like Cheez Whiz is a little intimidating, but it will be so worth it.
Unless of course you’re like my in-laws. I brought my beloved Broccoli-Rice Casserole to my mother-in-law’s Thanksgiving one year and everyone looked at it like I had just set a steaming cow poop on the dining room table.
What do they know? They don’t even have mashed potatoes with their Thanksgiving meal.
The dressing doesn’t have a formal name so I will just call it the BEST dressing ever.
Best Dressing Ever
2 recipes Corn Bread – day old and ground (corn bread recipe down below)
14 biscuits – day old and ground
2 tsp. Poultry Seasoning
2 tsp. Seasoned Salt
1 1/2 sticks butter
4 eggs
1/2 tsp. pepper
3 cups chopped celery (about 1 1/2 bunches)
1 1/2 cups chopped onions
3 cans chicken broth
In a large dutch oven, saute onions and celery in 1 1/2 sticks butter until tender. Add other ingredients and moisten with chicken broth (about 3 cans). Refrigerate overnight.
Reheat as turkey is roasting. Add pan drippings to moisten and season to taste with additional poultry seasoning, seasoned salt and pepper. Stir frequently, scraping the bottom of the pan.
Cornbread for Dressing
2 cups cornmeal
2 cups buttermilk
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
2 eggs
2 tbs. vegetable oil
Beat eggs. Add other ingredients. Melt 1/4 stick butter in a 7 x 11 Pyrex dish in preheating oven. Pour batter into hot pan. Bake at 450 for about 25 minutes.
Cut into large squares and put on a cookie sheet with the baked biscuits. Cover loosely with a clean dish towel and let sit out for a day before grinding.
And lastly, for the perfect accompaniment to the BEST dressing ever, make some homemade cranberry sauce. Eating cranberries straight from the can may be worse than not having mashed potatoes, if that’s possible. It’s just uncivilized and could be grounds for having your American citizenship revoked.
Cranberry Sauce
1 12 oz package of cranberries
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 tsp. grated orange rind
Gently boil sugar and water for 5 minutes. Add cranberries and simmer uncovered without stirring for 5 minutes. Skim off some of the foam. Stir in orange rind. Pour into bowl and cool to room temperature. Refrigerate until served.
At some point in the next day or so, I’ll share the recipe for Chocolate Ice Box Pudding complete with a photo cooking tutorial. The above recipes don’t get a photo tutorial because I’m not making them.
I’ll be too busy whipping up some mashed potatoes and trying to erase our shameful family legacy while Caroline is still young enough to not be permanently scarred.
you should stop by and see all of the recipes that people posted on my blog last thursday for my Gobble Gobble recipe exchange!
There’s some good stuff there!
Blessings,
K
GASP! Never had mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving?
Stunning revelation.
I could LIVE on mashed potatoes, and my older son agrees with me. We fight over those and the broccoli rice casserole every year. He loves the holidays since those are his two favorite foods (ham and turkey aren’t far behind). But we make our casserole with Velveeta instead of Cheez Whiz, so there’s my shocking revelation. =)
I’ve been deprived! I’ve never even heard of broccoli rice casserole. Thanks for the recipe, it’s going to be a first at my house this Thanksgiving.
Good thing I’m Canadian because I actually prefer the cranberry sauce out of the can. I wouldn’t want to get my citizenship revoked
On my birthday last year, instead of cake, I whipped myself up a batch of buttery mashed taters and ate the whole thing, on and off, all day. It’s the new sugar-free, fat-loaded birthday cake for perimenopausal women. PS: In light of your Donny-love, you should come enter my Christmas CD Giveaway. And new commercial slogan:”Steaming Poop Casserole; It’s What’s for Dinner!” Cracks me up.
Until I married my husband from the New England area, (I am from the South East) I never had mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving either. His family never has sweet potatoes, so I guess they were as deprived as his family thinks mine was. Of course, his family thinks the only vegetable that should be served is whole kernel corn. Too many starches for me. Too funny.
No mashed potatoes?! Poor thing. For me, it was mashed rutabagas. I had never had them until I met my husband. My mother in law makes them. Oddly enough, she and I are the only ones who eat them, but we both must have them on the table!
Read my post today for a funny Thanksgiving stuffing story…it will inspire stuffing makers everywhere.
I’d love to high-five you right now! The “cranberry sauce” in a can is just WRONG! It was obviously created by an illegal alien.
I like the homemade stuff myself, if I eat it at all. Personally I could do without it, but if I’m gonna eat it, you can bet it ain’t that canned mess. That’s news you can take to the bank!
OhmyGOODNESS!!!!! Your “broccoli rice casserole” is exactly what we call “green rice” in our house!! Even down to the Cheez Whiz! (I’d never thought of using spicy Cheez Whiz…)
It’s an Easter staple around here because it goes really, really well with ham.
(Oh, and if you use Minute Rice, you don’t have to cook the rice first. It cooks while the casserole is cooking!)
My hubby grew up with macaroni and cheese at holiday meals, which strikes me as weird. BUT, I try to remember to make it so he doesn’t feel like I’ve thrown all his traditions out the window.
I can’t wait to make your broccoli rice casserole! And I’m so glad you’ll be adding the mashed potoatoes, Someday Caroline’s therapist will thank you.
I’m thinking the broccoli rice casserole could be a contender for an everyday regular meal, just add some chicken chunks. Yummy.
Can’t wait to see the Chocolate Icebox Pudding! Love the photo tutorials!
I could actually do without mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving myself so don’t feel bad. If I cook we have – turkey and stuffing, green bean casserole, BROCCOLI RICE CASSEROLE (this is a favorite of mine too and my recipe is VERY similar to yours), sweet potato casserole and rolls. My mom likes a variety of Jello salads also (the horrors!) – especially green ones.
I am SO surprised by all the mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving too!! We have sweet potatoes, never mashed potatoes….and OH how I love sweet potatoes….especially with the butter/sugar crumble on top.
Sarah, TN
Thank you Big Mama. My joy knows no bounds. I’ve got an amazing masked potatoe recipe I’ll send you. I KNOW, you thought, just mash up a bunch of potatoes. Not so. My Thanksgiving mashed potatoes are legendary around these here parts.
Why am I suddenly starving?
Oh, I said “masked” potatoes. Where are my spectacles. They’re not disguised at all. I meant mashed, of course.
(This is just to update my website info – I realized as I was sending that last comment that the wrong site was listed.)
PS – Your “fancy” broccoli-rice casserole sounds delicious. It’s making me hungry.
I love mashed potatoes, but Thanksgiving is still about the sweet potatoe for me! On a different topic, you got me watching The Bachelor this season, and I want to know your thoughts on last night’s finale. I felt cheated. Maybe I need to get a life…………….
You know, just to be clear, I think everyone yesterday was speaking of having mashed potatoes AND sweet potatoes on their Thanksgiving table.
That’s the wonderful thing about this holiday — you don’t have to pick a starch. You just add on!
We eat dinner every single Sunday at my husband’s grandma’s house. All of us. She had four kids, they each have kids… you get the picture. She makes mashed potatoes every single time. Even when we’re having a high starch pasta-y main course. It’s just not Grandma’s house without a bunch of mashed up tubers. She wouldn’t dream of serving Thanksgiving Dinner without mashed potatoes and gravy. (Personally I think she just does it because she can’t stand to not make gravy with the leftover meat drippings. She’s the frugal type.)
And you call yourself Southern! =)
If you really want to feel good about yourself, my family ate at a restaurant for many Thanksgivings! The first year I was married (my husband was working, so we had Thanksgiving with just the two of us), I asked, “What time should I make our Thanksgiving reservations for?” He looked at me like I was from another planet. Needless to say, apparently only my family ate out on the beloved holiday (but, in my parents defense, the restaurant was always full).
But before you feel too sorry for me, cooking/eating is not the central part of my family’s celebrations. So its just not a big deal. AND, I am the rare breed that does not like leftovers on that day, so I appreciate only eating the meal once
.
Besides that, I am totally normal, by the way!
I was just wondering how to “make” cranberry sauce, it’s the one traditional food I’ve never served, but wanted to give it a go this year…YAH!!!! and mashed potatoes are a Turkey day staple round here as well….sorry. We carb it up, mashed, sweet, stuffing…mmmm I can’t wait. In fact it’s the one day of the year my family is guaranteed real taters, as opposed to out of the box, because I HATE peeling potatoes.
I’ve never had mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving either. It must be a Texas thing. Being from south tx. we had the ultimate south Thanksgiving. Now that I’m an okie, someone always makes potato salad. Hmmm!!
I think generally speaking, we do sweet taters down South and mashed taters up North. When I went to Wisconsin for my first Thanksgiving, it was turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, and some weird fruit salad made with marshmellows and pudding. The only thing that was “Thanksgiving” food to me was the beans, so I whipped up a sweet potato casserole from memory for the three other Southern family members. It didn’t go over big with anyone else.
Just a tip ya’ll. You must use Cheez -Whiz in the Broc/Rice casserole. Do not think you can substitute the other “white trash” cheese Velveeta or any other cheese type product.
Cheez -Whiz is the secret to this Thanksgiving staple- I know from experience.
Your welcome.
And now I will share my dirty little Thanksgiving secret…I did not know there was such a thing as a recipe for cranberry sauce. I have only ever seen the kind from the can and I stay far away!!!! You actually had me thinking that I would try those!
See? We both learned something.
I think it is a Texas thing, too. I grew up in Texas and never had mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving. We always had sweet potatoes. Now that I am married to an Okie and live in Oklahoma, we have mashed potatoes. I remember the first holiday meal I spent with my in-laws and was suprised that they had mashed potatoes.
Oh, and I love that broccoli rice casserole–I make it at holidays also!
It must be more of a Texas thing. We never had potatoes either (gasp!) and for the one yesterday who asked where you put the gravy–on the turkey and dressing…Seriously, I was so glad to see you make you dressing much like mine–the real trick is to make that cornbread without sugar–very, very important, and there is no such thang as too much onions or celery, cooked in plenty of butter, of course. Happy Thanksgiving!
Hey…it’s definately a regional thing. All Southern people that I know don’t serve mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving. What is the use? They are a common ,”unspecial” ,served frequently dish. LOL. You need to make room for all of the good stuff!
If you have to use the canned cranberry stuff….use the wholeberry variety and to that add one can of drained mandarin oranges, and a handful of toasted, chopped nuts. Simply divine!
Another requirement for a wonderul Southern meal, homemade Ambrosia (made with fresh grated coconut of course!)
If it makes you feel any beter, I didn’t grow up with mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving either. I have just recently discovered that I was missing out on a carb. However, I have put away plenty of fresh butter beans over the years to make up for it.
Thanks for the stove top recipe. Hee. Stove Top dressing. Who knew a really good one actually existed??
I know we’ve beat to death the mashed potatoes thing, but thought I would just add that we ALWAYS have mashed potatoes AND sweet potatoes. Heaven forbid this corn-fed farm girl is deprived on Thanksgiving. Speaking of corn-fed, in addition to a corn casserole that is our Thanksgiving staple, we also serve broccoli-rice, cornbread dressing, and cranberries just like you! In fact, our recipes are almost identical…
I hate to blow the Texas theory, but I have lived here all my life (fourth generation), mashed potatoes have always been present at Thanksgiving on both sides of my family. Actually on my dad’s side we always had both sweet and regular taters but on mom’s side we only had regular mashed potatoes. Sorry all you Texans missed out!
At the Pioneer Woman Cooks there is an amazing recipe for mashed potatoes http://thepioneerwomancooks.com/2007/11/delicious_creamy_mashed_potatoes.html
For any sweet potato haters give this recipe a try http://jennrecipes.blogspot.com/2007/11/mashed-sweet-potato-casserole.html
I know it changed my mind about them.
I cannot stand mashed potatoes. At Thanksgiving or any other day in the year. Mushy foods make me nauseous.
But, what do I know, I eat a whole can of cranberry sauce for dessert. And not that whole cranberry variety.
I’m glad that you have come to terms with reality. Hopefully Caroline will not have to be deprived of mashed potatoes like her poor mother was.
We make this same recipe except ours is spinach. Why Spinach Rice Casserole you might ask; because one year my father went to the store and bought home frozen spinach boxes instead of broccoli and we’ve made it that way ever since. The amazing thing is my kids would never in their right minds eat Spinach…but they love this.
Go Figure.
I’ll be thinking of you on Friday with the big match up; the huskers will loose earlier in the day but my husband will be glued to the UT-A&M game. I might be silently rooting for it to go your way.
Jill
Make the Pioneer Woman’s mashed potatoes. They’re killer. My new favorite.
Never had mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving either until I met my husband. What do I do if I don’t have a dutch oven? Thanks, and blessings for a wonderful holiday.
We’ve always had both kinds of taters for Thanksgiving…
You have got to try my broccoli casserole!
2 – 16oz. bags chopped broccoli
16 oz. Velveeta
2 sticks butter
2 rolls Ritz crackers
Boil broccoli. Chop Velveeta and butter in chunks. Place in 13×9 pan. Drain broccoli and spread on top of cheese and butter mixture. Crumble 1 roll of crackers into it and mix well. Crumble the other roll on top and bake at 350 for 20-30 min. until cheese bubbles.
This will be your new fav – I promise! Happy Thanksgiving!
I’m so glad that you’re making mashed potatoes for Caroline. I would hate to have to call child services on you for depriving her of the BEST FOOD EVER for Thanksgiving.
On another note, I have a question about your dressing recipe: How do you keep from eating the fresh cornbread? It would never survive long enough to become “day old” in my house.
No mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving EVER??? I think that might be the saddest food related thing I’ve ever heard. You don’t know the carby joy of getting a little mashed taters on your fork, then a little dressing, which you dip in the gravy before spearing some turkey and shoving it all in. I’d always heard there were poor deprived people elsewhere, but I didn’t know that meant Texas, too.
That Broccoli and Rice Casserole looks good — it might solve our green dish dilemma.
Hey, that’s my cranberry recipe. Kind of. I usually substitute the water with Grand Marnier and cook the cranberries until they pop. Yum!
Don’t feel bad. I never had SWEET potatoes on Thanksgiving until I got married. Which is equally shameful, if not more so. No one in my immediate family really liked them. That is until I got my MIL’s recipe–now it’s not Thanksgiving w/out them.
I have never, ever attempted to make cornbread dressing, but now I may just have to bite the bullet and do it. That recipe sounds divine! And, just so you’ll feel better, we don’t have mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving. (I’m assuming you’re referring to regular Idaho mashed potatoes.) Instead, we have sweet potato casserole…which is basically like a dessert. It’s loaded with lots of brown sugar and cinnamon. I can hardly wait until Thursday! Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
I’m observing a minute of silence for your sad Thanksgivings without mashed potatoes.
Gotta have mashed taters for Thanksgiving and Christmas! What’s dressing and giblet gravy without mashed taters?!
I make a broccoli rice casserole that’s very similar to yours, but I add cooked chicken breast or crumbled and browned breakfast sausage (I like extra sage for mine). And I use Velveeta instead of the Cheez Whiz. Please don’t hate me.
I bake my dressing most of the time, but occasionally use a Crockpot Dressing recipe. Either one is equally good to me. Yours sounds good, too.
I make a chocolate ice box dessert that I’ll bet is the same or similar to yours. Chocolate pudding, Cool Whip, cream cheese and powdered sugar……
Hope y’all have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving, mashed taters, broccoli casserole, spaghetti and all.
Love and hugs,
Diane
Thanks for the broccolli casserole recipe – the lady I used to babysit for made that and I loved it!
I always put mashed potatoes on my plate – and don’t eat them. They just seem so *blah* next to the dressing and ham. and desserts.
I like the idea of using spicy cheez whiz for the broc cass.
try walnuts in your cranberry sauce, it might be good!
and while I continue to hijack your comments, because it feels like I haven’t read your posts for a month and I’m hungry, I did take your suggestion to brown the butter for the pecan pie, and it DOES make a difference! Try sprinkling nutmeg on the top. yumyumyum
I don’t remember ever having creamed potatoes (as we call them) at Thanksgiving. We have sweet potato casserole with a brown sugar and pecan topping – the best in the whole world. Our dressing is similar to yours, but it’s baked in the oven. Believe it or not, I can cook a mean holiday meal. Then I go on strike for 11/29.
You had me til the Cheez Whiz. Seriously. That is what I get for being a cheese snob. Even though I have been known a time or 80 to eat popcorn and Cheez Whiz until I was sick.
But the Best Dressing Ever has major potential!
I am from Texas I have to agree with the Southern folk who have never had mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving. When you have them at least once a week anyway, since they are such a year-round must-have staple, why waste tummy space on them at the biggest meal of the year?! Seems redundant anyway to have them AND sweet potatoes. And in the previous thread on this subject, someone asked ‘then where do you put the gravy?’… on the turkey & dressing, of course!
I don’t think I’ve had broccoli & rice at Tgiving before, but I could eat a whole pan of it right now just thinking about it.
Mmmm… off to find some cheez whiz!
Oh dear…you simply must try turkey stock in the dressing some year. Mmmmm! Replace it for the chicken stock.
For that cornbread dressing recipe, add a small jar of dill relish and a just a little bit of ginger ale. Also the eggs that you add are hard boiled, right?