Even though I’ve made Thanksgiving dinner for the last… 14? years now, I’m surprisingly bad at keeping notes of what went well and didn’t or what was good or wasn’t. I also, as an elder millennial, am not inclined to take pictures of food, so I had to go back a few years for the header image here ¹.

These are the notes on what I made for 2024. For items with recipes I created a separate post and linked to it, so if you use Paprika or something like it you can point right to that URL and download the recipe.

An 18 pound turkey, spatchcocked

One year we hosted a particularly large Thanksgiving that required cooking two birds. I solved the problem by splitting both birds up, cooking the legs and wings separately, then the breasts. It was so much easier I’ve never considered cooking an entire bird, intact, since.

Spatchcocking is just pulling the backbone from the turkey and pressing it flat to cook on a sheet. It cooks faster and more evenly and after cutting the backbone out you can hold it in the air like the Predator.

I coat it in mayonnaise and, as long as I have it on hand, this spice mix.

Homemade cranberry sauce

On the “canned versus homemade” cranberry sauce debate, I’m pretty firmly on the homemade side. Canned mixed with mayo on a sandwich is fine, but homemade is really delightful on turkey. The recipe I use includes a good amount of onion, some port wine, and ginger.

Gravy

On the “jarred versus homemade” gravy debate I’ve usually fallen on the side of jarred because making gravy after the bird comes out takes up stove space but this year I made my own and, yeah, ok, it’s a lot better. The recipe was simply 1:1:8 pan drippings, flour, and chicken stock.

Sweet potato casserole

Sure, who doesn’t love a vegetable dish that’s basically a pie. This is the recipe I use.

Buttermilk Biscuits

I’ve made buttermilk biscuits from this recipe every Thanksgiving, and they’re the messiest thing to make and the most temperamental. On good years they come out amazing, on bad years I wish I had just picked up a package of King’s Hawaiian and called it a day. You’ll get the best results if you can find lower protein flour, keep the butter frozen right until you use it, and watch them closely in the oven so the bottoms don’t burn.

Spinach with dried cherries and pistachios

I don’t have a recipe for this one, it’s just wilt a big bag of spinach in some olive oil, toss in as many dried cherries and lightly salted pistachios as you like.

Pecan Pie

We always had pecan pie at Thanksgiving when I was growing up. I don’t know if it was the original Karo recipe or not, but “empty a bottle of corn syrup” has always seemed… a bit gross to me, so I make this slightly fancier version with maple syrup, honey, and bourbon.

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Footnotes

1. A good pumpkin pie, although I was outvoted in making another one this year in favor of Jello Cake. ↩