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NoxSineStellae
Guest
I’m cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year here in Europe, for Europeans 
Since MIL and myself are on Weight Watchers, I’m skipping the stuffing/dressing, and then started wondering if I should do everything differently than how I’m used to.
So far the only thing certain is pumpkin soup (my mother’s recipe is butter and half-and-half, my MIL wants to use water and skim milk - maybe a compromise with whole milk and cholesterol free butter substitute?). I’m also thinking of making stuffed chicken or turkey breasts instead of roasting a turkey with all that gravy. The breasts are stuffed with a mix of low fat cream cheese, guyere, and either roasted red peppers or mushrooms. You brown them in a pan and then bake, so they’re not that bad.
Normally i’d serve this with wild rice, but I haven’t seen it here yet, and they dislike regular rice. What kind of potatoes? Mashed, roasted, scalloped? I’d also make kale or collard greens in the states, here they’d rather have carrots or endive…maybe spinach?
I’d like to make a bunch of pies - apple, pumpkin, mincemeat - but at this point I’m thinking 1 dessert, and something more usual here. Would an lemon cake with red currants (faux cranberries
and a marscapone mousse go? What kind of easy appetizers would suit the meal? I think I want 3 or 4 to go with the apertif.
Usually I’m very sure of myself and my cooking, but it’s my first real holiday in another country, without my family…I’m still learning the new stores and available ingredients (very much took for granted the year round variety in the US) and this diet is making me very depressed when it comes to cooking…I have no problem going off a day or two here and there, especially for something like Thanksgiving, but my MIL is hardcore WW and we’re holding it at her house/using her kitchen
A few years ago I did make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for DH’s grandparents, mother, and aunt and uncle for a New Year’s Eve party. Turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, sweets, pumpkin pie, the works, and it was a huge hit (though his grandmother’s initial trepidation and skepticism at the ‘zoet aardappelen’ and ‘pompoen tart’ were hilarious…tells all her friends about it now I’ve just been having a hard time with the move, physically and emotionally, and can’t do the whole shindig. Plus, with the diet, I’d rather do something different, than something familiar, yet sucking out all the flavor and replacing it with water and cardboard
Any idea for appetizers/sides? What is everyone else doing for the big day?
Since MIL and myself are on Weight Watchers, I’m skipping the stuffing/dressing, and then started wondering if I should do everything differently than how I’m used to.So far the only thing certain is pumpkin soup (my mother’s recipe is butter and half-and-half, my MIL wants to use water and skim milk - maybe a compromise with whole milk and cholesterol free butter substitute?). I’m also thinking of making stuffed chicken or turkey breasts instead of roasting a turkey with all that gravy. The breasts are stuffed with a mix of low fat cream cheese, guyere, and either roasted red peppers or mushrooms. You brown them in a pan and then bake, so they’re not that bad.
Normally i’d serve this with wild rice, but I haven’t seen it here yet, and they dislike regular rice. What kind of potatoes? Mashed, roasted, scalloped? I’d also make kale or collard greens in the states, here they’d rather have carrots or endive…maybe spinach?
I’d like to make a bunch of pies - apple, pumpkin, mincemeat - but at this point I’m thinking 1 dessert, and something more usual here. Would an lemon cake with red currants (faux cranberries
and a marscapone mousse go? What kind of easy appetizers would suit the meal? I think I want 3 or 4 to go with the apertif.Usually I’m very sure of myself and my cooking, but it’s my first real holiday in another country, without my family…I’m still learning the new stores and available ingredients (very much took for granted the year round variety in the US) and this diet is making me very depressed when it comes to cooking…I have no problem going off a day or two here and there, especially for something like Thanksgiving, but my MIL is hardcore WW and we’re holding it at her house/using her kitchen
A few years ago I did make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for DH’s grandparents, mother, and aunt and uncle for a New Year’s Eve party. Turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, sweets, pumpkin pie, the works, and it was a huge hit (though his grandmother’s initial trepidation and skepticism at the ‘zoet aardappelen’ and ‘pompoen tart’ were hilarious…tells all her friends about it now
I’ve just been having a hard time with the move, physically and emotionally, and can’t do the whole shindig. Plus, with the diet, I’d rather do something different, than something familiar, yet sucking out all the flavor and replacing it with water and cardboard Any idea for appetizers/sides? What is everyone else doing for the big day?
She constantly swaps out the fat for nothing, and then complains about the texture/flavor, but refuses to see/hear the connection 
This is the woman who glares if I eat 5 grams of real butter, but buys me mini Twix full of sugar and hydrogenated oils because “it"s on Weight Watchers’ list”. I love her, but she’s a bit nutty and paranoid about fat. And I know I know more about cooking (she’s never really cooked, I’m been cooking for years, and my mother is a chef) but I also want family peace. Too bad I’d feel guilty about slipping butter in when she’s not looking 
and the brandy sounds good.