Next Week on Sue's Diner: Recipes for a BryonySeries Thanksgiving Feast

Want to change it up this year?

How about preparing the Thanksgiving Day dinner featured in the Bryony?

For the Marchellis’ first Thanksgiving in Munsonville, Melissa’s little brother Brian shows off the depth of his newly acquired culinary skills, under the direction of his mentor, Steve Barnes, the village maintenance man.

Next Sunday (Nov. 19), I'll post recipes for the following on the Sue's Diner page at www.bryonyseries.com:

Steve’s Roast Turkey (brine and turkey recipes by Rachel Buchanan Savicz)

Steve's Stuffing (recipe by Virginia Schonbachler)

Roasted Root Vegetable Medley (recipe by Sarah Stegall)

Traditional Cornbread (recipe by Tutti Weiss)

Drop Biscuits (recipe by Rebekah Baran)

Salad Dressing (tastes like Thousand Island, recipe by Janet Cooney, salad by Timothy Baran)

Darlene’s Trifle (recipe by Virginia Schonbachler)

Darlene’s Pumpkin Roll (recipe by Sarah Stegall)

Rebekah, assisted by Daniel, cooked up this feast for us last week while I was at work. Timothy plated the entire meal (next week's photo), as well as the salad and desserts.

Needless, to say, we ate well for a couple of days!

Why, might you ask, would we cook a Thanksgiving Day dinner early?

One: I wanted to have photos to share with you, in case you'd like to try some of all of the recipes this year.

Two: Our traditional Thanksgiving Day dinner is comprised of poor boys, kettle-cooked chips, and pumpkin pie (Don't judge us), a Frankensteined tradition born our of my mother working in retail and hosting Thanksgiving at her house on the Sunday before Thanksgiving; Thanksgiving deadlines for both newsroom, routes and insert customers; too tired after meeting those deadlines; and, now still too tired after working long hours to want to cook up a feast on a day we're not working.

Besides, now that some of the adult kids work in the culinary industry, they, too, don't want to waste a precious day off in the vacation. It's far, far better to cook on a work day (or a working weekend).

So we did. Or rather, THEY did. 

But I enjoyed every scrap.

And maybe, just maybe, Rebekah will make some pumpkin rolls instead (or along with) pumpkin pie.

BTW, if you'd like a cookbook, proceeds benefit Big Brothers Big Sisters of Will and Grundy Counties. Order a cookbook HERE.

And if you didn't try out last week's recipe (cinnamon coffee cake), it will remain up for another week. Find that recipe on the Sue's Diner page HERE.