Our Cookbook Club did Friendsgiving again last year, and it was another success! I made two side dishes that contain a main ingredient at a Thanksgiving table but with preparations that were not traditional. I made caramelized carrots with pancetta, olives, and crispy parmesan from Dinner in One by Melissa Clark. I roasted the carrots halfway and then added pancetta, cumin seeds, and parmesan and continued to roast. Then I made an olive, garlic, and lemon dressing to drizzle over after roasting. So much flavor and interesting additions to just what could otherwise be plain roasted carrots.

For Friendsgiving, I also made coconut creamed corn from Cooking in Real Life by Lidey Heuck. This recipe stuck out to me as I love corn and this seemed like such an unusual way to make it, I knew this would be the perfect opportunity to make this dish. This would be a great dish to make creamy corn without any dairy as it uses coconut milk as the liquid. In addition to the coconut milk, there were also large toasted unsweetened coconut flakes sprinkled on top. And mixed into the corn was the lime juice, chives, and chipotle chile powder to add some more flavor to it. I would highly recommend both recipes. And I would highly recommend both cookbooks as there are so many recipes that sound so good in both of them.

Since I started making my Christmas cookie baking list at the beginning of November and almost reached double digit numbers, I decided to make two of them for Thanksgiving instead to spread them out. I made the cherry blossom cookies from Cookies for Days by Karli Bitner. Everything in this cookbook looks incredible and so far everything I have tried has, indeed, been incredible! These cookies were a riff on peanut butter blossoms made with a peanut butter cookie and a Hershey kiss pressed into the middle. The cherry blossom cookies had maraschino cherries both cut up in the cookie dough along with some of the cherry juice used in it too. They did have some almond extract too which gave such a nice cherry almond flavor. And then there was a chocolate candy in the middle. If I make them again I will probably omit the chocolate as I’m not the biggest fan of chocolate in some applications.

I also made millionaire shortbread using a recipe from Pampered Chef website using the Pampered Chef shortbread cookie mix. These were really good! They have a buttery cookie crust, a layer of caramel that you make from scratch, and lastly a layer of chocolate on the top. So many great flavors in one bar.

And somehow for Thanksgiving, I ended up making 4 casseroles for the big day! We also had turkey, of course, beef tenderloin, gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberries, and 7-layer bars for dessert.

I made the delicious doctored dressing from Ree Drummond on the Food Network site. It was good and flavorful, but I would probably try a different one this year as I like to mix this up and don’t have any strong taste memories of stuffing as I only started eating it as a grownup. And yes, I do call this “stuffing” even though it was not stuffed into a turkey, it was cooked in a casserole dish so I guess it’s technically dressing.

I also made the sweet potato casserole from my family cookbook, “The Cookbook Cook’s Family Cookbook.” This is usually one of my favorite Thanksgiving dishes, but this year they didn’t taste as good as usual. I used canned sweet potatoes instead of boiled and peeled fresh sweet potatoes, and that was the only difference. So when I make it this year, fresh sweet potatoes will be used.

Spreadsheet to organize all of the Thanksgiving recipes

I made the broccoli casserole from Katie Lee Biegel on the Food Network site. I had made this once before, and we all loved it! You make your own cream of mushroom soup which just tastes amazing! I do recommend doubling the recipe to be in a 9x13 pan as this went fast!

And the fourth of the four casseroles: slow cooker mac and cheese from Southern Bite. When I made it before it only took about an hour, and I had allotted two hours per the recipe. This year it took 1.5 hours, and I allotted one hour. I think it took longer as I made it with cavatappi which is a thicker and bigger pasta. I would recommend this swap as I like the texture better, and it just seems more interesting. But I will allow it the proper cooking time.

What Thanksgiving recipes are always on your table? Are there any new recipes you are trying?

Thanksgiving 2025