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A One-Hour Thanksgiving Dinner is the practice of preparing a complete Thanksgiving dinner in one hour, assuming the turkey breast is thawed. In contrast, a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for a small family or group of 4-8 people takes many hours to prepare and may involve some preparation the day before. Convenience foods are typically used to simplify the preparation. The use of off the shelf items commonly found in U.S. supermarkets allows for the meal to be prepared in a short time and at a minimal cost, by someone who is not familiar with cooking. The ideal of a one-hour Thanksgiving can also be achieved by modifying or replacing scratch recipes for time efficiency, though the result will often be less than traditional.

This recipe is for an entire Thanksgiving Dinner that takes one hour to cook. The recipe uses various pre-cooked ingredients and instant foods, and is designed for those cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the first time, such as college students.

Read more about the One Hour Thanksgiving Dinner Recipe.

The cranberry is a small sour fruit. It is so sour that most people can't stand to eat fresh cranberries alone. Cranberries contain edible seeds and plenty of air. Cranberry juice has been shown to reduce bladder infections in a nursing home environment. Cranberries are popular as juice, dried fruit, and a jam or jelly called cranberry sauce - all with added sugar of course. One single grower's cooperative, Ocean Spray, controls 70% of the cranberry crop.

Cranberry

Established in 1888 to standardize the measure with which cranberries are sold, the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers' Association (CCCGA) is one of the country's oldest farmers' organizations. Today, the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers' Association represents approximately 250 growers throughout Massachusetts. This unity has given growers both a single voice and collective strength in promoting the cranberry industry.

The Cranberry Institute is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1951 to further the success of United States and Canadian cranberry growers through health, agricultural and environmental stewardship research as well as cranberry promotion and education.

Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the genus Vaccinium subgenus Oxycoccus, or in some treatments, in the distinct genus Oxycoccus. They are found in acidic bogs throughout the cooler parts of the Northern Hemisphere.

cranberry fruit on a cranberry bush

Cranberries are low, creeping shrubs or vines up to 10 cm tall (often less), with slender, wiry stems, not thickly woody, and small evergreen leaves. The flowers are dark pink, with very distinct reflexed petals, leaving the style and stamens fully exposed and pointing forward. The fruit is a true berry that is larger than the leaves of the plant; it is initially white, but turns a deep red when fully ripe. It is edible, with an acidic taste that can overwhelm its sweetness.

Cranberries are a traditional Thanksgiving food in the United States.

No matter what preparation method you choose, cook cranberries only until they pop because overcooking gives them a bitter taste. Since cranberries are almost 90% water, do not thaw frozen cranberries before cooking them. Thawing will cause the fruit to break down, resulting in soft cranberries. Cranberries may be baked with a sweetener to make a topping or sauce. They are also good chopped with oranges to make a relish.

This is a recipe for a great tasting cranberry sauce that anyone can make. The key is to start with good cranberries.

Cranberry Sauce Ingredients

• 12 oz. package of fresh cranberries, rinsed, sorted and trimmed
• 1 c. cranberry juice (cocktail, a mix like cranapple or cran-raspberry, or any other fruit juice you have on hand)
• 1/2 c. sugar (or a little more if you don't like your cranberries tart)
• 1/4 tsp. allspice
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon

You will also need a large non-alumninum saucepan. Alumninum will react with the acid in the cranberries and make the sauce taste metalic. :-p

This balsamic cranberry sauce recipe is recommended for duck, goose or Turducken.

Balsamic Cranberry Sauce Ingredients

• 1/2 lb fresh cranberries
• 7 tbsps sugar
• 2 tbsps orange liqueur
• 1/4 c balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 c chicken broth
• 1/2 c beef broth
• 1 tsp fresh ginger -- minced
• 1 dash cayenne pepper

Make sure not to use any alumninum bowls or pans. Alumninum will react with the acid in the cranberries and make the sauce taste metalic. :-p

Turducken

A turducken is a de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a small de-boned chicken. The cavity of the chicken and the rest of the gaps are filled with, at the very least, a highly seasoned breadcrumb mixture or sausage meat, although some versions have a different stuffing for each bird. Some recipes call for the turkey to be stuffed with a chicken which is then stuffed with a duckling. It is also called a chuckey.

a bacon covered Turducken

Read more about Turducken.

Because turkey is the most common main dish of a Thanksgiving dinner, Thanksgiving is sometimes colloquially called Turkey Day (USA). The USDA estimated that 269 million turkeys were raised in the country in 2003, about one-sixth of which were destined for a Thanksgiving dinner plate.

Most Thanksgiving turkeys are stuffed with bread crumbs and roasted. Sage is the traditional herb added to the stuffing (also called dressing), along with chopped celery and onions. Turducken, a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken, is becoming more popular, from its Cajun base in Louisiana. Deep-fried turkey is rising in popularity as well, requiring special fryers to hold the large bird, and reportedly leading to fires and bad burns for those who aren't careful. In more recent years it is also true that as the wild population of turkeys has rebounded in most of the U.S., some will also hunt and dress their turkey in the woods and then freeze it until it is time to eat.

Read more about Thanksgiving Turkey.