By Thanksgiving is next week, which means this week is the week before Thanksgiving, which means this week is Planning Week, which means I am a general and my kitchen is the war room and the grocery list is the battle plan and I take this more seriously than I take most things in my life, including dental hygiene, and dental hygiene is literally my profession.
I started the list on Monday. Not the grocery list — the master list. The List of Lists. Who's coming, what I'm making, what I need, what I already have, what I can buy now versus what has to be bought fresh. This is not casual cooking. This is not a Tuesday night meal. This is Thanksgiving, the one day a year when I cook like I'm auditioning for something, when every dish matters, when the table has to groan — actually groan, physically buckle under the weight of food — because that's what Earline's table did and what Lorraine's table does and what my table will do even if my table is a secondhand IKEA table that seats four comfortably and six with creative chair placement and elbows touching.
The menu. Let me tell you the menu because the menu is sacred and has been essentially unchanged since I started hosting Thanksgiving four years ago when I finally had an apartment with an oven that worked consistently. Turkey — not a huge one, twelve to fourteen pounds, because I am feeding five people (me, three kids, Lorraine) and there must be leftovers but not so many leftovers that I'm eating turkey sandwiches until Christmas. Cornbread dressing — Earline's recipe, not stuffing, DRESSING, cooked in a pan beside the turkey, not inside it, because stuffing a turkey is how you get salmonella and I am a dental hygienist who respects science. Mashed potatoes. Gravy from the drippings. Green bean casserole — and yes it's the one with the cream of mushroom soup and the French's fried onions on top, and yes I know it's from a can, and no I will not apologize, that casserole has been at every Thanksgiving I've ever attended and it will be at every Thanksgiving I ever host, it is tradition and tradition is not up for nutritional review. Mac and cheese — baked, not stovetop, with a crispy top, because Jayden will eat the mac and cheese and the mac and cheese only if left unsupervised, so it has to be enough to constitute a meal on its own. Sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top, which is technically a dessert pretending to be a side dish and I support this deception fully. Cranberry sauce — from a can. I know. I KNOW. But Elijah likes it because it's red-adjacent (he has recently expanded his color acceptance to include "warm colors," which is growth, which is parenting, which is a six-year-old deciding that red is close enough to orange to be trusted). Rolls — Sister Schubert's, frozen, because I am making nine other dishes and the rolls can come from the freezer and no one will know and if they do know they won't care because Sister Schubert understood something about butter and dough that the rest of us are still learning. And pie. Sweet potato pie, because pumpkin pie is fine but sweet potato pie is OURS, it's Southern, it's Earline's, it's the pie Lorraine makes every year, and this year Lorraine is making the pie because I asked her to and she said, "Well, SOMEBODY has to do it right," which is her way of saying yes and I love you and your pie crust is inferior to mine, all at the same time.
I told Chloe she's in charge of the table. Plates, napkins, glasses, centerpiece if she wants one. She immediately started planning a centerpiece involving pinecones from the apartment complex parking lot and candles from the Dollar Tree, and she's been collecting pinecones all week, bringing them home in her backpack like small woody treasures, and the kitchen counter has a pile of pinecones on it right now and the apartment smells like outside and I love it.
Jayden asked if he could help cook. Let me say that again. JAYDEN ASKED IF HE COULD HELP COOK. Voluntarily. Without prompting. Without negotiation. He walked into the kitchen on Wednesday while I was writing the grocery list and said, "Can I do something for Thanksgiving? Like, make something?" I did not scream. I did not cry. I said, very calmly, the way you speak to a deer that has wandered into your yard and might bolt, "What do you want to make?" He said, "I don't know. Something easy." I said, "You could make the mac and cheese." He said, "The real baked kind?" I said, "There's only one kind in this house." He said, "Okay." OKAY. My eleven-year-old boy who has been in two fights and five counseling sessions and one suspended week and an untold number of silent car rides is going to make the mac and cheese for Thanksgiving and I am going to let him and I am going to eat it and it is going to be the best mac and cheese anyone has ever made because he made it and because he asked to make it and because asking is the bravest thing Jayden Mitchell has done all year.
I went to Kroger on Saturday and spent $73 on Thanksgiving groceries. That's a lot. That's more than I usually spend in a week on everything. But I had coupons — I always have coupons, coupons are my love language, coupons are how I fight back against a world that charges too much for butter — and I bought the turkey on sale ($0.89/lb, frozen, I'll thaw it starting Sunday), and the rest was strategic. Cream of mushroom soup, four cans (casseroles, gravy backup). Canned green beans. French's fried onions. Evaporated milk. Brown sugar. Marshmallows. Butter — three pounds, because Thanksgiving is a butter holiday and I refuse to run out. Eggs. The block of sharp cheddar and the block of Velveeta for the mac and cheese (yes both, don't argue). Elbow macaroni. Heavy cream. Sweet potatoes. Regular potatoes. Celery, onions. The cranberry sauce. I already had the cornmeal for the dressing and the spices and the flour. I already had Earline's recipe cards in the box that I'll give Chloe someday, and I already had the cast iron skillet, and I already had the knowledge of how to turn all of this into a table that groans.
This week's actual meals were simpler — the calm before the Thanksgiving storm. Tuesday I made spaghetti, the most reliable Tuesday food in the world. Ground beef, jar of Ragú (I know, I KNOW, but it was $1.50 and Tuesday does not get homemade sauce, Tuesday gets efficiency), spaghetti noodles, garlic bread made from regular bread with butter and garlic powder under the broiler. Elijah ate the noodles plain with butter because sauce is red and red is only provisionally trusted. Jayden ate his with a Parmesan mountain. Chloe ate hers like a civilized human. I ate mine standing at the counter, as is tradition, because sitting down on a Tuesday feels like giving up somehow, like if I sit down I'll never get up, and there's still homework to supervise and lunches to pack and a turkey to thaw and a Thanksgiving to plan and a boy who wants to make mac and cheese and a girl collecting pinecones and a six-year-old who has just informed me that he is thankful for Professor Biscuit and orange foods and "the flavor yellow," which is not a thing but is now my favorite thing anyone has ever said.
The flavor yellow. I'm going to think about that all week. I'm going to stand in my kitchen on Thursday and make nine dishes and watch my son make mac and cheese and my daughter arrange pinecones and my baby eat cranberry sauce because it's warm-colored, and I'm going to taste every single thing, and I'm going to find the flavor yellow. I think it might be the marshmallows on the sweet potato casserole. I think it might be the butter on the rolls. I think it might be the feeling in the room when everyone is at the table and no one is missing and the food is hot and the phone is off and Lorraine is complaining that the turkey is dry even though it isn't and Elijah is asking if Professor Biscuit can sit at the table and Jayden is eating his mac and cheese, the one he made, the one he asked to make, with his hands and his heart and his terrifying, beautiful okay.
Lorraine has the sweet potato pie handled — she made that abundantly clear — and Jayden is claiming the mac and cheese, and honestly those two anchors free me up to try something that’s just for the pleasure of it, something cool and green and a little unexpected on a table full of warm and golden. This Grasshopper Pie has been on my list for two years now, and if Elijah is expanding his color trust to include warm colors, maybe this is the year I slide something cool and mint-green onto the table and let it speak for itself. It’s no-bake, it comes together in under half an hour before it hits the freezer, and on a week when I am also making nine other things, that is not a small thing — that is, in fact, the flavor yellow.
Grasshopper Pie
Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 5 min | Total Time: 4 hrs 25 min (includes freeze time) | Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 24 Oreo cookies, finely crushed (about 2 cups crumbs)
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 32 large marshmallows
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 3 tablespoons creme de menthe, or 1 teaspoon pure peppermint extract
- 2 tablespoons creme de cacao, or 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder dissolved in 1 tablespoon warm milk
- 2 cups heavy whipping cream, cold
- 3–4 drops green food coloring (optional, for color)
- Whipped cream and chocolate shavings, for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Make the crust. Combine crushed Oreo crumbs and melted butter in a bowl and stir until the crumbs are evenly moistened. Press firmly into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie plate. Place in the freezer while you prepare the filling.
- Melt the marshmallows. In a medium saucepan over low heat, combine marshmallows and milk. Stir constantly until marshmallows are completely melted and smooth, about 4–5 minutes. Remove from heat.
- Add the flavor. Stir in the creme de menthe (or peppermint extract) and creme de cacao (or cocoa mixture). Add green food coloring if using. Stir until fully combined. Transfer to a large bowl and let cool to room temperature, about 20–25 minutes. Do not skip cooling — adding warm marshmallow to whipped cream will deflate it.
- Whip the cream. Using a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat the cold heavy whipping cream on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form, about 3–4 minutes.
- Fold together. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the whipped cream into the cooled marshmallow mixture in three additions, folding just until no white streaks remain. Do not stir vigorously or you will lose the volume.
- Fill and freeze. Remove the crust from the freezer and pour the filling in evenly, smoothing the top with the spatula. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 4 hours, or overnight.
- Serve. Remove from the freezer 10 minutes before slicing to let it soften slightly. Top with dollops of whipped cream and chocolate shavings if desired. Slice with a sharp knife dipped in warm water.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 385 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 23g | Carbs: 44g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 175mg