HAHAHA Gotcha with this title huh? No, I'm not leaving the wife for my side piece LoL.

Everyone talks about their great turkey and how they're gonna prep it (Me included, I have a post about that), but what about those sides?

I love the wife's cranberry dressing. She also makes a killer seafood greens side with shrimp, onions and sausage in the greens. Let's not forget the homemade pecan pie and the praline and spicy rum eggnog. She really goes all out for Thanksgiving.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SIDE PIECE?

My favorite is my wife's oyster stuffing (dressing).
I love that stuff.

Au gratin potatoes, I think. I have to mull on this.. green beans also really good..so is wild rice with cranberries..hmm, maybe it’s the stuffing…but I think the gravy might beat all.

Um, Waterbury, is that oyster dressing recipe available??

Gravy to go over some of the sides.

Taters and gravy, cornbread dressing and gravy. And that canned cranberry jello type shit. Which reminds me I better go get a can of it.

In our household, turkey is a side dish, in fact we no longer cook one, my wife goes to our favorite local bbq place which is open on Thanksgiving Day and gets smoked turkey, enough for four of us. The meal is the sides. Our favorite is my sausage cornbread chestnut stuffing/dressing, and also deep fried smashed potatoes. Other sides from scratch include roasted brussel sprouts with bacon and creamed corn.

My favorite side piece...

I hate canned cranberry mystery goo and don't really like homemade cranberry sauce either. Since cranberries are a Thanksgiving staple, I make 2 side dishes that contain them:

cranberry dressing. Quite literally my regular dressing/stuffing recipe with a pound of fresh cranberries added in before cooking. Cranberries compliment and don't overpower.

jalapeño cranberry relish. Cranberries provide the tart, oranges and sugar provide the sweet, and jalapeños provide the heat. It's not to much of sweet, tart, or heat.

Way back when, my mother used to make Jezebel sauce, the stuff was great on ham. It was yellow, seems like it had pineapple, mustard, horseradish. Was great on ham.

Two solid appetizers we use are a dried beef cheese ball and a warm crab dip with mini naan bread. Those are early afternoon snacks in the kitchen where everyone congregates.

The other is the dressing. I make a pretty traditional stuffing with Onion, Celery, Sage and Thyme. I also make an "Italian" stuffing with sweet Italian sausage, Onion and Parmesan moistened with vegetable stock. It's getting to the point where I should only make the Italian as it is far and away the favorite.