The fourth Thursday in November is special for all of us. For many of you, this means plowing through traffic to your parents' house, with delusions of an impossibly juicy turkey, pleasant discourse, and hours of gluttonous daytime sleeping ahead of you. When you get there, it turns out to be meat one step above a wooden plank, loud Aunt Eunice and Uncle Mortimer blaming snowfall on THE OBUMMERS, and someone insisting on putting on the Macy's parade rerun over football.
There's a solution to all of this! Host Thanksgiving at your house, and invite friends over to have a potluck! This way you can temper boring social situations with vast amounts of alcohol without enduring the scorn and judgement of your parents. Today, I've invited over SB Nation pals Celebrity Hot Tub (@celebrityhottub), Bill Hanstock (@sundownmotel), and, in place of your racist uncle, PFT Commenter (@pftcommenter). They've each brought a dish to share, and I have made the turkey for you.
This is my Super Bowl, internet. Enjoy.
To get things started, let's see what our guests have brought. In most cases, I was given a recipe to duplicate by each guest. For most of them, I was able to do it. Some ingredients have been altered due to lack of availability.
Bill Hanstock's CHEDDAR BAY ROLLS
Bill made this recipe with one stipulation. All ingredients must be able to roll. So first, we'll need dough for our rolls.
Crush these pieces up under a large, heavy bludgeoning device of your choice (I used Spillycat). Now, you'll need to add the cheese. Bill suggested Cheese Balls, which would have been perfect, but were unavailable at my crappy grocery store. I went with the still-rollable:
Now, crush them in with the cereal as shown below. (Watch out for a pissed off cat at this point)
Next in the ingredient list were "peas and Gushers to use as flavor crystals". I like your thinking, Bill. Flavor Crystals are an often overlooked element in every meal.
Easy!. Now, simply pour on some water, roll into balls with your mitts, and set them on top of the toaster. Keep pushing the lever down for four hours until the rolls are fully cooked:
Bill also gave me another recipe to share! He's made dessert!
Bill Hanstock's PLUMPKIN PIE
Bill suggested using Moon Pies for the crust, because they already have "pie" in the name. Unfortunately, this was another item I was unable to find, but I was able to substitute in another kind of pie:
Begin by pressing the pies into your pie plate to create a crust:
Bill also suggested the time-honored method of getting a pie crust to stay together: ham. He further suggests that it's wise to keep ham around on the side in case you run out of turkey. "Ham is the "break glass in case of emergency" meat.", he said. I couldn't agree more, Bill.
Unpack the ham and layer it onto your pie. Let's move on to the filling.
From Bill:
Ballpark Franks plump when you cook 'em, so blend up a mess-ton of Ballparks and boom: plumpkin' filling. (drizzle a Pumpkin Spice Latte into the blender, because it's the only thing allowed to taste like pumpkin at autumn times.)
Let's see it in action:
Blend it all, and spoonpour it into the hamcrust:
Doesn't that look delicious? Goodness. I even poured a bit more latte on top to really bring out that playful sludge color.
To finish it off, from Bill:
You should probably sweeten up this pie so it's not too savory, so Pixie Stix and Fun-Dip are nature's sweeteners (throw in the lick-a-stix for a fun scavenger hunt)
Again, both of these ingredients were impossible to find at my tiny grocery store, and given time constraints, I decided to substitute the Pixie Stix with:
Unwrap 12 Pez...? Pezi? Pezzes? I'm not sure what the plural of Pez is. Sprinkle a few of them on top!
Again, bake for an absurdly long period of time.
FOODTIP: Baked Oatmeal Creme Pie is the strongest chemical bond in the universe and will never, ever come off a pie plate.
We have two dishes down. Next up is Celebrity Hot Tub!
Celebrity Hot Tub's SWEET POTATO SOUFFLE
Oh CHT, you know I don't know your fancy city words like souffle! But I know what a potato is, so lets begin with that. Here is the most normal picture in Spillyfood history:
Just potatoes. Not meatpotatoes. They aren't made from Chex Mix and horseradish. The problem here is that they're not sweet. Sir, I'm not sure how you plan on making sweet potatoes without
Oh, now I see where this is going. Fantastic. It's not just a slurpee, but it's a caffeinated Mountain Dew WHATEVER VIDEO GAME IS OUT RIGHT NOW XTREME special edition slurpee. Well, let's just pour that 16 ounces of radiation into the potatoes.
Uh, yeah, I may have tried to keep that slurpee in the freezer overnight.
Anyway, this should be easy enough now. Mash them with a beer bottle and instead of marshmallows, top with tartar sauce!
There you have it! It's probably not a souffle, but it's irradiated day glow orange mashed potatoes, and that's close! (It's not really close)
Next up, we have PFTCommenter with the strongest taek on gravy the world has ever seen. Enjoy:
PFTCommenter's BRO-TEIN THANKSGIVING GRAVY
Folks Im humbeled as heck that Spilly asked me to help out with his Thanksgiving feast. This is the biggest time of year for him and really its just a honor to be here. For my contribution to the feast I want to pass a long to you my family recipe that my roomate taught me when I lived in his apartment while he was at college and I was at the neighboring community college. I call it my "MD Two Ways Bro-tein Gravy." It combines all the elements you need to counteract the turkey coma so that you can stay a wake watching the important Thanksgiving NFL action.
First've all you need to do some shopping for your first MD ingredient: Mad Dog 20/20. Now Mad Dogs come in all sorts've delectable flavors like peaches in cream, dragon fruit, purple rain, bling bling blue raspberry, orange jubilee, etc. but for the holidays you need to spare no expense and go top shelf with your MD selection and that can only mean Habernero Lime-A-Rita folks.
This is a regional flavor Im told but if you stock up when your visiting a friend you can bring it across state lines without a permit now. Bring the mad dog to a boil in your saucepan and let it simmer there to reduce a bit. Your going to lose some alcohol but its importent to concentrate the valuable flavor.
Now a important part of any sauce is caffeine. You use to be able to make this recipe with 4 loko but then all those kids with bum tickers bit the big one and then Obama bannedhammered them. But for my substitute we're going to put in the second MD- Mountain Dew. This is the Denver Omlette of Fortified wine gravies so I use 3 kinds of Dew.
Thats Regular, Code Red, and White flavors. Mix about a cup and a half of each seperately while your Mad Dog reduces. This is a good time 2 take a aspirin because your kitchin is going to start smelling like Tiger Woodses wrist after a 3-day weekend in a minute, and the splitting headache that follows is enough to make you want to cancel all holidays.
After about 15 minutes, lower the heat on youre Habernero Limearita Mad Dog reduction. We're going to add the protein to our gravy. Protein is a essential part of any workout regimen, and we need to include it in our Thanksgiving feast or else all the calories will turn into fat in stead of muscles. To do that youll need:
We're going to have eggs two ways here to add a touch of flare and show off a bit. Take one egg and blend it into your Mountain Dew mixture, whisk it to taste:
Take your nother egg and crack it into the Mad Dog reduction, I call this a "Coached" egg. Your going to turn your soft little yolk into a real Schiano Man. You throw that egg into the boiling mad dog and what do you know? A little bit of heat and violence actually toughens that egg up a little bit. Thats how you know the Coaching is working. After a couple minutes it should have anice texture not unsimilar to egg-drop soup.
After your egg has poached for about 3 minutes, turn the heat down to "low" and add in your Mountain Dew/egg mixture.
Now you might notice that your reduction has become a little to liquidy thanks to the Dew. No worries- a nother importent part about working out is choosing the correct synthetic-amphetamie pre-workout supplement complete.
I prefer to use Jack3ds old formula that got banned for killing some folks and also basically just being speed. Pour a bunch of that in there to help your sauce thicken up.
Stir thoroughly on account of you dont want big clumps of pseudophedrine or raw egg sticking to your guests gums. Its best to even those out to make a smoothly consistent Gravy. Next pour into your best bowl, and let cool in the sink for a few minutes.
Serve, and enjoy! Your guests will thank you after they wake up tomorrow after a full day of eating and football. This is truly what the Holidays are all about! Happy Thanksgiving folks!
Thank you, PFTCommenter.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall reveal the main course. This took me no less than 3 hours to prepare, and is the single most expensive meal item I have ever produced.
Spilly's TURDUCKEN
We start with a single solitary Chicken McNugget. Ideally, you want one shaped like an obese Florida:
The key to any turducken is to fit as many animals as possible inside each other. But a lot of animals can be expensive! I can't even FIND duck Hot Pockets to harvest and it's not like they have a counter in the back that will cut to order one of many different available animals arranged in a convenient case! This will be a difficult undertaking. The key is finding meat that have the vaguest ingredient lists. That way you're probably still getting duck, even if it's just duck anus
In any case, our next ingredient is:
UNLABELLED AND FOREBODING MYSTERY MEAT
Well, THIS couldn't possibly go wrong. Wedge that McNugget inside:
Next up, we need to find something gelatinous to hold these small meats inside of each other. You know it wouldn't be a Spilly Thanksgiving without:
That's right, scoop out that Spam! We need to make a hole for our can of mystery! As we've discovered before, Spam is frighteningly scoopable. Once you're done, wedge that can in there tight.
Well, the core of our turducken is complete. Now we need to start layering. This next step is complex - we need to create a shell that will keep our can safe in the oven, while still imparting the nutrients of label ink into our meat. To do this, we'll create a paste to fill any unnecessary gaps between this and our next layer.
CHOCONNAISE
Combine both entire containers. Maybe it'll be too much. Use the rest instead of milk on tomorrow's Froot Loops! That's eating on a budget!
And what will this paste hold together? If you guessed beef, you win the prize! The prize is more beef!
Be careful, now! What you want to do is paint the can of Spam with choconnaise, and layer this beef around and on top of it. Once complete, brush on another layer to seal it up:
Now, you'll brace this all together with, of course, microwave bacon.
At this point, we're moving on to bigger and better meats. Let's bring out the big guns:
Dat ham
Dat beauteous ham.
Unwrap and lay it on the side. You understand what we need to do now, right? Bring out the ice cream scoop. We goin ham-mining.
Measure carefully. We don't want choconnaise spilling out all over the counter. Once you're comfortable with the depth and diameter, slowly....carefully, stuff our meatbrick inside. Wait. That....that didn't come out right.
WONDEROUS.
At this point, transfer our delicious abomination to a baking pan. Make sure that pan is disposable. After what we're going to do to it, you'll never - ever - want to use it again.
Next, we'll start making a glaze for the top of the ham. TO THE BLENDER!
Oh Satan's Asslettuce, we meet again. I swore I'd never use you again - your withering odor befouls all it comes in contact with. But this is a special day, and today we pull out all the gut-wrenching stops. Today, we're going to sacrifice this blob of cheese spread to your unholy altar. In addition, we offer up:
Sure, we're using chocolate again, but tell someone you've made a double-chocolate turducken and I guarantee you'll have a new best friend.
Lord have mercy.
Pour this onto the meat before the hate burns through your blender blades, rendering them useless.
This - in the most literal way possible - looks like the biggest piece of shit in the world.
You'll likely need to leave the room and hug your wife or girlfriend. Take your kids on a walk. Snuggle a pet. Do anything to fill the hole this has blown into your humanity. When you've regained your senses, soldier on.
Right! Meats. We need more meats. Let's try some seafood!
Unpack the sardines and pile them on top of your creation.
Oooo, a bonus onion slice! How fancy and progressive.
There's only one more meat to add. You may have thought I've forgotten this is a thanksgiving meal, but I haven't. No, next up is turkey. Lunchmeat turkey, because have you SEEN the costs of a whole turkey this time of year?
Use the Glaze of Terror to attach slices of lunchmeat.
One final ingredient remains. This whole time, this turducken has been missing one thing. Flavor. But you can't just buy flavor in a tube. UNTIL:
I AM GOING TO USE THIS IN EVERYTHING FROM NOW ON. Flavor injected beef. Flavor injected Gushers. Flavor injected ice cream. Nothing will ever be the same!
That's...not really working. It won't flow out. OUR TURDUCKEN IS REJECTING FLAVOR.
We tried. Pour the rest on top.
Sprinkle with Tang, and begin baking our turducken. I put it in the oven for two hours.
And when it's done, and your kitchen is destroyed, this will be the fruit of your labor:
As an added bonus, I tore down the Turducken to find the McNugget. Observe:
Happy Thanksgiving from us here at SB Nation, Internet.