Six-Seven-Eight: The Chronicle of a Liberal Couple's Culinary Adventures: Thanksgiving 2013

Starting with the pork wellington for last year's Christmas, the Six-Seven-Eight family has been changing up all our holiday meals, trying out different recipes outside the standard classics.

That theme continued throughout much of 2013, when we tried out pork apple sirloin with gouda bread for St. Patrick's Day, the bacon wrapped pork with French onion soup for Easter, and pulled pork tacos for Cinco De Mayo.

While this year will again see experimenting on Christmas, we weren't quite ready to give up the traditional Thanksgiving dinner yet, so we went with all our classic favorites again.

It's our tradition for Megan to start with deviled eggs, which I get to eat while we make the rest of the meal!

One of our perennial Thanksgiving day sides is a broccoli cheese casserole, which actually gets put together the night before and then baked the day-of when the turkey comes out of the oven. To get started, we cook broccoli with seasonings and butter on the stove top.

To make the casserole extra thick and creamy, we use Velveeta instead of cheddar.

In a large casserole pan, set down a layer of broccoli, then a layer of cheese, followed by another layer of broccoli and a final layer of cheese cubes.

When it comes out of the oven the cheese melts deliciously into every nook and cranny - but it's not done yet!

These are wheat butter crackers that have been crushed up in a ziploc bag using a rolling pin.

The crumbs are spread across the top of the casserole forming a crunchy topping.

Here's the golden brown awesome when it comes out of the oven just in time for plating:

Of course, any Thanksgiving meal needs a green been casserole! We start ours by cooking several cans of green beans with sliced bacon on the stove top, then mixing it all together with cream of mushroom soup.

After being in the oven for most of the baking time, everything is covered in French fried onions and returned to the heat.

This is actually one side we're specifically looking forward to swapping out for Christmas this year, because although its a contemporary classic, frankly we've had just too much of it :)

Another side we do is creamed corn casserole, made with corn, cream, and seasonings.

It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without stuffing, and we start ours by shredding fresh carrots, onions, and celery.

Toss in some stuffing mix, milk, and seasonings and you've got a fluffy, delicious side ready to go!

Here our turkey has come out of the oven. Our traditional method of turkey cooking is to rub a butter and herb mixture underneath the skin all around the bird, and then bake it inside a baking bag so all the juices are retained and we can use them for the gravy. We're keen to try something a bit different next year however, like wrapping it in bacon or perhaps even frying it!

That's a 10 pound bag of peeled, chopped, boiled, and mashed potatoes right there! To make them extra fluffy and tasty, we add sour cream, milk, salt, and pepper.

Remember how I said we use the turkey's juices for the gravy? There's no need to go store-bought here. Cut a slice in the bag and pour as much of the juice into a stove top pan as you can get. Mix in flour, milk, and any seasonings you'd like (although you may not need any if you seasoned your turkey properly!) and whisk it together over a medium heat.