Anyone have any new ideas for Thanksgiving Dinner?

This isn't a side dish, but have you though about Indian Pudding (with Vanilia ice cream) for dessert?

Here is one if you like lobster. It's Lobster Stuffing http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1945,138160-230201,00.html

Make your own cranberry sauce. Get a bag of fresh cranberries and there will usually be a recipe on the back. If you buy them in bulk, you can use this one for a fresh classic: 1 lb cranberries (whole and fresh) 1 cup water 1 cup sugar Put everything in a saucepan over hit heat until water is boiling, then reduce to simmer. Cook until all the berries burst. Simmer sauce down to desired thickness. Sauce will gel a bit while cooling. You can add 1 package of gelatin to the mix if you want a cranberry jelly type sauce. Serve warm or chill (you'll want to chill it if you add gelatin). Just making it fresh will really side up the meal. However to make a fun riff on the traditional: 1 lb cranberries (whole and fresh) 1/2 cup water 1/2 cup orange juice 3/4 cup sugar (adjust for sweetness - sometimes the berries are tarter, sometimes they are sweeter, it's a good idea to start with 1/2 cup sugar and add as needed) 1 or 2 sticks of cinnamon or mulling spices if you have them zest of one orange Again, put everything into a pot (if using mulling spices, make a tea out of the spices and the water before starting to make things easier). Follow the same procedure as above. If you use cinnamon stick, take them out before serving or before chilling. I find that with the orange, you generally need less sweet. After making it, I like to grate a small amount of semi-sweet chocolate on top. It melts immediately and makes a very thin "lid" in the fridge. Before serving, I break it up and stir the chocolate in. I don't use enough that you taste in it every bite, but enough that every few bites you go, "is there chocolate in here? Hmm, how interesting".

Instead of one large bowl offering one kind of stuffing, we get really creative and due between 3 and 5 different recipes. Our tables looks ridiculously festive. There are two or three turkeys, 3 stuffing, 3 mashed potatoes, etc. But each one is seasoned or prepared differently. This has caused our extended family to really search for amazing dishes, old family dishes, and dishes from different cultures that we might not have tried other wise. This will be the third year and we are loving this new tradition of having no tradition in the food.

find a local church, Salvation Army, or homeless shelter and volunteer and/or eat there some churches have dinners because there are singles, elderly, new-in-town, & small families who enjoy getting together with a large group we did it at a church and enjoyed it very much when we were through eating, we all grabbed styrofoam take-out trays and went through the potluck lines filling them to be taken to homeless shelters - so much extra food that it filled a couple of vans then the next year did it at a homeless shelter itself and some of our neighbors were there

Tradition is a good thing. PIES lots of pies. My mother-in-law did a simple fruit salad at each place in a fancy stem ware. Side dish...so may good sweet potato casseroles and a jello salad is always a good side dish.

I would try mango pudding, or ham with cheese. Swiss cheese! Who doesn't like swiss cheese?

Grilled peppers Butternut Squash soup Fettachini Banana nut bread Hope this helps!