The turkey thing was easy. Clean it, sprinkle a bit of seasoning on it, stick it in the oven at the same temperature as everything else but a good slice of time beforehand, and forget about it.
The sweetcorn thing was a recipe
I've translated the quantities in the newspaper into the sort of way I use to measure quantities at home, and described the ingredients using British English.
Take an amount of onion about half the size of a fist, and cut it into bits about the size of sweetcorn kernels.
Melt a bit of unsalted butter about the size of two thumbs, and use it to cook the onion until it softens and goes transparent.
Get a half-kilo bag of frozen sweetcorn and put it into boiling water for a minute or so -- long enough to make it warm and ensure that it's not frozen any more.
Get a bowl. Beat a couple of eggs with about the same volume of cream. I used "heavy whipping cream", but in the UK I'd probably use double cream. Add the sweetcorn and the cooked onion with its butter. Add about a quarter of a pound of grated cheese. If you feel like it, add some chopped parsley, some marjoram, whatever else comes to hand. pour it into a buttered dish and sprinkle paprika on top, and put it in the oven at 350°F (180°C) for 45 minutes.
The sweet potato thing was a recipe from a ring binder full of things in
Cook some sweet potatoes in their jackets, then peel them and mash them with butter and cream. Throw in a solid quantity of brown sugar -- about an eighth of the amount of sweet potato you're using. Make sure it's well mixed.
Put the result into a dish and then sprinkle small marshmallows on top. Put it in the oven and let the marshmallows melt and go a little brown -- about 20 minutes at the same temperature as the other things being cooked.
The croissants came prefabricated in a little cardboard tube with the Pillsbury Dough Boy on the outside. Just tear the goo inside into separate triangles, roll them up and shape them, and put them on a baking sheet in the top of the oven with everything else. They need about 12 minutes.
So that was Thanksgiving lunch, as prepared by myself in
Butterscotch Banana Cheesecake later.