How many different ways can one prepare a Thanksgiving banquet?
If you turn to the culinary TV hosts of Food Network, you'll find that the possibilities are endless. One might as well wonder how many stars there are in the sky.
Beginning this weekend, the network is stuffing its lineup to overflowing with new Turkey Day episodes. (There's also a heaping helping of leftovers _ which is to say, reruns _ from previous seasons.)
The only suggestion we'll add: Know your limitations. If you bite off more than you can chew after watching the professionals, you might wind up instead with a legendary Thanksgiving disaster.
Here are some of the network's new offerings:
To Grandmother's house
"Clash of the Grandmas" (9 p.m. Sunday): This new series pits four super cooks (all of whom happen to be grandmothers) in a six-episode showdown. This weekend's debut is, fittingly enough, a Thanksgiving episode. Among the fun challenges: The grannies transform turkey leftovers into a tasty Italian dish. The eventual winner pockets $10,000.
"Holiday Baking Championship" (8 p.m. Sunday): This seven-episode show throws offbeat kitchen challenges at nine talented bakers. Two of the episodes _ this weekend's and the one airing Nov. 20 _ are Thanksgiving-themed. In one show, contestants must whip up pies by hand, no appliances allowed, the way grandmas theoretically used to do it. The winner will get $50,000.
"Worst Cooks in America" (8 p.m. Wednesday): In a special episode, two dreadfully bad cooks, sisters Brittany and Lesley, want to continue their late grandmother's holiday dinner tradition _ without the fire department showing up. They've got two days before they're expected to feed their extended family.
Comfort food
"Trisha's Southern Kitchen" (9:30 a.m. Saturday): Trisha Yearwood and sister Beth deliver turkeys and donate canned foods to the YWCA of Nashville and cook a portable Thanksgiving meal for Trisha's niece Ashley, a nurse at the local hospital. The spread includes sweet potato pudding, slow cooker pulled turkey, buttermilk cornbread and cran-apple crisp.
"The Pioneer Woman" (9 a.m. Saturday): Ree Drummond's frontier-style "Friendsgiving" features turkey roulade rolled around sausage stuffing, leek and potato casserole instead of mashed potatoes, roasted Brussels sprouts and kale, boozy gravy and festive goat cheese.
"Valerie's Home Cooking" (11:30 a.m. Saturday): Valerie Bertinelli and her husband host both of their families for a Thanksgiving feast. The spread includes fennel and citrus roasted turkey with gravy, cinnamon raisin bread stuffing with sausage and cranberry pomegranate crumb bars.
"Farmhouse Rules" (10:30 a.m. Sunday): Nancy Fuller prepares a family feast that features roasted and braised turkey with cognac gravy, root vegetable mash with thyme brown butter, pull apart butter rolls with everything seasoning, pecan pie and bourbon cranberry cocktails (for the grown-ups).
"Ayesha's Homemade" (11 a.m. Saturday): Ayesha Curry whips up some interesting side dishes to go with the turkey: the cheesiest mac and cheese ever, creamed cornbread and Southern mustard greens.
Getting creative
"Giada's Holiday Handbook" (11 a.m. Sunday): In the first of two Thanksgiving episodes, Giada De Laurentiis asks guests to bring something that can be added to a large antipasti platter as an appetizer. Then comes the big meal: spicy turkey breast cacciatore, smokey candied carrots and walnut gremolata, simple wilted greens and chocolate chunk hazelnut pie.
"Brunch @ Bobby's" (11:30 a.m. Sunday): Bobby Flay's daughter Sophie is coming home for after-Thanksgiving brunch. He bakes chocolate pumpkin swirl break with marmalade and reinvents the holiday dinner with waffle cornbread stuffing sandwiches with turkey, cheddar, bacon and cranberry Dijon gravy dipping sauce.
"Giada's Holiday Handbook" (11 a.m. Nov. 20): The menus on Giada's morning-after holiday brunch includes crisp turkey bites, cheesy root vegetable bake, sweet potato puffs and rye-spike chai lattes.
More breaks from tradition
"Guy's Big Bite" (8 a.m. Sunday): Thanksgiving dinner at the Guy Fieri house is a little bit different: balsamic braised leg of lamb cooked in a pressure cooker for maximum tenderness, sweet potato gnocchi tossed in a Parmesan butter sauce and peas and prosciutto.
"Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" (8 p.m. Friday): Fieri's food/travel series visits a crepe place in Princeton, N.J., that serves a turkey club and 20-layer cake, then checks out a cafe-bakery in Somersworth, N.H., that cooks up turkey meatloaf and a haddock sandwich.
Competitive juices
"Cutthroat Kitchen" (10 p.m. Wednesday): Thanksgiving episode challenges are as crazy as ever: One team makes a leftover turkey dish with ingredients from a giant cranberry mold; another team has to keep balloon floats from flying away while making a pumpkin pie.
"Guy's Grocery Games" (7 p.m. Sunday): Four chefs make a regional Thanksgiving dinner using only 7 pounds of ingredients; the final two chefs have two minutes to shop for an upscale turkey dinner.
"Chopped" (7 p.m. Monday): Four chefs who cook in soup kitchens square off. Items in the dessert basket sound healthy, but what the finalists serve might turn out to be downright decadent.
"Chopped Junior" (7 p.m. Tuesday): Four confident young cooks set out to make spectacular Thanksgiving meals, even though there's no turkey in the entree basket.
"Beat Bobby Flay" (9 p.m. Thursday): Martha Stewart is one of the judges when Bobby takes on Moroccan-born Omar Zerrei and former Iron Chef America sous-chef Ed Cotton.
Late bite
"Food: Fact or Fiction?" (9 p.m. Monday, Cooking Channel): This fun series (airing on Food Network's sister channel) takes an offbeat look at food history. In this episode, Michael McKean wonders which came first: turkey the bird or Turkey the country? He also questions how burnt marshmallows ended up on sweet potatoes and who got the bright idea to put cranberries in a can.
