Thanksgiving Prep.

Thanksgiving is in 8 days. Are you ready?

I celebrated Thanksgiving early this year. We had our feast yesterday because we had a friend visiting us from France and we wanted him to share the festivities with us, but he will be gone before the actual holiday. We also invited our friend, Mintu, who lives across the street. I cooked all day long and the result was a huge, delicious Thanksgiving feast.

Now, most of you are probably celebrating with lots of family, so the cooking load is probably spread our between a couple different people. But whether or not you are cooking it all or just hosting, you need a game plan. This year was my first year making the feast, so I am by no means an experienced expert. However, I did do a lot of research and planning. I tried a lot of new things and used a lot of old family recipes. Here are some tips for throwing the perfect feast:

1. Make a menu in advance. I wrote out my menu on google docs with the source of each recipe and a list of ingredients under each item. Make sure you have taken food allergies or special accommodations into mind. Our friend Mintu is Hindu and does not eat beef or pork, so I had to remember that in my planning.

Here is an snippet of my basic menu plan.

2. Make a shopping list and go shopping early. I found that I had to run to the store two more times after I did my main shopping trip. By allowing myself enough time in between my shopping trip and the actual feast, I was able to remember anything I forgot before it was too late. Plus you need enough time to let the turkey thaw. Don’t forget non food items like a bucket for brining, disposable gloves, table cloths, napkins, etc.

3. Decide where to take short cuts. I knew that I wanted the meal to be yummy, but I just new I wouldn’t have the energy to do everything perfect from scratch. For instance, I knew that I wanted to take the time to brine my turkey, but I knew I wouldn’t have time to make pie crusts this year (although I do have good pie crust recipe here). So, I went for store bought pie crusts. I knew I wanted to whip my own cream for the pies instead of using cool whip, but I didn’t want to boil and peel and chop my own candied yams. So I bought them canned. Its ok to take short cuts. Just decide what is important to you and then try to make things as easy as you can.

4. Make a game plan. I wrote out the order that I was going to do everything starting  three days before:

The day before:

• Make pumpkin pie
• Assemble apple pie
• Make roll dough
• Toast almonds for salad
• Make vinaigrette for salad
• Chop vegetables
• Make cranberry sauce

On Turkey Day, I wrote out a game plan with times. An experienced Thanksgiving hoster might not need this, but for a first time hoster, it saved me. Mine was a combination of times and just general order of operations. Mine looked like this:

• 6:00 AM-put turkey into brine (although in retrospect, I would have put it in the brine the night before)
• start jello
• Pull roll dough out of fridge for final rise
• assemble green bean casserole
• assemble candied yams
• assemble salad
• assemble stuffing
• slice and peel potatoes
• 2:00 start prepping the turkey for the oven
• 2:30- put turkey in oven at 500 degrees
• 3:00 lower turkey temp to 350 degrees

…and so on. You get the idea. I just went through the day in my head and put it on paper. It kept me focused and helped everything to be ready at the right time.

5. Expect obstacles. Nothing is going to go perfectly. Don’t get so emotionally invested that you have a break down when things don’t quite work out. Adapt. Change plans. When for some reason my rolls didn’t rise and came out hard and dense even though I’ve used the same recipe three other times, I just whipped together a quick pop-over batter and threw them in oven 40 minutes before go-time. When the power went out for an hour, I just changed the order of things and did some chopping and peeling until it came back on. When I woke up with a horrible cold, I just decided that I was going to allow myself many breaks through out the day to rest. However, there are some kitchen catastrophes that can be avoided. Click here for my post about avoiding kitchen catastrophes.

6. Make sure you have enough dishes and serving utensils. I had to borrow a pie pan from my neighbor (I also borrowed both of my next door neighbor’s ovens right at the end.) I ran out of serving utensils and we were using a table spoon to dish up the mashed potatoes. Where is that gravy boat that is in storage because you only pull it out once a year at Thanksgiving? Ask those kind of questions early. Find all that stuff ahead of time. Especially if you are worried about having a nice table setting. I think I will worry about all that stuff more when I have a table bigger than a hula hoop in circumference. This year my focus was on the food.

I know this post is kind of lengthy. Sorry. Through out this week I will be posting all the recipes I used and tips and tricks to make the day easier, so keep reading! Good luck!!!