Thanksgiving tips for a great dinner!
A week before –
Plan your menu and work out what time to start the turkey, stuffing,
veggies etc. I work backward from the time I want dinner to be served. A
schedule for the food prep and cooking makes the day easy!
Wash all your serving dishes and glasses if they’ve been in storage.
Buy everything except for fresh produce. Our new town sells
out of specialty items quickly, so we learned to plan ahead instead of
scrambling for last minute substitutions.
Two days before –
Thaw the turkey in the refrigerator if you bought a frozen
one. We usually buy a frozen
Butterball turkey because they always taste great.
Empty your ice machine ice into Ziplock bags. The machine will
make more ice over the next few days and you shouldn’t need to buy ice.
Make the cranberry sauce and pies.
Day before –
Buy all vegetables and any last-minute fresh ingredients you
need.
Brine your turkey – it makes the best turkey!
Make your mashed potatoes. They can be warmed up in a Crockpot on Thanksgiving day. Start them Thanksgiving a.m. on warm they’ll be
good to go by dinner. They taste the
same and it’s less work on a hectic day.
Make all dips for appetizers and cut up all your veggies. Go light on appetizers so they eat the turkey!
Set the table and put out all the serving dishes and
utensils you’ll be using. Label the serving dishes so when guests help, they
know what food to put in what bowl/platter.
If you are lucky to have an extra refrigerator use it to
start cooling down all your beverages.
With enough forward planning it makes Thanksgiving Day easy
and relaxing!
Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours.
