So what are things like at your house on Thanksgiving?
This year I am planning to have Thanksgiving lunch. Usually I aim for a 3-4pm meal. However, with so many dishes, it is just a little too much to eat all that, and then try and digest enough so that I can have the TURKEY SANDWICH before bed time!!
Yes, I admit it, I think I almost like the turkey sandwich on Thanksgiving more than the actual meal…lol… So this year, I am going to serve the meal earlier, this is good because the children won’t be starved and constantly asking me as to when they get to eat….and…my food will be digested in plenty of time to thoroughly enjoy the turkey sandwich around 8pm.
This year I also want to relax and enjoy the day more instead of being exhausted from all the food to be cooked that day.
Here is our list:
Turkey
Stuffing…or do you call it Dressing(?)
Sweet potatoes
Mashed potatoes
Green peas
Ambrosia
Rolls
Gravy
Cranberry jell…NOT the whole cranberries type
Pumpkin pie and Apple pie
Today was a busy day I made the sweet potatoes, the mashed potatoes, I made the cornbread for the stuffing and cut up the sourdough bread to make cubes for the stuffing as well…they are all drying in the oven….I took the turkey out of the freezer and will do the defrosting over the next several days. I also happened to make up a batch of refried beans today…totally not related to Thanksgiving but another thing accomplished on my to-do list today for cooking.
I did my mash potatoes with a Ricer and added butter, milk and salt, ….sometimes the simple recipes are the best. I have tried the fancy gourmet potato recipes that call for adding cream cheese and Accent..blah blah blah… why mess with a good thing!! I put the whole batch into two 8” square cake pans and I will have the one pan later next month as a quick side I can pull out of the freezer.
I’m also all about the quick clean up, everything gets served in either a freezer pan like the one above or a Tupperware container. If it was more than just us, I might do serving dishes but for family the easy clean up to be able to enjoy the day is much more important than the presentation of the bowls and then everyone laments that it takes too long to clean up.
Wednesday will be my day to get the pies made and the Ambrosia….the ambrosia always tastes best the next day.
I was watching the Food Network this afternoon and there were a few good tips….if you can still find pumpkins anywhere near you….cook your stuffing in the pumpkin!!! it looked so pretty when they showed it and you don’t want to chance cooking the stuffing in the turkey and not having the turkey finish cooking. The other thing they talked about was cutting off the turkey leg and thigh and putting them back in the roasting pan to cook for another hour….it always seems inevitable that that meat close to the bone is not done when the turkey breast is…so cut that portion of, put it in the oven for the hour and leave the turkey breast on the cutting board to rest for the entire time…do not cut it for one hour….
It will still be warm and all the juices will stay within the turkey breast and it will be nice and moist…..their point, waiting only 20 minutes to let the turkey rest is not long enough, wait the hour!!!
I hope all is going well with your preparations.
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