#NowCooking: The Thanksgiving Trials
This year, my husband and I have decided to host our families’ Thanksgiving dinners together at our home. This being our first time hosting, I of course scoured the Internet (read: Pinterest) for tips, recipes, and checklists to help us prepare for the big event. Over the next few weeks of November, I will share with you the best of the best that I discovered, most importantly the recipes.
Some of the best advice that I read was to do trial runs of recipes you are making for the first time. For us, this meant most of the menu for our Thanksgiving feast. When I first started searching, I pinned fantastic looking desserts and side dishes to go along with our turkey. After reading the BuzzFeed article “27 Ways to Win Thanksgiving,” I checked myself: we only had a few hours that day to pull together a delicious meal for both of our families. How could we make this work? What size turkey do we need to buy? Do I even have a potato masher? What really goes in cranberry sauce, besides cranberries? Panic began to settle in…this is when I started searching for things like checklists and of course Crock-Pot recipes. The more I didn’t need to keep a constant watchful eye over, the better. I remarked later how lucky we were to have the great resource of the Internet unlike our forefathers who cooked turkey and pie ages ago.
- The Main Event
Obviously, you want to ensure that you get a large enough turkey to feed your entire crew, but don’t forget about timing. It’s all about timing. You’ll need to leave a few days to thaw (if you buy frozen) and then at least 36 hours to brine the beast. Keep in mind that some frozen turkeys are pre-brined. As always, read the label.
Don’t do meat? Check out some of these fantastic meat-free dishes:
2. The Sides
Classic sides for our families, and many others, include: mashed potatoes, squash, turnip, and a few other vegetables. I wanted to mix some classics with some of the new, exciting dishes I had found on Pinterest.
As I mentioned, throughout October and now into November, I have been doing trial runs of the dishes that I most wanted to try my hand at serving for Thanksgiving. Check back here over the next few weeks for those recipes including tasty variations.
3. Make a List, Check It Twice
Draft out a menu of what you want to serve. Now, review the recipes for those dishes. What ingredients are you going to need to buy? Make a grocery list. Now split it in two: What can you buy in advance (non-perishables, canned goods, etc.) and what do you need to purchase two or three days before the big day? Try your best to avoid as much as the big rush as you can by planning ahead. Avoiding stressful situations will help you to enjoy the holiday more.
The majority of our vegetables and fruits are regularly delivered right to our door from the worker-owned co-op, Valley Green Feast; which is available in certain areas of Western Massachusetts.
4. Drinks & Desserts
This is your opportunity to get your guests involved. Ask them to bring their favorite dessert to share. If you are lucky, they might even have already asked you, “What can we bring?” If not, it’s totally acceptable to let your guests know that you’ll have a few beverage items to share, but if they could bring a bottle of wine or pick up a few sodas that would be fantastic! In some cases, where appropriate, let you guests know when you invite them that the event is BYOB.
5. Clean Up
If you have a dishwasher, empty it before sitting down to your meal. This will make clean up go much faster and easier. Depending on the informality of the event, some guests may load their dishes for you — or you may have some lovely children guests who will do the heavy lifting for you, to get to the dessert portion of the evening quicker.
Either way, this is not going to be the most fun part of the big event. Try to use the time scrubbing dishes and rinsing plates to reflect on the fun that you had and even to get excited about the upcoming holidays this winter. Don’t beat yourself up over anything that may not have gone according to plan, those are just lessons for next time. Good luck!
Share your Turkey Day stories with me @tayloradulting on Twitter and check in next week for Thanksgiving recipes.
Cheers,
Taylor
