Thursday, November 15, 2012

Thanksgiving - plan of attack

We are one week out from Thanksgiving, which is my holiday. This is only the second year we've hosted it but I gradually started taking over the cooking years earlier. I picked up the Bon Apetit Thanksgiving issue and settled down to do my research last weekend. In all honesty, I make the same core foods every year. I just like reading the magazines and sometimes I'll make different veg side dishes or pick up some gravy tips.

Once you've planned Thanksgiving a couple times it stops feeling overwhelming, but I still have a system. It involves lots of paper notes. I'm not sure if this will be helpful to anyone else, but here it goes.

2012 thanksgiving planning
{2012 thanksgiving planning}

MENU: Figure out what dishes you are making and which ones you are delegating. Write them all down. Pull out your recipes.

GROCERIES: Figure out your grocery list and decide which stores you'll be hitting up. I do a Whole Foods trip (free-range turkey), a Trader Joe's trip (butter, whipping cream, eggs) and a regular grocery store trip (vegetables, sugar, flour, sundries, gladware*). Decide what days you're shopping and for the love of god don't make one of them the day before Thanksgiving or you might give up altogether.

BREAKDOWN: For the dishes you are making, write down the name of the dish and then break down the steps below it. This doesn't have to be insanely detailed, but the breakdown will help, I promise. For stuffing I have: dry bread cubes, chop veggies, saute and combine, bake (30 minutes at 375). For pumpkin pie I just have: make crusts (freeze), make filling and bake (1 hour at 350). This is also useful if you have kitchen assistants because it makes it really easy to delegate concrete tasks.

I usually end up re-writing this a couple times to make sure it all fits relatively neatly on a single page. Here is my 2011 list. I'll be modifying slightly this year but it helps to look back.

2011 thanksgiving schedule
{2011 thanksgiving schedule}

PREP SCHEDULE: Then I start scheduling. The breakdown helps here because I can schedule smaller tasks on the days leading up to Thanksgiving. For instance, I like to dry my bread cubes and have my pie crusts made by Tuesday. Potatoes get peeled and chopped and placed in water on Wednesday night. Sweet potatoes get roasted on Wednesday** morning, while I'm making the pie fillings. I make the cranberry relish and sauce on Tuesday. I make little notations next to the steps and then I cross out the steps once I've completed them.

OVEN SCHEDULE: When I make the meal at my mom's house, I have a huge advantage. Two huge advantages, actually. They have giant double ovens. I, on the other hand, have one smallish apartment oven and it dictates how much hot food I can put out. I make an oven schedule and I work it around the turkey roasting time***. Since the turkey needs to rest for 30 minutes, I aim to have him out just after the guests arrive. As soon as I pull him out, I can pop two dishes in the oven for 30 minutes. The rolls always get a space and then it's a throw down between the stuffing and the sweet potatoes. I bake both the morning of but they need to be re-heated. I think this year I'm going to put one in the broiler and hope for the best. You don't even know what I would give for a third rack in the oven.

Of course, this means that we can't have any other side dishes that need to go in the oven. Which is a bummer because the slow roasted green beans with sage were really calling my name this year.

I try to avoid clutter, but I like to save my Thanksgiving schedule each year. It makes my planning the next year easier but the real reason is just that I love these sorts of preserved snippets of life. After our wedding my aunt gave me a giant binder full of old handwritten family recipes with notes and I treasure it - I rarely feel closer to someone than when I get to see the notes they've written to themselves about food they've made.


*If you're hosting it's a really nice touch to pick up a big pack of gladware (or the generic equivalent). This way you can send your guests home with leftovers and they don't need to feel obligated to return the containers later.

**I am incredibly lucky because I'm usually able to take the day before Thanksgiving off, which makes my life much easier. However, you can do everything in one day (I made our entire Thanksgiving meal in 4 hours the year we had to transport it to the hospital) but if you have any free time at all I'd recommend doing as much prep work in advance in the evenings.

**I use Alton's Brown's turkey roasting method and I swear by it. It cuts the cook time down considerably but more importantly, it makes the best turkey. I don't bother with the brining most years because I hate wrestling a cold turkey into a pot of liquid and I don't think it matters if you start with a decent quality bird. I would highly recommend this, not just for taste reasons but for ethical ones. There has to be something wrong with meat that costs less than a dollar per pound. I pay more than double that for our turkey and I opt to buy a smaller turkey so the overall cost difference isn't too crazy. The last two years I've ordered from my local Whole Foods because they offer options from a company I've looked into and feel comfortable doing business with.

25 comments:

  1. I've never hosted my own Thanksgiving, but I'm in charge of a bunch of side dishes this year. I actually picked up the Bon Ap mag and I'm going to make a few recipes they featured in there...I always have good luck with them!

    Alyssa
    The Glossy Life

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  2. Have you considered a roaster oven? I've been looking into one myself so we aren't so limited during the holidays since we have a small oven as well.

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    1. I've thought about borrowing one (D's mom has one) but never managed to think ahead and then lug it up here in time. I can't buy one because I have absolutely no where to put it the rest of the year!

      It sounds like a good solution, though!

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  3. i've been going back and forth trying to decide whether or not to cook thanksgiving this year. i think planning is 70% of it. but i still need to make the decision. stressed. haa.

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    1. Maybe do a mini one? If you aren't doing huge batches of everything it's a little less daunting. We've sometimes done post Thanksgiving for just the two of us and it's been nice.

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  4. You are so organized, I am bookmarking this page for when I host my first thanksgiving, helpful tips all around, thank you!

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  5. I agree about Heather's idea of the roasting oven. It makes everything much more organized in the oven (plus we keep it on top of the dryer, so it isn't even taking up kitchen space while cooking!). I also make mashed potatoes ahead of time (with cream cheese, of course!) and they get reheated in a crock-pot, so they don't have to spend any time in the oven!I also have a combination microwave/convection oven that comes in handy for side dishes. My family does a planned pot-luck style dinner, so most of the items come already assembled like you're doing. It all works out quite well with the extra heating appliances.

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    1. Alas, no dryer in our apartment! I can't complain because we have a very decent amount of counter space and I love our kitchen, but there just isn't room for big appliances. Sigh.

      The crockpot for the mashed potatoes is so smart! I'm going to see if there's a way I can use ours now that you've mentioned it.

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  6. we're turkey-free thanksgiving types, of course, but you know i applaud your approach to turkey-buying. on supercheap turkey, one of the yickier poultry facts i remember from my reading earlier this year is that a lot of factory-farmed poultry is extra-big because the birds are cooled down in icy water rather than in frigid air (it's a faster method of refrigeration). that means that the meat is falsely plumped and full of dirty water - and if any of the other birds dipped in that water were sick, that bacteria is now on your bird as well. sourcing your turkey carefully means it had a better life and you'll have a better meal.

    at the other end of the spectrum, i'm getting excited about canned cranberry sauce. i love that crap.

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    1. Blegh. Poultry makes me even sadder than other livestock for some reason. I'm fairly comfortable with my choice of this particular supplier but it always nags at me a little. I'd like a way to verify the claims. I semi-trust WF with their rating system, but still prefer to have my own information.

      We used to do faux-turkey for my sis and her husband but we gave it up. I just make sure all the sides are veg (and I have a killer veg gravy that even the meat eaters often prefer).

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  7. thanks for this! i'm hosting this year, and feeling super lazy about it. i will make my plan of attack this weekend. and ditto on the quality turkey idea! i get so grossed out thinking about what conditions a typical butterball turkey lives in. :(

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    1. Yay for hosting! I'm sure you'll do fabulous all on your own, but call if you need a Thanksgiving support sidekick!

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  8. These are great tips for anyone wanting to take on hosting a Thanksgiving feast! Love your ideas for oven time, etc!

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  9. I <3 your lists. And I thought *I* was anal retentive.

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  10. I'm so excited for eight pies this year. It's gonna be awesome. :)

    Also---we use a roaster at home for the big holidays, and the roaster on the washing machine making the whole house smell like turkey is definitely a Thanksgiving memory.

    PS any way you could post your vegetarian gravy recipe? pretty please?

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    1. Of course! I use this recipe for the gravy. You MUST make the stock it links to and it takes a ton of veggies but I do that well ahead of time and freeze it flat in ziploc bags. Then I use the stock for the gravy and use leftovers in the stuffing. It's ridiculously good.

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    2. Excellent! Will do. IT looks delicious and well-worth the effort. :)

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  11. I love your lists as well. This year will be our first Thanksgiving, and we have a somewhat plan of attack. Also, I can't seem to remember if it was you or Emily (since I follow both blogs) who used a door as a table. I am so on the lookout for one, though was have a plastic table. We are also thinking of cooking like cowboys and making our broccoli casserole in our camping Dutch oven outside with charcoal and grilling some veggies. Cause, you know, cooking outside in the winter in New England rocks. Enjoy your holiday!

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  12. I love this! Sometimes the planning is just as satisfying (if not more- what can I say, I'm a planner) as the final product. And it makes it so much less stressful and you are less likely to forget something. Thanks for sharing your plans!

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  13. I just decided today that we'd in fact have Thanksgiving for the two of us. It seemed like such a pain in the ass for just us, but then the thought of not doing it sounded worse. Why I thought I could do without Thanksgiving is beyond me.

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  14. Someone else mentioned using a crock pot for the mashed potatoes...and I have to second that! We started using crock pots a few years ago, and that trick has made a HUGE difference! We use them (yes, multiple! ha) for the mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy, and it works so well to relieve some of the last-minute craziness and open up some oven space. You can even buy crock pot liners to make the cleanup faster.

    - another Rachel

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  15. So smart! My parents host and the past couple years I've helped my mom game plan. Love the idea of writing down steps to help gauge things better. We always try to at least chop/prep all the ingredients the night before, and make desserts that night too. This year I'll be attempting Smitten Kitchen's Crispy Potato Roast and Chocolate Pudding Pie from scratch, and I always make Pioneer Woman's Whiskey Glazed Carrots. Yum!

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  16. Haha, I cooked the whole shebang for the first time this year and I did the exact same thing... wrote EVERYTHING down step by step! it made it (dare i say) easy!! But I have a question for you Rachel, I've been following for a couple of years and it seems you do a lot of baking/cooking days in advance for events. Do the dishes/baked goods taste the same as if you had done it the day of? I baked my pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving morning because I was so nervous about that!

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    1. Yay!

      I've never had a problem with the baked goods being done the day before. Particularly with holiday baked goods with lots of spices, like pumpkin pie, I think they benefit from being done a day ahead. The flavors seem better the second day. I don't refrigerate the the pies overnight and they're totally fine (but I do try to move them to the fridge if there are leftovers after the big dinner).

      Basically, I don't worry about it! But I know some people have more concerns about leaving things out overnight but I'm very lax.

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