Thanksgiving is less than 4 weeks away! đ
Hello Friends! đÂ
Happy Halloween! đ If you follow me on Instagram, please check my stories to see if I am going to go live a little earlier than my normal 5pm PST.
What is on my mind now? Thanksgiving! I am not having a cast of thousands as in years past, but so far weâll be 16 which is a great number! I have two out of three kids coming home (unfortunately Mr. Picky canât travel back here and will enjoy the holiday with my family in New York.) In the past, I used to post something on my website every Thursday before Thanksgiving, but Iâm going to post those âwhat you can do nowâ ideas here instead! Â
I also have released my 2022 Thanksgiving e-book if you need a guide/bible/manual with literally everything you need to know to have fun and execute a stress-free Thanksgiving!
Hereâs what I am starting to do this week:
Guest list - Now is a good time to invite family and friends for the holiday, even if they are regulars. I send an email out to all our guests with the schedule for the day, especially when we will sit down for dinner. We live on the West Coast, which means the second football game is over at 4:00 pm. Anyone that wants to come for the earlier game is welcome to do so. There's coffee cake, fruit and coffee in the morning. Soup and cornbread around noon; hors dâoeuvres at 3:00 pm and dinner is at 4:00 pm or whenever the game is over.
Plan your menu -Â Planning the Thanksgiving menu requires a bit of strategy and balance. Make sure you have a balance of cooked and raw food (one thing I have learned is no matter how big your kitchen or how many ovens you have, itâs never enough on Thanksgiving, so don't pick 15 recipes that require an oven); protein, starches and vegetables (I find most Thanksgiving menus to be too starchy;) and ingredients (make sure not every recipe has dried fruit and nuts in it.) Know what dishes need an oven and when because if you're making turkey and you have one oven, you won't be baking too much in the hours before dinner.
Know your audience - I love trying new recipes, but my family looks forward to the same traditional standbys every year. There was almost a revolution when I took Breaded Cauliflower off the menu in 2007 ( I now serve it as an hors d'oeuvre.) So I compromise by making the classics (traditional roast turkey with gravy and cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pumpkin pie), but I also try out a new salad and vegetable side dish every year.
Just because you're cooking overtime for Thanksgiving dinner, doesn't mean your household won't be needing dinner the night before and breakfast the morning of. Instead of ordering takeout pizza on Wednesday night, make and freeze a casserole in the weeks ahead or plan for your easiest 20-minute meal. The same goes for Thanksgiving day, especially if you have young children in the house. You might be able to save your appetite and get by on a piece of fruit for the day, but your four-year-old cannot. I always make a pot of butternut squash soup the day before and a pan of cornbread to be served around noon to tide anyone over until the big meal.
So funny to look back on my menu from 2010 with notes I wrote the next day! I keep all these documents on my computer.
Photocopy your recipes from books and magazines - I remember my first Thanksgiving with a stack of cookbooks and magazines taking up valuable counter space and wasting so much time looking up each recipe multiple times. Ugh! Put your photocopied recipes in sheet protectors and create a dedicated Thanksgiving or holiday binder organized by category.
Hereâs what I want to add.  You do not need to make everything from scratch or by yourself. If someone offers to bring something, take them up on it! But be specific as to what you need so you don't end up with 8 pumpkin pies!
If youâre new here, welcome! I have two new recipes exclusive to this newsletter. Last week I shared a German Apple Pancake, which you can access here.Â
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And this week, I am posting this Apple Crumble Bar recipe. My husband and my friends went bonkers for it! The key is to prebake the crust until it is golden and set. And wait for the pan to cool completely before slicing into bars. Enjoy!
xx, Pamela