Thanksgiving is less than 4 weeks away!

Happy Monday!  My new Thanksgiving 2024 cooking class video and recipes are up and available! If you’re looking for new modern recipes with visuals and tips to go with them, this is a great class! You can buy one class for $27 or subscribe for $29/month and access the entire library of classes for the past 6 years!

We made it through Halloween and I have wasted no time pivoting to Thanksgiving.  I am hosting this year as usual and I have 2 out of 3 children coming home.  Mr. Picky will join my family in NY since he only gets a few days off.  In the past, I used to post something on my website every Thursday before Thanksgiving, but I’m going to post those “what you can do now” ideas here instead!  

I have also made available my Thanksgiving e-book as just The Thanksgiving E-book (no different from last year) if you need a guide/bible/manual with literally everything you need to know to have fun and execute a stress-free Thanksgiving! 

Here’s 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. To watch the first football game - I always make this coffee cake, a fruit platter, and either a veggie frittata or a pumpkin oatmeal bake.  When the kids were little, I would also serve butternut squash soup and corn muffins around noon, but now everyone seems to prefer to push their breakfast to later in the morning and wait until hors d’oeuvres at 3:00 pm.  Dinner is at 4:00 pm or whenever the second football game is over.

• Plan your menu The sooner you commit to a menu, the sooner you can get stuff done!  Tip: commit to a menu ASAP. Planning the Thanksgiving menu requires a bit of strategy. 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, it’s 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. (My Thanksgiving class this year has instructions for how to do a MAKE-AHEAD TURKEY!)

Also, 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 and then I started serving it as an hors d'oeuvre. Two years ago, I told everyone I couldn’t make it unless someone else did the frying. No one volunteered, so I made it for dinner earlier in the week!  I make the classics (spatchcocked 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. I make a lot of food. More than this LOL!

Also, 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. Think about what to feed them before the big meal.

I put my menu in a word doc every year as well as my schedule and I write notes to myself the night of Thanksgiving with details like what was good or bad and how much I had leftover. I print it all out and keep in my binder. So funny to look back on my menu from 2010 with notes I wrote the next day!

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 (breakfast, appetizers, turkey, side dishes, dessert.) 

Here’s what I want to add.  Outsource if it helps you.  You do not need to make everything from scratch or by yourself.  Buy the candied nuts, the crispy fried onions, the pie crust if you hate making it.  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!  More tips in the coming weeks!

xxPamela