I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving :).
Ours was nice. My father-in-law came to visit us for a few days. On the morning of the holiday, S and I participated in a 5-mile Turkey Trot and then afterward, I finished preparing dinner. Here’s what we ate:
- Tofurky Roast & Gravy
- Cornbread Dressing
- Whole cranberry sauce
- Perfect Mashed Potatoes (I used milk instead of heavy cream)
- Honey Glazed Baby Carrots
- Garlic Parmesan Roasted Broccoli (adapted from this recipe for Brussels sprouts)
- Ultimate Dinner Rolls
- Libby’s Pumpkin Pie (I made my own crust)
This year, I only made one pie instead of two and I started making preparations two days ahead of time instead of only one. I suppose these changes made a difference, because this was probably the “easiest” time I’ve ever had cooking the T-Day meal! I felt far less rushed than usual and I loved that. So I’m going to record the “plan” I used here, so I won’t forget it and can hopefully recreate it in the future :).
Tuesday, I —
- baked a pan of cornbread for the dressing
- made pie crust dough and refrigerated it
- got out all my serving dishes, utensils, etc. and made sure everything was clean and ready to go
Wednesday, I —
- transferred the Tofurky Roasts (I make two because they’re so small and I like leftovers) from the freezer to the fridge to thaw
- made the pumpkin pie filling, rolled out my pie crust, and baked the pie (and for the first time ever, instead of using pieces of foil, I used this doohickey* I recently bought to prevent the crust from burning; it worked perfectly and I was very pleased with the results)
- made the dough for my rolls, shaped them, covered them with plastic, and put them into the fridge
- opened a can of cranberry sauce and put it in its serving dish in the fridge
- crumbled the cornbread and mixed it with the rest of my dry dressing ingredients. I stored this in my largest Pyrex mixing bowl and covered it with its matching lid so it was all ready to go the next day.
Thursday, I —
- peeled and cut potatoes, put them in water and stored them in the fridge in another covered Pyrex mixing bowl (side note: I’m not a Pyrex rep or anything. It’s just that I got these bowls as a birthday gift last year and I love them. I use them for everything, ALL the time!)
- washed and cut broccoli, put it in casserole dishes, and topped it with the olive oil and seasonings; stored it in the fridge
- put the Tofurky Roasts in a roasting pan, basted them, and put them into the oven to cook
- took the rolls out of the fridge and let them rise on the counter; brushed them with butter
- cooked onion and celery and mixed them with the other wet ingredients for the dressing, added them to the dry ingredients and put the dressing into baking dishes
- put the dressing into the oven when the Tofurky was partway done
- put the broccoli into the oven
- boiled and mashed the potatoes
- heated the gravy on the stove
- cooked the carrots and baked the rolls (since these both only took 15 minutes)
And voila! That was it. Probably the only thing I would do differently is cut the broccoli, and possibly the potatoes, on Wednesday instead of Thursday.
Like I said, though, this was overall the easiest Thanksgiving meal I’ve ever made and I feel like the pre-planning I did helped. I literally wrote out all the steps I needed to take ahead of time and then checked them off as I went. So even though on Thanksgiving Day, my garbage disposal decided to back up and spray gunk several feet into the air (and my husband very kindly came in and fixed it for me), it didn’t throw a huge wrench into my day or anything ;).
However, what I apparently didn’t remember to do, was take photos of most of the food! We didn’t get any of the Tofurky or the pie before it was cut :(. S did manage a shot of one slice with his phone before it disappeared, though…
Now I suppose the Christmas planning can begin…? 🙂
*This post contains Amazon affiliate links.
Mrs. Myles 