Heather says:

Well, for better or worse, we made it. I apologize for being scarce the last few days, but I’ve been taking a small sanity break, thankfully I already had most of the turkey day countdown pre-written.

I’ve gotten a little  lot of desperately needed sleep. I’ve spent much needed time with family. And most importantly, I spent a little time doing nothing productive at all. I can’t tell you the last time I did that.

How was your Thanksgiving weekend?

After big events or projects, a lot of companies like to get together and do what they call the postmortem. It’s a way to figure out what went well, what didn’t, and what you should do differently next time.

You could do this privately and save it for yourself, but what’s the fun in that?

I and other home eccers would like to know:

What was your favorite part of the meal? Will you make it again?

What will you never make again?

How were your estimates, did you have the right amount of food or was there too much or little of an item?

And of course,

Were there any disasters?

Here’s a table of recipes to use up your Thanksgiving turkey leftovers:

Leftover Guidelines

• Turkey should be frozen or used within 2 – 6 days.
• Frozen cooked turkey should be used within 2 months and should be cooked thoroughly, immediately after thawing.
• If you have gravy or leftover mashed potatoes they should have been used within 1 – 2 days after Thanksgiving.
• Leftover gravy is an excellent addition to “Mustgo Soup,” mashed potatoes are, too. Both thicken and add flavor.
• Cranberry sauce can be stirred into yogurt, served over ice cream, or it makes a nice accompaniment to pork chops, ham, chicken, or fish. It should be used within 7 days. (The sugar acts as a preservative.)

So, there you go. We’ve started our planning for Turkey day 2013. Let’s file this somewhere we won’t forget and maybe take a week before we start thinking too hard about Christmas. (If you feel the need to overachieve, have at it, my friends, have at it)

Heather says:

Thanksgiving is tomorrow.

Are you ready?

Have you been playing along with this year’s Countdown to Turkey Day 2012. What did you think? Was it thorough enough? What needs to be improved?

I keep getting requests for a Countdown to Christmas, but I look at all the various Christmas traditions and I am completely. and. totally. overwhelmed. by the mere thought of trying to figure out how to make you (general you, the specific you is a pleasant and wonderful addition to my life) happy.

Just for fun, here are some pics from last year’s pre-Turkey Day event. My pal Philip and I never got around to publishing all of the pics for this year, they are still sitting in a Dropbox folder -do you use Dropbox? They are an amazing way to share large files that won’t fit in email.

As per usual, I’ll be adding a few more recipes to the site for Christmas and next year.  I also want to thank Butterball for giving me the opportunity to work with them (again!). The people running their Turkey Talkline (1-800-BUTTERBALL) are amazing and I had a wonderful time participating in their turkey training in Naperville, IL last year. Feel free to call them if you have ANY questions.

They are happy to help.

Seriously, I’d go as far as chipper.

For many families today is for baking and food prep.

Here are few last minute tips to help everything go smoothly.

Check the turkey now. Has it completely thawed?
No?
Use the water bath method to finish defrosting the turkey.

Are your knives sharp? No? Read this tutorial How to Sharpen a Knife, it’ll help you get through tomorrow safely. Did you really just ask why? Sharp knives are safer than dull knives.

If you have several recipes calling for diced onions, bell pepper, and/or celery, go ahead and chop it all today. Cover tightly before refrigerating.

Do not pre-cut your potatoes and toss them in the fridge, it’s a bad idea. If you must know they turn a horrid shade of dark grey.

If you want a head start on mashed potatoes, you can make them today and then bake in a covered, oven-safe dish to reheat (with lots of butter, please). Alternately, tomorrow morning, peel and dice the potatoes, then hold them in a bowl of cold water. Rinse the potatoes before cooking in salted water. The same goes for sweet potatoes and apples, exposure to air makes them oxidize. Oxidation doesn’t hurt anything, it’s just quite unattractive.

If you are pre-cooking your side dishes, don’t forget to check your Thanksgiving Day Timetable to ensure everything will be hot and ready to serve at the same time.

If you’re using your own bread for dressing, go ahead and tear / cut that up today, too.
Still looking for a traditional sage dressing? Try this apple, cranberry sage dressing. It’s wonderful. If you need a vegetarian dressing recipe, just follow that one and replace the chicken / turkey stock with vegetables stock, easy peasy.

Cornbread for the dressing? Make that today, too. Remember cornbread dressing is gluten free dressing, provided you use plain cornmeal and NOT cornmeal mix for your cornbread. Do you need a sweet cornbread recipe or a plain cornbread recipe for your dressing?

• Cornbread Dressing with Andouille Sausage - Excellent recipe
• Shrimp and Andouille Sausage Cornbread Dressing -Amazing recipe Don’t worry, you can use turkey stock if you don’t feel up to making your own shrimp stock.

If you don’t have young children or pets and you have a formal dining room vs the every day table, you can even go as far as setting the table. Put the plates and glasses on the table upside down or cover them with a large -clean!- sheet so they don’t catch any dust. Tomorrow, just before the guests arrive, flip or uncover everything. Do not pre-set the table if you have young children or pets. Somehow or another they’ll just make more work for you or create an embarrassing fur or sticky fingerprint situation.

If you’re playing host to friends and family, please check the guest bathroom. Make sure there’s enough TP, soap, and something with which to dry their hands. Please make sure that the guest towel doesn’t look like its only purpose is decorative. I can’t be the only person who worries about messing up someone’s starchy, frilly towel arranged over sea shells. Make sure the towel for hand drying is in an obvious, convenient spot. It’s better than having guests forced to wipe their hands on their pants.

If you have room, go ahead and chill any beverages that will be served.

If you choose to truss your turkey for roasting, it can be trussed today. Need a tutorial? See How to Truss a Turkey. Just don’t forget to take the turkey out of the refrigerator about an hour before cooking.

Do you have any last minute tips?

Please remember even if nothing comes out right, your mom, sister, and drunk uncle Roy are driving you nuts, or if it’s just not turning out as planned, Thanksgiving is a celebration in the spirit of gratitude. The fact that we have friends and family willing to even begrudgingly come together is a sign we are truly blessed. If you know someone, perhaps a serviceman or woman far from home, set an extra place and welcome them and invite them to your table. It doesn’t matter how simple the meal, the intention is what matters.

We have two families in this life, the one we are given and the one we create; embrace them both this holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you from Home-Ec101.com.

Heather says:

Tick. Tock. Your time is running out. However, you’ve been following along with this year’s Countdown to Turkey Day and aren’t stressing, right?

• Grab your Thanksgiving Shopping List and buy your produce and other perishables.
• If you went the fresh route, pick up your turkey.
• Before you head to the grocery store -you don’t want to go tomorrow, trust me- do the second half of that Great Thanksgiving Pantry Double Check
• If your turkey is thawing, take a moment to get rid of the condensation that may be pooling under your thawing turkey. (You don’t have your turkey sitting on a shelf where it can drip its icky goo on your produce do you?) Your turkey should be in the lowest possible portion of your refrigerator. I generally take out the meat drawer to make for my Thanksgiving turkey.
  You don’t want to have your turkey resting in a bacterial swimming pool.
• If your turkey is still in the deep freeze, pull it out, right now -do not pass go- and put it in the refrigerator. Give it as much of a head start on a water bath thaw as possible.  If you need tips, check out: How to Quickly Thaw a Turkey in a Water Bath.
• Take some time today and get the house as close to company ready as possible.
• Find your meat thermometer, roasting pan, the blades for the food processor, and any other kitchen gadgets that don’t often see the light of day.

Don’t worry, it looks like more than it is. Finally take a moment and confirm that you have enough servingware, silverware, plates, etc for your guests.

Are you ready?

Let’s do this.

Heather says:
Thanksgiving is nearly here, all of the work you’ve done over the past few weeks will help ensure your event runs smoothly. Today it’s time for the Thanksgiving Pantry double check. Did you see that. I said DOUBLE check. You not only need to do this today, but again before Thanksgiving. Why? Teenagers. Household gnomes. The Movers. The Spouse. The Roommates. The kid going through a growth spurt. The surprise guests. Whatever or whoever it was, someone may grab the last of something you need for Thanksgiving Dinner.

Do you need to catch up on the entire Countdown to Turkey Day Series? Don’t worry, we’ll be here when you get back.

What’s on today’s agenda?

It’s time to pull out your Thanksgiving menu and grocery list again. Today you will use your grocery list to do a pantry double check. Did someone swipe your mini-marshmallows or use all of the evaporated milk when the milk ran out?

It’s worth looking again.

Is your frozen turkey thawing safely in the bottom-most section of your refrigerator? It should be. If your turkey is still in the freezer you may want to check out this post on thawing a turkey safely using a water-bath.

Make your list of perishable goods and buy them tomorrow or Wednesday.

If you’ve been keeping up with housework, spend a little extra time today making sure the place is presentable.

Do yourself a huge favor and make sure you aren’t down to the last roll of toilet paper. I’m serious, running out of TP with a houseful of guests would be awkward. For you, for them, sure it’s funny ten years down the road w

Are you serving wine on Thanksgiving?

There is a handy, free smartphone app created by  The Wine Sisterhood to help calculate how much wine you’ll need for your Thanksgiving dinner. It’s called Drink-U-Lator and is available for both iPhone and Android (yay!).  The app calculates a responsible amount of alcohol to have available for your guests.

That’s pretty much it for today, provided you have all of serving dishes clean and ready to go. The rest is optional.

Are you doing a Thanksgiving centerpiece?

Do you need a centerpiece?

Not really.

However, here are directions to make a simple Thanksgiving centerpiece like the one pictured. Don’t forget to see what I’ve been up to over at the Butterball Blog and help make sure your Thanksgiving is successful.

Are you ready for Thanksgiving?

Heather says:

Today is supposedly -I have my doubts here- National Refrigerator Clean-out Day. That sounds silly, but it makes a little sense. You need room for all the leftovers you’ll have post-Turkey Day. You need room to thaw your turkey, if you’re having frozen.

If you have a small fridge and your expecting to have a lot of food, find a cooler. You can keep your hardier perishables (yeah um about that conflicting description, Heather) in the cooler with ice.

Tomorrow we’re going to talk about creating your Thanksgiving Timetable. Keep in mind, we’re in the home stretch. For those of you who have been playing along, there’s not that much left to do except cook. Don’t get smug, that draws the attention of the Fates¹.

Unless of course your serving ware has been stored for a year and you actually have good silver to use (do those people exist?). In that case, go ahead and start pulling it out and cleaning it up for the big day.

You’ve also kept up on your daily chores, right. If not, no worries there is still time before the invasive parasites extended family arrives. Pick one room a day and give it a little extra love.

If you’re lucky enough that family and friends live in town, who won’t be spending the night, you can limit your deep cleaning to public areas and close the doors to the rest. There is a caveat to this plan, if your home has more than one bathroom all of them -and the paths to them- should be clean. Make sure there are clean towels, soap, and plenty of toilet paper available. Don’t question, just do it.

When you invite people into your home, there’s always potential for humiliation of some kind or another. Let’s take a moment to reduce that.

If you don’t have kids and there will be children, not baby goats -although baby goats are possibly more fun and slightly less destructive- visiting, plan for their entertainment, unless you WANT them juggling your breakables, pestering the dog, and digging through your nightstand -anyone remember the movie Parenthood with Steve Martin? Keep any potentially embarrassing personal items under lock and key. The list of embarrassing personal items includes dirty underwear, as you KNOW this will be the time the dog decides to drag those out to the living room and I guarantee it won’t be a nice pair. Who’s a good boy? Not you, puppy, not you. On that note, remember to empty the bathroom trash daily now, too.

What other suggestions do you have to reduce the chance for embarrassment while hosting company?

If you’re just joining in on the annual Turkey Day Countdown here at Home Ec 101, you may want to read back through the other posts and play catch up.

So far, including today, we have:

• Located and cleaned off the dining room table
• Invited and confirmed our guests
• Planned the Thanksgiving Menu
• Created a Thanksgiving Day shopping list
• Planned what serving dishes and utensils will be used.

A note about thawing your frozen turkeys:

Frozen turkeys need a full 24 hours per 4lbs to thaw in a 40°F refrigerator. Once thawed the turkey can be held for up to 72 hours.

For example, an 18lb turkey will take 4 days to thaw and should be used by the 7th day. Thanksgiving is 1 week away, so it’s time to start thawing those 20 plus pound turkeys. Don’t forget to keep that turkey in the very bottom of the refrigerator and in a pot or pan to prevent any cross-contamination through drips  and spills.

If you are picking up a fresh turkey, it should be cooked within 3 days of pick-up, so play it safe and pick it up on Tuesday or Wednesday.

For more tips on getting ready for Thanksgiving check out Butterball’s Thanksgiving Blog <—I wrote stuff over there, too.

What are you looking forward to most this Thanksgiving?

¹Calm down, I don’t actually believe that, it’s just fun to write. Call it dramatic license or warped sense of humor.

Heather says:

Think back to November 1, when we first kicked off this year’s Countdown to Turkey Day. We talked about a few things, like who you were inviting, what style would be involved. Now it’s time to revisit the question: How are you serving your meal?

Will it be family style with everyone seated around the table or are you setting up a buffet where everyone helps themselves?

Pull out your finalized menu, the one you made while creating the shopping list on Friday. You have been keeping up, right?

Now check your cupboards and storage areas for all of your serving and baking dishes. Each item you plan on cooking will have to be cooked in something, right? It’d be silly to have a really amazing Thanksgiving menu and realize, day of, that you have nothing to serve with.

Next to each menu item write down a brief description of the dish it will be served in ie glass 9 x 13 or white oval casserole. If these dishes aren’t in every day use, place a post-it or 3 x 5 card with the menu item’s name in the bottom of each dish. Now if people want to be helpful on Thanksgiving they will need less direction. I know I don’t communicate very well when I have a bunch of dishes cooking, each in a different stage of completion.

If you don’t have enough dishes, check thrift stores and yard sales this weekend.

Foil pans work well for buffet style, but I wouldn’t trust them to be passed around a dinner table. No one wants grandma to get a lap-full of scalding hot macaroni and cheese. If you have family coming to eat, it’s ok to ask if you can borrow a serving dish for the big day. Just, please, don’t return it dirty. I don’t need any emails, “My daughter raved about your Thanksgiving planning and then she couldn’t be bothered to even wash the dish I loaned her, thanks a lot.”

Okay, so maybe I made that last part up, but I work with the public and well, let’s just say I’m no longer surprised by the lengths people will go to find something to complain about.

Do not forget about serving utensils

I almost always neglect to count serving utensils. Match a serving utensil appropriate to the planned menu item and write that down next to the serving dish description or on the 3×5. Make sure each of these utensils is present and accounted for. I’ve lost quite a few to the sandbox in the backyard or points unknown.

So here we are, it’s November 9th and we have just over two weeks to go.

Are you ready for Thanksgiving?

Here’s what we’ve done so far with the Countdown to Turkey Day 2012 Series:

We’ve found the dining room table, made a guest list (and invited them), we have made a soft menu plan, and newbies, if you’ve never even roasted a chicken that’s on your to-do list, right? And we have created our Thanksgiving Day Menu.

How is that dining room table looking? Yep, move that stack of mail, it needs a new home before it attracts all of its cluttery friends and has a party that spills onto your kitchen counters (Why does this happen?).

Let’s make sure everyone is on the same page. We’ve found the dining room table, made a guest list (and invited them), we have made a soft menu plan, and if you’ve never even roasted a chicken that’s on the to-do list, right? Also, if you’re anything like me, you may need to put away all the stuff that has already found its way back to that recently cleared table. While you’re at it, spend a few minutes checking the guest bathroom today. A good cleaning now will help keep the next one from being so intensive.

Ok, today we’re doing another pen and paper exercise.  Try to contain your excitement.

It’s time start figuring out the final Thanksgiving menu. Do you have your Thanksgiving Menu Printable? Grab it and get your guest list, because to plan your menu completely, you need to know how many people are dining and have a rough idea of their usual appetite. The list below accounts for “average people” whoever they are.

If you are serving teenagers or relatives you already know are greedy increase the estimates as needed.

(You know who you are, quit acting innocent. I may be thin, but I can put away the food when I want to and on Thanksgiving? I want to.)

Additionally, I increase the dessert estimate just because it’s a holiday for Pete’s sake. These estimates work best for a formal Thanksgiving meal where everyone sits down and eventually people get tired of passing items.

If you’re serving your Thanksgiving dinner buffet style, definitely increase the gravy. I don’t know what it is about a buffet that makes people go nuts on the gravy, but that’s life.

So get your soft menu, find the recipes that go with the menu and figure out if you’re going to need to double or triple any recipes for the Thanksgiving dinner you’re hosting.

Once you have that, it’s time to put together your shopping list.

I use a Google Spreadsheet to create my shopping list. The top row or header cells each get a recipe. Below the recipe title, I include the url so I can find it again later if I lose it. Underneath that? I list the ingredients. ALL of the ingredients.

I then scroll partway down the page and begin making sections of the grocery store: Produce, Canned Goods, Spices, etc. Starting with the first recipe I begin placing items on the shopping list by grocery store section. (I’ll get the produce and turkey just few days beforehand, everything else I try to get within the next week).

Do this carefully and you can consolidate items, salt – one canister had better be enough, but butter? Are you sure if you’ve used butter in 6 recipes that one pound is enough? Be sure to keep an eye on that and do things like butter 1lb x 2, apples x 6 etc.

It’s easy and won’t take long.

Serving estimates for holiday meals:

• Whole turkey* – 1lb turkey for each guest up to a 14lb bird. Anything larger, estimate 3/4lb per person. (The skeleton of the turkey weighs less proportionally in large birds).
• Bone-in turkey breast – 2/3 lb per person
• Boneless turkey breast – 1/2 lb per person
• Dressing aka Stuffing aka Filling – 3/4 cup per guest, unless you serve the andouille sausage and shrimp cornbread dressing which is particularly awesome. Then go for 1 cup, same goes for the apple, cranberry, sage dressing.
• Gravy – 1/3 cup per person go 2/3rds cup per for buffet style
• Mashed potatoes – 1lb of potatoes for every 2 guests if you are serving two kinds (roasted and mashed) estimate 1lb for every 3 – 4 guests
• Cranberry relish / sauce – 1lb of berries for every 5 people who actually like cranberry sauce.
• Vegetables, including sweet potatoes and roasted potatoes – 1/2 cup per person of each type, unless you’re making the brussels sprouts with bacon recipe, go ahead and call that a cup, too. Last year, people were getting a bit testy about there not being enough. Of brussels sprouts? YES, Brussels Sprouts of awesome and win.
• Rolls – 2 per guest minimum
• Rice – 1/2 cup per person -happy Michael?
• Risotto – 1/2 cup per person
• Macaroni and Cheese – 1/2 cup per person
• Dessert – 1 – 2 servings per guest

Some of the very dedicated choose to serve both turkey and ham. In that case estimate one pound of ham for every four or five people and 3/4 lb of turkey.

*If you love leftovers, as I do, increase your turkey estimate by 50%.

Tell me, Home Eccers, what’s going on your Thanksgiving dinner menu?

Heather says:

To make creating your Thanksgiving Menu Easier, I have a handy Thanksgiving Menu Printable. This printable has three columns, one for your ideal Thanksgiving menu, a second for your planned guests’ ideal menu -I assume you have some idea of what the people you will be serving expect- and the third column is the great compromise that will be your Thanksgiving holiday menu.

Got it?

Do your holiday meals feel well put together or do they more often seem to resemble a potluck mishmash of flavors?

While you are sitting down to plan your Thanksgiving menu try to keep a specific palette of flavors on your table rather than grabbing any old recipe just because it looks good.

This year for the great-pre-Turkey Day extravaganza I actually created two entirely separate menus. Why? Well there may have been a family uprising if I didn’t serve the expected menu, but I’m looking to expand the holiday recipes available here on Home-Ec 101 and so I went with an Italian American theme for this year’s recipes.

This year’s Italian-American theme consisted of (the recipes are coming, don’t worry):

• Antipasti -recipe contributed by my good friend and go-to for all things Italian, Stephanie Coccaro-Smith of MoreCaffeineStudios. This dish is served to keep the circling vultures *ahem* less-helpful guests away from the kitchen.
• turkey -brined in apple cider, parsley, lemon, peppercorns, and salt
• shallot rosemary gravy
• mushroom risotto
• sausage stuffed mushrooms
• tri-color roasted potatoes with rosemary and parmesan
• brussels sprouts with prosciutto and parmesan
• butternut squash with rosemary and balsamic

Do you notice the way the flavor of one recipe relates to at least one other recipe and how they all fall under what many would call an Italian family of flavors? This creates a flow to the meal, one dish complements another avoiding the potluck syndrome.

My usual Thanksgiving menu has a Southern / Cajun theme which you can find on this Google Spreadsheet:

The Cajun seasoning of the turkey also appears in the sausage of the cornbread dressing. The sausage is also used to flavor the collard greens. I swapped out the usual pecans for almonds in the apple, sage, cranberry dressing to tie it with both the broccoli salad and the green beans.  Cranberries are in the cranberry sauce -surprise!- the apple, sage, cranberry dressing, and in the broccoli salad.  Now keep in mind that this flow of flavor works best if there is a variety of textures in the menu. Crisp turkey skin, contrasts with soft dressing, or crisp tender green beans next to the soft-baked, rich feel of the apples in the other dressing.

Is this flow of flavor making sense or should I explain further? Let me know in the comments.

If your menu is vegetarian, I’ve got some resources from other Home-Eccers just for you:

Last year a Home Ec 101 reader asked for some vegetarian Thanksgiving ideas and you, the Home Ec 101 community had some fabulous suggestions. Here are a few of my favorites from that post:

A Vegetarian Thanksgiving from Cheap Healthy Good (fabulous site) suggested by Milehimama

Mark Bittman’s 101 Thanksgiving Side Dishes -not all of these are vegetarian, but Bittman is a go-to for ideas in my world, suggested by Alice Dick

101 Cookbook’s Vegetarian Thanksgiving suggested by Leigh Webber

Mother Earth News A Vegetarian Thanksgiving suggested by CJ McD

What are your favorite Thanksgiving recipe resources?