Heather says:

Tomorrow’s the big day. Are you ready?

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.
• If you have several recipes calling for diced onions 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 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, exposure to air makes them oxidize.
• If you’re using your own bread for dressing, go ahead and tear / cut that up today, too.
• Cornbread for the cornbread dressing? Make that today, too.
• If you don’t have 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, BUT put the plates / 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. If you have young children or pets, just don’t. Somehow or another they’ll just make more work for you or create an embarrassing fur / sticky fingerprint situation.
• If you’re playing host to friends and family, check the guest bathroom. Make sure there’s enough TP, soap, and something to dry off hands that doesn’t look like it’s 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 roast your turkey, 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 for everyone?

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,  that 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 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.
• 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 want to have your turkey resting in a bacterial swimming pool.
• If your turkey is still in the deep freeze, pull it out 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?

Heather says:

I hope you don’t mind that I’m going to toss a little housekeeping into today’s post.

The winner of last week’s Cooking for Geeks Review and giveaway is frequent commenter MrsBYork.

If you’re random.org you’d know her better as commenter #17.

Don’t worry, you can always add Cooking for Geeks to your Christmas wishlist or buy it for your Kindle. Thanks your for patience.

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 menu and grocery list again. This time you need 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 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.

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.

If you’re the crafty type, I give you permission to go ahead and knock yourself out. I promise, if you’re like me and the thought of picking up a hot glue gun sends chills down your spine, it’s just not that important. That said, here’s an idea, feel free to use it as your own and don’t tell anyone it was incredibly simple, took less than five minutes, and required no artistic talent or glue guns. (The talent was in the idea and that came from @carolinadreamz who also supplied the rosemary and pumpkin because she’s quite helpful like that.)

I used 3 tall glass votives. I cut paper towel tubes to act as filler and as a base for the tea light. I poured fancy candy corn (I found it at Wal-Mart, but I’ve seen it at Target) around the towel tube. I set a tea light in each.

A pretty kitchen towel or napkin can work, too. You just have to promise that you’ll never leave the tea light unattended if you take this route. Promise? Actually you should never leave candles of any sort unattended, I just felt the need to mention it.

The votives were placed on folded napkins, with a small, sugar pumpkin. Just before guests arrived, small twigs of rosemary and cranberries were added.

I told you it was easy.

Do you do a centerpiece?

Heather says:

One week to go, we’re in the home stretch here. 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.

Well, that is if you’ve also kept up on your daily chores. If not, no worries there is still time before the invasive parasites I mean 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. If you don’t have kids and there will be kids visiting, plan for their entertainment, unless you want them juggling your breakables and pestering the dog.

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 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.
• Cleaned out the refrigerator to make room
  For some this means finding the cooler, too. Use the cooler full of ice to make room for the turkey which optimally should be thawing at 40F. It’s just safer to have it thawing in a controlled environment. Sitting in ice is too cold and without the ice, the cooler may get too warm.
• Figured out the Thanksgiving Day Cooking Timetable

A note about thawing your frozen turkeys:

Frozen turkeys need a full 24 hours per 5lbs to thaw in a 40F refrigerator. Once thawed the turkey can be held for up to 48 hours.

For example, an 18lb turkey will take nearly 4 days to thaw and should be used by the 6th 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 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.

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:

There are two items on today’s Turkey To-Do List.

It’s time to clean out the refrigerator and start making room for the extra produce and the turkey. Get rid of all the science projects, expired food, and condiments that have been open since before Obama took office. Stop feeling guilty, just get rid of them.

Next, it’s time to start looking at your Thanksgiving Day schedule.

When will you purchase or thaw your turkey? If you are getting a fresh turkey, have you placed your order?

Fresh turkeys will need to purchased no earlier than the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Fresh turkeys are highly perishable and should be stored in a home fridge for no longer than 2 days before cooking.

To thaw frozen turkeys safely you need to ensure there is plenty of room on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. Frozen turkeys need 24 hours for every five pounds.

If your turkey is 20 – 24lbs the USDA guidelines suggest 5 – 6 days to ensure that bad boy is completely thawed. Additionally a thawed turkey can be stored 1 – 2 days before cooking.

Get out your menu.

It’s time to figure out which side dishes can be made ahead of time.

Can any be made this week and frozen? What are the directions for reheating?

What time will Thanksgiving Dinner be served?

A cooked turkey should rest for thirty minutes before carving.

Don’t forget to have some kind of munchies set out to keep the vultures I mean guests from circling the kitchen and adding to the stress in the home stretch. It doesn’t have to be fancy, a plate of raw vegetables with ranch dip will do or maybe some fancy crackers and sliced cheese or check out The Motherload for 7 Make Ahead Appetizers.

Don’t put a lot of thought into it, it’s just to keep people’s blood sugar from dropping and tempers from rising¹. If alcohol is served, it’s never a good idea to mix relatives, alcohol, and empty stomachs. You may as well have a marquee sign highlighting offenses of years’ past.

If dinner is to be served at 4pm, work backwards from 3:30pm to decide when the turkey should go into the oven. The thirty minutes after the turkey comes out of the oven is a good time to finish off side dishes that just need to be heated, but don’t over estimate your oven’s capacity.

Go through your entire menu and figure out what time each dish should be started and completed.

Finally, when figuring out your time table, don’t forget to include some buffer time for extra prep. Minor setbacks always occur, having the extra time built into the schedule keeps a bump in the flow from become a train wreck of epic culinary proportions.

If you are new to Home Ec 101 and need to play catch up check out the rest of the Countdown to Turkey Day Series.

¹I mean, my temper never flares when I’m hungry. Nope, not guilty of that one, not one bit.

Dear Home Ec 101,

Can you clarify your directions for making the shopping list from your Thanksgiving menu using a spreadsheet?

Signed,

Confused in Conyers

Heather says:

Sure thing, a visual might help and keep in mind I was cooking for 20, before you freak out over 2lbs of butter.

Click the image for a bigger version.

At the top of each row is the name of the recipe. Since almost all of the recipes are available on this site, I have the recipe linked underneath. Otherwise I would just have them near me as I created the spreadsheet.

Below each recipe I list the ingredients (all of them, even salt, pepper etc)

Below the ingredient lists, I made headings of grocery store sections: Dry Goods, Produce, Butcher, etc.

Then I copied and pasted the ingredients from below each recipe heading into the appropriate grocery store section. I also indicated the quantity of the item when it was necessary: pounds of potatoes, bunches of celery etc.

When all was said and done, I copied and pasted the grocery store sections onto a new tab and printed.

I hope this clarifies things for you.

Send your questions to helpme@home-ec101.com.

Heather says:

It’s time to make your Thanksgiving Day Dinner shopping list. I know that Thanksgiving is still two weeks away, but this will hopefully give you time to take advantage of some sales and spread the cost over two grocery runs.  In many households this makes the expense a little easier to absorb. Unless you’re paid monthly and then well, it won’t help at all, sorry.

Grab your Thanksgiving Day Menu and all of the recipes, even if you think you know them by heart.

Do you need help making your shopping list?

Spreadsheets aren’t just for accounting, you know.

Open up a spreadsheet in Excel or Open Office -have you ever tried Open Office? It’s free and compatible with Microsoft products, so you don’t have to shell out mega bucks for their proprietary software. There’s nothing for me to disclose, I simply love the tool. If you don’t want to install Open Office, Google docs are another free option and you can share the documents with others.

Once you have your spreadsheet open, list your recipes across the top, one per column. Under each recipe list the ingredients. If a recipe calls for apples, list the number after the ingredient apple x 3 or chicken stock x 2 qt. This won’t take up the whole spread sheet.  Doing this creates mini-shopping lists for each recipe.

On the lower half of the spreadsheet start new columns. I like to divide my list up by grocery store departments: butcher, dairy, dry goods, produce, etc. Cut and paste each item into the appropriate column combining when appropriate ie 2 apples for the dressing  + 14 for the pies = 16 apples.

Save and print your grocery list and don’t forget to shop your pantry before heading to the store. (This just means cross off the items you have on hand).

Remember, it’s still to early to buy your produce.

Just for fun, what recipe are you most looking forward to this year?

As an added bonus, I have a guest post over at Babble.com’s The Family Kitchen. Holiday Cleaning Tips and Checklists for Thanksgiving.