Making a List

Saucyman, If you cook all day, is there really any chance you can enjoy the Thanksgiving festivities yourself? Tired by Turkeytime.

Absolutely. You need to make 2 scant adjustments to end up with more energy than your guests who have gorged themselves into a narco tryptophan turkey buzz. The big thing you need to do as a host is have a plan - yeah the best laid plans can go astray, but making adjustments to a plan is better than not having one all. The other part of your two pronged attack is proper Oprahization.

The reason why you plan, is to take care of as much as you can before the day sneaks up on you. If you are hosting a 9 x 9 Thanksgiving; 9 guests - 9 dinner items, the first thing you want to do is write down the menu. Turkey, Gravy, stuffing, cranberries, mashed potatoes, green beans with toasted pecans, brussels sprouts, Wild Rice & wild mushrooms and pumpkin pie.

After the menu is made you want make your shopping lists. The days leading up to Thanksgiving are some of the busiest of the year in terms of dollars and foot traffic for grocery stores: Having a list, checking it twice, will save you the pain of returning to a long line. Before you go to the store, get out the cookbooks, review recipes, write down ingredients. Over estimate how much cream, eggs, butter and coffee, good coffee and you will need. (You will also need more toilet paper than you think. )

After you have your shopping list, make your Thanksgiving to-do list. Lay out the list so you can get as much done early as humanly possible, without compromising the quality of the food. All the work you can accomplish the weekend before will be paid back three fold on Thanksgiving day.

Keep the to-do list taped on the Fridge, cross out tasks as you complete them. Roughly speaking, the list for the aforementioned items would break out like this -

Saturday: The pie crust can be made and frozen. If you need cornbread for your stuffing make it now, cut into squares and refrigerate in a paper bag.

Sunday: Mix the brine, toast pecans, chopped and cook the bacon, make the cranberry sauce, mix the pumpkin pie filling together - cool it down and refrigerate all. If you are using the flour/fat mixture called roux (so much better and easier than flour thickened gravy) make it now.

Monday: Stay out of the kitchen and grocery store; possibly order pizza.

Tuesday: Clean & chop mushrooms, take the pie crust out of the freezer place in fridge, cut up the bread for the stuffing - don't buy those stale things - don't. Trim the green beans, cut the Brussels Sprouts in half, everything that gets prepped goes in a sealed ziploc bag.

Wednesday: Bake the pie, brine the turkey, steam the brussels sprouts and blanch the green beans = cook half way - cool them down and then back into the fridge. Set the table. Make a list of what needs to get done -The most stressful thing to manage on Thursday will be oven space and stovetop time go to bed knowing you are way ahead of the curve.

Visions of turkey and stuffing dancing through your head

In bed. rested, relaxed, positive visualization or Oprahization becomes important, fall asleep thinking about your Thanksgiving. And if you are going to the trouble of visualizing, you might as well visualize your dinner being successful.

Think about the Turkey going in the oven in the morning, but more importantly think about it coming out on time, crisp on the outside, moist inside. Picture it draped in foil while you calmly finish the gravy. While the turkey is still baking you can cook Wild Rice on a back burner, potatoes peeled boiled and mashed a few hours before the guests arrive - they will keep covered on the stovetop for a couple hours. Saute the mushrooms add them to the rice. The sprouts can be heated up with the bacon. The green beans/pecans will replace the turkey in the oven, turn the heat off - tell yourself easy peasey because, well, it is, you planned for it.

Think about the beer, wine or whiskey you are going to reward yourself with when you sit down. Finally, before you fall asleep - close your eyes and see yourself laughing with your friends -because you didn't frantically cram 14 hours of work in a 12 hour window, you have the energy to sit back and enjoy what you have created.