We understand the panic is starting to set in. You have the family coming over for Thanksgiving dinner and you’re not used to cooking for a big group – and you want everything to be perfect.
Well, first of all, it’s your family so it doesn’t have to be perfect. And secondly, we’re here to help.
In an effort to make your Turkey Day go a bit smoother, we checked in with Jessie Bennington, Codi Labrecque and Greg Tompkins, three members of the St. Paul’s School’s kitchen staff last week, as they prepared a Thanksgiving buffet for students and faculty that expected to feed upwards of 500 people that included 28 turkeys and 250 pounds of potatoes. So at least be happy you don’t have to cook for that many people.
But they also provided us with some great tips that will make your Thanksgiving prep a lot easier.
A few days ahead
Make lists of what you need to buy, what you need to prepare and how many people are coming. It’s all about being ready for anything, and you want to make sure you have everything – and plenty of it.
The night before
Before your house is filled with people, this is your chance to get a few things done that will make things a lot easier on the big day.
So any vegetable prep can be done the night before. So peel and cut the potatoes – just remember to store them in water over night so they don’t brown.
Cut your vegetables for salad, and any other veggies you’ll be cooking like brussels sprouts, squash and onions – that kind of stuff.
You can rip your bread for the stuffing and chop the celery and onion for it, and just store it in a container in your fridge.
Desserts can be made the night before and all you have to do is reheat them, and it will save you tons of time and room in your oven.
If you like to make your own bread, make the dough the night before and store it in plastic wrap in the fridge or even bake it off and just toss it in the oven while the turkey is cooking.
You can even make your gravy stock the night before, assuming you don’t use the turkey drippings.
And if you haven’t thawed your turkey yet, you might want to start panicking now.
The big day
It’s finally here, and if you followed our useful tips, it won’t be quite as hectic.
Since your turkey is the star of the show and takes the most amount of time to cook, the first thing you want to do in the morning is get it all cleaned up, seasoned and in the oven.
Next up: make a list. Write down everything you need to make throughout the day and determine how much time it’s going to take.
Then keep a timer going, coinciding with your turkey cooking time, so you can keep things on schedule and make sure everything comes out at once.
With dishes like broccoli, carrots and green beans – and really any vegetable that you need to keep its fresh looking color – wait until the last possible moment to cook them. You’ll thank us when everyone is raving about your veggies.
We understand that you won’t be able to plan everything down to the last second, so aluminum foil or a chafing dish (if you have one) is going to be your best friend.
A nice added touch is warming up the plates. You don’t want all this hot food to go cold on a plate you just grabbed out of the cabinet.
Well, we hope this helps. And good luck – something tells us we all need a little bit of it when pulling off a big meal like this.
