Doing Favors for my Future Self -- Thanksgiving Edition
I'm once again hosting Thanksgiving and am attempting to prepare ahead as much as humanly possible. I like to frame this as "doing a favor for my future self." I normally make everything from scratch and you'd see me cooking my own pumpkins for pies, baking bread for stuffing, making rolls from scratch, etc. This year I'm allowing myself to take shortcuts and prepping ahead to simplify the holiday.
I should note that my husband would normally be pitching in, but he'll be at work until 6 P.M.
With that aim in mind, today I made the cranberry sauce, sautéed mirpoix for the freezer and assembled two apple pies, which I also stuck in the freezer. This may seem like a lot of work for someone who's trying to be easy on herself, but today was a low key day and I had the mental energy to complete these tasks.
Other plans to "do a favor to my future self:"
- Make ahead mashed potatoes, which I can heat in the crock pot in order to reserve precious oven space.
- Trim the green beans the day ahead.
- Gravy, which I'll also make the day ahead. I inevitably end up making it last minute from turkey drippings, while everyone waits for me. Weirdly stressful.
- I bought canned whipped cream, which'll save me from making it from scratch like I normally do.
- I bought boxes of stuffing mix, to which I'll add my premade mirpoix and rosemary from the garden.
- I outsourced the rolls to my mother and she can order them from a bakery.
My goal is to make things as easy as possible next Thursday. Essentially nothing but roasting the turkey. A favor to my future self.
What do you do to make Thanksgiving easier? I'd love to hear your tips and tricks!
I will buy turkey chops. They are more expensive than a whole turkey but none of us want to eat a lot of meat nor deal with a turkey carcass. We marinate them and bake them in the oven for a short period of time.
I bought Arnold's stuffing mix.
Pies will be made and baked on Wednesday.
The sweet potato butternut squash casserole will be made ahead of time.
Dressing made and I'm also doing veggies ahead. Only thing to do on actual day is to stuff eggs and warm turkey . Happy Thanksgiving
In my family we divvy up the dishes. My kind father has turkey and carbs, my sister has dessert, I have vegetable sides, appetizers and cranberry sauce. I'll prep on Wednesday. We all set up and clean up. The kids are the dish washers (with no dishwasher)
We head to our son’s MIL’s house and bring the ingredients for a charcuterie board for snacking. I’ll shop on Monday to try to beat the crowds. In 5he past when life was stressful we bought a cooked turkey and some sides and only made what we enjoyed cooking. Not frugal but it was truly self care. Another year after a cross country move with an 14 year old and away from family and friends we made tostados for lunch and Chinese for dinner with a hike in the afternoon. Not trying to replicate Thanksgiving dinner by ourselves was again good self care.