Several years ago (when we still traveled for holidays), the night before Thanksgiving, our flight to Utah was cancelled. After a few devastating hours of disappointment I decided I better make sure we had some kind of a Thanksgiving dinner the next day. I rushed to the grocery store and grabbed whatever I could find. It was just me and my husband but that wasn’t going to stop me. In my world, you eat turkey on Thanksgiving no matter what. I had so much fun preparing the meal and Kelly and I had such a pleasant weekend together that we decided to make it a tradition. It’s been 7 or 8 years now (I’ve lost count) and we look forward to our own Thanksgiving every year. I love to cook but it’s time consuming and my favorite foods aren’t exactly healthy. So, I save the big stuff for holidays and Thanksgiving is the biggest food event of my year. We love to share the meal with family or friends but even when it’s just the two of us, I still go all out. Ridiculous? Maybe, but the fun is worth it for me and we never have a hard time finding friends to come share leftovers with us. That has become a tradition in itself.
Here’s my menu for 2007:
Core Menu
Turkey
Gravy
Stuffing
Rolls
Mashed Potatoes
Cranberry Sauce
Cranberry butter
Appetizers
Puff Pastry Brie Melts
Side Dishes
Green Bean Casserole
Baked Yams
Fettuccine Alfredo
Desserts
Pumpkin Pie
Coconut Cream Pie
Drinks
Hot Chocolate
Sparkling Cider
Figuring out how to prepare and serve a full Thanksgiving menu all by myself has been an exciting challenge. To that end, I’ve created a series of documents that help me plan and execute Thanksgiving each year. I can't upload the actual documents but I'll post the text of them here. They include my
Recipes
Shopping List
Thanksgiving Day Schedule
It’s everything needed to plan, shop for, prepare, and serve my 2007 Thanksgiving Menu. I’ve tested all the recipes multiple times and they are my very favorites. You could do three things with this info:
1) Use it to do exactly as I do for Thanksgiving. If you’ve never done Thanksgiving before I promise this will save you a lot of work and stress. You might want to eliminate a few dishes though your first time around.
2) Customize my plans to your menu and schedule.
3) Just read them and laugh at my obsession. You won’t be the first.
UPDATE: I can't figure out how to post the docs and they are all in tables so they don't post well on the blog. I'll keep working on this and find a way to post the info.
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4 comments:
Oooh. Cranberry butter--that sounds fantastic. I love that you have fettuccine alfredo too. If you ever do figure out how to post the docs, I'd love to see them. I'm doing my first ever Thanksgiving here--8 adults and 7 kids. I'm relying a lot on Cooks Illustrated, which I LOVE. Brent's smoking a turkey.
P.S. Brent and I went out to eat Fri. and for the first time ever had a selection of cheeses before the dinner. It was great. I thought of you.
Kate is looking at this blog with me. She says she thinks Isabel is so pretty.
Your appetizer would be my favorite dish. :)
Hi Jen,
I've tagged you (see my blog if you haven't already heard of how this works). Forgive me, but I thought about who would be really interesting to hear 6 new things about, and your name immediately came to mind.
Hey Jen- I was just checking to see if you have updated your blog---still waiting :) But you make me feel better that my Christmas trees are still up- they 'll come down tomorrow!!
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