Monday, November 21, 2011

Thanksgiving Meal Preparations

Holiday Cranberry Sauce as the cranberries were bursting.

With Thanksgiving quickly approaching, it was about that time to make my menu and start planning my schedule for when I would start cooking/baking so that I wouldn't have to do it all at one sitting! Especially with being pregnant, I can't be on my feet for too long at a time, so I really wanted to stretch out my cooking to preserve my back!
This year, it really helps that we are spending Thanksgiving with Tad's family, so I don't have to do all the cooking, and we pretty much cut the menu in half and are each cooking so that the burden doesn't fall on either of us! And the great thing is that she has a roaster that she cooks her turkey in, so I don't have to even think about buying the turkey, thawing it, and cooking it so that it doesn't kill my guests!! In years past, I was frantically reading all the how-to's and turkey 101's so that I would properly cook the thing so that it would taste good and not send anyone home in pain! I have cooked about 3 turkeys now, but it still seems like a foreign thing to me, so I'm glad to not be cooking it this year!
My portion of the Thanksgiving menu is as follows:

Cranberry Sauce
Cheese Balls
Pumpkin Soup (which might actually be eaten at dinner with leftovers)
Corn Souffle
Stuffing
Pecan Pie
Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pie

I tried to map out my cooking according to what would keep best in the fridge/freezer and what I could make ahead of time and still taste like it was just made! So, here is my schedule for the week:

Pie Crust Dough before putting them into Ziplocs and rolling them out to be frozen until later use.

Sunday: made Cranberry Sauce and Perfect Pie Crusts for my pies
Monday: made the Cheese Balls
Tuesday: no cooking
Wednesday: will make Pecan Pie and Stuffing
Thursday morning: will make Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pie
will prep Corn Souffle (church cookbook, will include recipe later!)
Thursday late morning: will cook Corn Souffle and Stuffing at Tad's parent's house
will cook Pumpkin Soup on stove top either right before the meal, or later that evening with dinner leftovers.

Cheese Balls to be refrigerated and then rolled in chopped pecans before serving. Yum!

So that's the plan for this year. Not too complicated, and yummy recipes pretty much that I have made before! It should be good, easy, and not too much at one time! I'm looking forward to it! My mother-in-law is making the turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, rolls, pumpkin pie, and apple pie. It should be a yummy, fun time!

What does your Thanksgiving menu look like this year?

1 comment:

  1. Looks yummy! Hope you are enjoying your Thanksgiving, lady!

    ReplyDelete