Game Day! One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen over the years during Thanksgiving is poor planning of oven time. Believe me; you don’t want to be the holdup especially if you have guests who plan on bringing uncooked dishes or dishes that need to be heated.

Actually, you should map out your oven time since most of us have one oven.

Here’s an example game plan for the day.

In this game plan, you’ll see when I’ll be using the stove top. This might come in handy if you’re doing a lot of stove stop dishes. In theory, you can “setup/plate” the dishes all at one time. I’ll leave that to you.

The import thing to remember is: don’t panic and schedule the oven time.

All about prep. Now that I’ve decided what to make and I’ve bought my ingredients, the next step is to prep.  What I do next is to print all of my recipes and look at the prep time.  Again, Thanksgiving is not a day to “experiment” with the unknown.  You should get your favorite recipes or recipes from people you trust.  Personally, I’m an Alton Brown fan.  His use of ingredients and techniques are great.  They also leave a little room for alteration.

I take all the recipes and lay them out.  You’ll notice that the time it takes to make each dish differs.  You want to keep an eye on these times—prep time and cook time.  What you’ll also see is that some of the ingredients overlap such as: onions, garlic, celery, and carrots.

Now that you’ve seen similarities across the board, you can chop the onions, celery, and carrots for all the dishes at once (you’ll cry less). Put these ingredients in separate bowls until your ready to cook.

Another technique that I like to do during this time of the year is to do all the preparation a day before and place the items in the refrigerator until I’m ready.  You’ll find that some grocery stores have pre-chopped, pre-sliced, and minced everything.  It’s the same concept except yours will be fresh.

In terms of timing, I’ll start a turkey on Wednesday morning before I head to work (brine is a good thing).  Wednesday afternoon I’ll start the slicing and dicing.  The pork will go into the oven around midnight.  Thursday morning I’ll start the soup and the potatoes.  Around noon or so, I’ll throw the turkey/roast in the oven and start the vegetables.

Shopping day! I’ve compiled my list of ingredients from the recipes.  Here’s what I need:

• Potatoes
• Butter
• Heavy Cream
• Celery Root
• Rib Roast
• Sausage
• Onions
• Celery
• Carrots
• Leeks
• Yams
• Bell Peppers
• Chicken Stock
• Pork Shoulder
• Red Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Cabbage
• Salad
• Corn
• Cranberries

My dad once told me that I should organize my list before I go shopping at the grocery.  He said by doing so, you’ll keep your frozen food frozen and you’ll walk less.  While I try to do this, there are times when I head to the grocery just to relax and walk off some stress (I know I’m weird).  But here’s the revised list:

Fruits and Vegetables (Aisle 1)
Potatoes
Celery Root
Onions
Celery
Carrots
Leeks
Yams
Bell Peppers
Red Potatoes
Tomatoes
Cabbage
Salad
Corn
Cranberries

Other
Chicken Stock (Aisle 4)
Stuffing mix (front of the store)

Meats (in the back store)
Turkey
Sausage
Pork Shoulder

Dairy (in the back of the store)
Butter
Heavy Cream

Yes, I put which aisles these items are found.  As you get to know your stores you’ll know where the items are kept (they hardly change).  Take a look at this picture.

Does it look similar to your store?  These are universal concepts in store layout and design.  You’ll notice that most of the items you need are in the outer edges of the store.  I’ve noticed that I’ve reduced the number of steps and in-store time by 75% by planning ahead–it was part of an experiment where a friend and I shopped for the same items except that I planned ahead knowing the general location of each item.  We both wore a pedometer and timed ourselves.

Remember to take inventory of your ingredients in stock, and then make your organized list before you go shopping.

What’s for Thanksgiving dinner?

Thanksgiving is fast approaching and I feel like I’m running out of time to plan and prepare a meal.  I decided to get ahead of the game and start sooner than later.

There are the die hard Thanksgiving enthusiasts who believe we should reenact the dinner the Pilgrims and Indians ate.  Me?  I’m not a traditionalist.  Turkey is usually the last thing on my mind when it comes to “Turkey Day.”

What about the rest of the meal?  The first part of planning any dinner is planning the entire meal from start to finish.  Imagine that you’re sitting at the table; What do you see?  What does it smell like?  What flavors are you salivating over?

After creating your vision you’re probably overwhelmed by the amount of work.  Don’t panic!  Well, unless this is your first time making dinner for your in-laws (I’ve heard many horror stories).  This is what I pictured for this meal:

• Mashed Potatoes (carb)
• Rib Roast (meat)
• Candied Yams (part vegetable, part dessert)
• Roasted Bell Pepper Soup (soup)
• Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder (meat)
• Assorted Roasted Vegetables (vegetable)
• Maybe Corn on the Cob (vegetable)

I’m not sure what I should serve as an appetizer and dessert.  I’m going to have to think about this.  Other things that I’m thinking about are, “I should do that cranberry dish?  How about that stuffing?  We have to have stuffing!”

Now that I have my menu, I’m going to look at the recipe to make sure that I have all the ingredients in stock.  We don’t want to run into a situation where we’re missing ingredients. Make a list of of all the ingredients you need.  It’s also probably a good time for you to take inventory of what you have in the kitchen.

Stay tuned.