Another Thanksgiving has come and gone. Was your meal a success? Did you try new recipes or stick with your tried-and-true favorites? My mother and I hosted my family and several friends at her house in Florida, as has been our tradition for several years now. We have honed our menu over the years and feel like we have the perfect balance of turkey, sides and desserts.
A relish tray of fresh and my homemade pickled vegetables.
For someone who loves to cook, as I do, Thanksgiving is the Super Bowl — the holiday where the food is the focus. My mom and I make a great team dividing up the work without even having to say who will do what. After years of cooking together, we just know. I do the pies; she does the turkey. I mash potatoes; she whips up gravy. Everything runs like a well-oiled machine. By the time the guests arrive, we are relaxed and smiling with a glass of wine in hand.
I always make cranberry-orange sauce from whole berries.
What is our secret to Thanksgiving success? A tight menu, a well-established timeline and a smart division of labor. We do what we can in advance. I always make the pie dough the day before knowing that it will be better with a day to relax. The Balsamic-glzed pearl onions, a delicious dish that is almost more work than it is worth, can be prepared up to two days before. When we wake up on Thursday morning, we set the table first thing.
You can decorate your pie crust any way you see fit.
Like many, we are working with one oven when we make Thanksgiving, so adhering to the schedule is important. Bake the pies first. They can be reheated while you eat dinner. The dressing can be prepared in advance until it is ready to bake and then placed in the oven when the turkey comes out. (Remember the turkey should come out at least 30 to 45 minutes before you intend to carve it to allow the meat to relax.)
That’s a good-looking bird!
Speaking of the turkey, years ago, we adopted a somewhat radical approach and have stuck with it ever since because it is both easy and produces terrific results: we blast the bird at high heat (450) and do not baste it — opening the oven causes the temperature to drop too much — for only a few hours. A 16 lb. bird takes 2 1/4 hours; an 18 lb. bird, like the one we had last night, takes 2 hours and 48 minutes. That sure frees up the oven for other things!
The dressing came out especially well this year.
Last night’s dressing was a mixture of cornbread and white bread croutons. The corn bread was left out overnight to harden and then toasted in the oven before combining with sautéed onion, celery and apples. We added lots of fresh herbs and then poured a mixture of eggs and chicken broth over the bread. The results were moist and flavorful.
Pumpkin pie is my favorite.
For the mashed potatoes, we start with Yukon Golds, which have a natural buttery flavor, and I infuse milk with herbs and garlic to add lots of flavor. Mashed potatoes can also be prepared in advance despite the common belief that they cannot. Just save some of the cooking water from the potatoes. When you reheat the potatoes closer to the serving time, you can add this water in the event that your potatoes are dry.
Are these Balsamic-glazed pearl onions worth the work?
Sure, there are always things to be done at the last minute: carving the bird, making the gravy, reheating the sides prepared in advance. But if you have thought through your timeline and done as much as possible in advance, it does not have to be stressful. And you can always enlist your guests to help. Our guests contributed wine, a side dish of Brussel sprouts, sauerkraut — it’s their family tradition — and a pecan pie. We asked another guest to carve the turkey and he always does a bang-up job.
What are your secrets to Thanksgiving success?
