Prepping for Thanksgiving

Last year was our first time hosting Thanksgiving Dinner, so I spent a lot of time planning and prepping.  I came up with a HUGE shopping list of every possible ingredient and item we would need for all the side dishes, and I also spent some time at Christmas Tree Shops in getting paper plates and napkins (we do paper for dessert instead of dirtying even more dishes) and some other stuff we would need to cook the turkey. 

We had 14 people at dinner, so I was nervous about the amount of food we would have.  I doubled a lot of recipes to make sure we would have enough.  Let’s just say no one went hungry and we had leftovers for days afterwards (seriously).  This year I’m planning on eliminating a side dish or two, not doubling recipes, and not doing as many desserts.  Here’s the Prep Calendar I made for dinner last year – it kept me on track of what I needed to make each night so I didn’t have too much to actually put together on Thanksgiving Day.  We were able to just warm up a lot of dishes instead. Sorry the type is small – if you click on the picture it should let you view in a little.

So this year’s menu is looking like this:

Turkey Dinner 2011:

Appetizers:

• Mini Chicken Pot Pies
• Cheese Ball w/crackers
• Veggies & Dip

Main Dishes:

• Turkey & gravy

Side Dishes:

• Stuffing
• Cranberry Sauce
• Sweet Potatoes w/Walnuts & Brown Sugar
• Corn Casserole
• Rice Pilaf
• Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes
• Carrots & Turnips
• Green Bean Casserole
• Squash
• Bread rolls

Desserts:

• Pumpkin Dip w/Pretzel Sticks & Graham Crackers
• Apple Crisp
• Pecan Pie
• Pumpkin Pie
• Pumpkin Parfaits

Drinks:

• Apple Cider
• Half Tea & Half Lemonade
• Wine
• Beer
• Soda

You might be thinking that’s a lot, but my mom brings the pies and my in-laws brought a ton of side dishes last year.  I guess one of the good things about losing power a couple weeks ago is that our fridge has been cleared out so we will have plenty of room to store some of these dishes ahead of time!