Thanksgiving!

Hello again! 

I had my thanksgiving dinner today! It went very well! 

Heres some things I did to make it easier: 

*I prepped all of my recipes a few days in advanced.... You can read about that in my last entry (or maybe the one before)

*I prepped all of my recipes yesterday. I got my turkey situated, my gravy vegis in their pan. I prepped the candied yams and green bean bundles. I Cut up my cranberries. I made the pumpkin pie. I made the deviled eggs and I set up my jalapeños. Although nothing (other than the pie) was actually cooked, this took ALL day. 

*I pulled out any dishes that were going to be needed for the day off. 

*Made sure all dishes were done. 

Today, with the exception of the dressing (stuffing), everything was already prepared and ready to go! I just had to put it in the oven or grill! 

I didn't take pictures.... I should have! I was going to enter my turkey into a photo contest, but I forgot to take the picture!! Ooops! Oh well! There's always next time! 

One thing I did notice about preparing all of the "dry" or "nonrefrigerated" ingrediants a week or so before: my onions molded...I'm not sure why, but next time I will leave them in my onion cabinet. They weren't molded to the point of not being able to use them, I just had to peel a few extra layers... But I don't think I'll store them with the other ingredients again. 

Another thing I'll change: next time I will print off the recipes and put them in the bags. Even though I already had all of the  ingredients listed out, I found myself looking on my phone a lot for the actual recipe. 

This will definitely be a tradition for Matt and I, but next year I will have people bring stuff....I really enjoyed doing all of the cooking, but it'll be okay to step back and let others help too. 

Well, it's nap time!

PEACE! 

Xo Danielle oX 

Thanksgiving in a basket!

Hello! 

It is less than a week until Thanksgiving! 

I decided that I wanted to do a small thanksgiving dinner.... At the last minute. 

We could find no one to join us for thanksgiving, so I changed it to a thanksgiving Sunday dinner, the Sunday after the holiday! 

While I have done several cookouts and had people over, I have never done a holiday dinner. This is my first one!

Now I tend to obsess how things will go.... I like a plan. A time line. And I like for things to stay according to plan. 

I'm not sure why I feel that this dinner will go differently than any of the other dinners that I've done. Really, the only difference is the holiday! 

I searched the internet for tips on the first holiday dinner, talked to a few friends and did a little thinking outside of the box. 

Here's what I did: 

1) I made a list of everything I wanted to make, and listed all of the ingredients. This was 2 pages, front and back!!

(Ignore the scratch outs, they came from step 2) 

2) Then I made a master list of everything I would need. 

(Again, ignore the scratch outs, they came from step 3!) 

3) I went through my pantry to see what I already had. There's no point in buying things I don't need! 

4) After I went grocery shopping, I put it All in a basket! 

Let me explain that last step.... 

I went back to my original recipe ingredient list and matched everything up. 

Now, some stuff must be refrigerated, and those are not included in this. But everything else is! 

Spices are already combined into baggies. Additional ingredients are written on the baggies. Those baggies are placed in groceries bags with canned ingredients. 

Take a look at these photos for a better idea: 

If some of the ingredients are divided, they go in separate bags. 

And then they all go in their big gallon bags! 

Here's the finished product: 

And my favorite part... It goes in the unused corner of my kitchen. It takes up no additional space in my pantry. 

When I am ready to start the pie, I pull out the bag. 

When I want to do the turkey, I pull out the bag. 

It seems so simple! I already feel relieved! I will definitely do this on future cookouts, holiday or not! ;-)  

Hope this can help you with your holiday experience! 

Xo Danielle oX