cook/freeze ahead thanksgiving dishes

[momofee]

So it looks like I'm hosting Thanksgiving this year. I work part time and took the day before off, but know that won't be enough time to get everything done. Family has offered to help but arrive Wed evening. Does anyone have freezable recipes or suggestions on how to make this as smooth as possible? We have catered Tgiving in the past, but I enjoy cooking.

Thanks!

[icunurse]

I'm not sure about freezing, but I make a cranberry mold, sweet potato casserole (minus the marshmallows), smashed potatoes (minus the butter topping) and get all of my bread pieces cut and dried out for stuffing the day before Thanksgiving. I'm probably going to make the brussel spouts the day before, too, this year. On the actual day, I reheat the casserole and add the marshmallows, reheat the potatoes with butter topping, make the stuffing (easy recipe), and then I can focus on the turkey, rolls, and family.

[Melaine]

I cook the sweet potatoes the night before (make the casserole TG day). I make the pea salad the night before because it is marinated and better next day. I bake the cornbread for the dressing the day before, and tear some bread up to go with it. I go ahead and chop any onions and nuts (which are in several recipes at our house) ahead of time, and label them in baggies. And then I usually do at least one cake or pie in advance. Sometimes I will even go so far as to pull out dishes for each item and lay them on the table along with the accompanying recipe.

I'm pretty disorganized and don't tend to be efficient when I entertain. So what I have done in the past is written out a schedule for my day, for example:
6:00 AM prepare and start roasting turkey
9:00 Slice apples for appetizer, put in lemon juice
9:30 Baste turkey
10:00 Bake sweet potatoes

Totally made that stuff up, but you get my point. I do that schedule a few days ahead while I am making the BIG grocery list. And I go over both several times to make sure I am not missing anything. For me, I tend to stress out over stuff like this, but the lists and schedules really help me. I love cooking and entertaining but I have to make it easy on myself.

[boolady]

Last year was the first year I cooked Thanksgiving dinner, and in addition to writing out a schedule like Melaine with times for everything, I also noted next to my list of dishes being served what serving platters/bowls and serving utensils I planned to use for each dish so that I could have them all out and ready to go.

The other thing you can do in addition to cooking ahead anything you can is for things that are not good if cooked ahead, prep ahead. I did all of my chopping, dicing, cleaning, vinaigrette or sauce making, etc., the day before, and it saved so much time in prep and clean up on Thanksgiving itself. I felt like a Food Network star with all of my bowls and ziplocs of precut and premeasured ingredients, just turning on a pan and putting the ingredients in and going from there. It was a huge, huge timesaver.

Also remember that there are things that will need to sit (like the turkey will need to rest for a while before carving) and can sit, because they're good served at warm room temperature, and bake or cook those things first so that they're out of the oven/off the stove when you need the space for other dishes. Good luck! I love to cook for holidays and big get-togethers-- such fun.

[hannah]

The first year I prepared thanksgiving dinner for family I had everything except the bird & stuffing prepared ahead of time. Cranberry sauce was made and frozen 2 weeks ahead. Then I made a citrus butternut whipped squash, spicy carrots, make-ahead mashed potatoes, & gravy on Monday of thanksgiving week. I made the base of the gravy and then added the pan drippings to it after baking the bird. Pies were made on Tues and Wednesday of Thanksgiving week. And then I think I had store bought rolls. I am a big fan of my bread machine now so I probably would make fresh bread on thanksgiving too since it won't take up oven space.

I can break out the recipes if you want any of them. Just let me know.

[mikala]

I'm working through this right now as well. Real Simple has some useful recipes and organization tips that I've found useful.

http://www.realsimple.com/holidays-entertaining/holidays/thanksgiving/step-by-step-thanksgiving-00100000068189/index.html

Make-ahead recipes:
http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-favorites/seasonal/recipes-thanksgiving-potluck-10000001550367/index.html

Other things to think about:
http://www.realsimple.com/holidays-entertaining/holidays/thanksgiving/thanksgiving-cooking-problems-solved-10000001673240/index.html