How to Make Thanksgiving Easier

The more that you can do before the “big day”, the better things will go. Consider the following:

• One week ahead, plan the menu.

• Buy nonperishable items well in advance, anytime after planning the menu. Save your later shopping for perishables only.

• Purchase perishables, such as salad greens and fruit, two days in advance.

• One to three days ahead, make the salads. Frozen salads can be made even earlier. Most gelatin salads can be made two or three days in advance. For the tossed salad, wash and dry salad greens a day in advance and store in plastic bags.

• One to three days ahead, make the desserts. Cheesecakes and most pies can be made up to three days in advance. Pie crust dough can be made even earlier. Leave the whipped cream off the pies until the day of the dinner.

• Many vegetable dishes such as candied yams or scalloped potatoes can be made a day in advance and reheated in the microwave.

• Make sure that you start the turkey thawing in the refrigerator well in advance. Allow one day for every four pounds. Do not thaw the turkey on the counter. (It is possible to speed the process by immersing the turkey in its unopened package, breast side down, in cold water in the sink. The trick is to keep the temperature in the sink below forty degrees for food safety. Use a thermometer and plan on replacing the water every thirty minutes. Obviously, it’s less hassle and safer to thaw the bird in the refrigerator.)

• The cranberry sauce and turkey stuffing can be made a day or two in advance.

• We like our rolls fresh from the oven and so bake them on Thanksgiving Day. A mix can cut down on Thanksgiving Day chaos. If you are not making your rolls from a mix, assemble all the dry ingredients in the recipe two or three days ahead so that all you have to add is the water and butter and start the mixing process. If you are a little adventuresome, you can mix the dough to or three days in advance and immediately refrigerate it. The yeast will remain dormant at the forty degree temperature of your refrigerator. Early in the morning, remove the dough to the counter. As the dough comes to room temperature, the yeast will go to work. It may not take that long but allow at least eight hours for the dough to come to room temperature and rise twice. Incidentally, that long slow rise, will give the yeast plenty of time to develop wonderfully complex flavors for some of the best rolls ever.