Thanksgiving Menu 2022

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

For the first time, we didn’t have overnight guests for the holiday. My mom moved to New York! 🙂 Our family joined us for the day and we ate our feast in the early afternoon. Because of the time of day, we had to forgo a festive cocktail- I am planning to incorporate it into our Christmas feast!

I made many tried and true dishes. My son noted that we may almost have our perfect menu. ❀ I added a new Brussels sprouts dish (delicious) and an additional pie, Nutmeg-Maple Custard, which will most certainly be included in the menu next year.

I document our menu to help me in the future. I included the preparation timeline as well because it was relatively stress-free this year. I hope that some of this is helpful for others! 🙂

Menu:

Appetizers:

  • green grapes
  • sourdough baguette and brie
  • mixed nuts
  • Turkey Bread, photo below (from the ciabatta used to roast the turkey upside-down)

Dinner:

Leftover Dishes:

Schedule:

Four to Five Days Before:

  • list and grocery shopping

Three Days Before:

  • make Cranberry Relish
  • decorate and clean house

Two Days Before:

  • make, chill, roll, chill, and par-bake Pie Crusts
  • bake Skillet Cornbread for Stuffing
  • bake sweet potatoes for Spoon Bread & Biscuits

One Day Before:

  • plan serving pieces, china, and linens
  • prep Vegetables
  • bake Pies
  • assemble Stuffing
  • make Mashed Potatoes
  • purchase Sourdough Baguette

Thanksgiving Day:

  • set table
  • bake Stuffing
  • purĂ©e and bake Spoon Bread
  • Roast Turkey (we roasted a 14.5 lb turkey for a little over 2 hours- until thigh=165 degrees)
  • roast Vegetables (and make sauces)
  • re-heat Mashed Potatoes
  • make Gravy (we made half the recipe because we had a smaller turkey- mistake!)

Thanksgiving Menu 2020

Happy belated Thanksgiving and Happy Holiday Season to everyone! We definitely missed our extended family at Thanksgiving this year but our quiet feast was still lovely.

I love to post my Thanksgiving Menu to help me plan in the future. Hopefully some of my menu choices are helpful to others too. I will link the new menu items to posts as soon as I am able.

I decreased the proportions for our small scale feast but we still made quite a variety of dishes in order to accommodate everyone’s favorites. My kids actively participated in the cooking process throughout the day which was the absolute highlight for me. 🙂

We tried a new gravy this year- this change would have been met with great objection from our extended family. 😉 It incorporated roasted poblano chilies, a favorite flavor in our house. We also enjoyed a new festive cocktail which was so fabulous I plan to incorporate it into the menu next year.

Breakfast:

Lunch:

Festive Cocktail:

Dinner:

Leftover Dishes:

Yes! My cat, Franklin “the Fluff,” has an Instagram page. ❀

Thanksgiving Menu 2019

Happy Holiday season to everyone! I love to post my Thanksgiving Menu to help me plan in the future. Hopefully some of my menu choices are helpful to others too. 🙂 I will link the new menu items to posts as soon as I am able.

I know that I am taking risks when trying new recipes for a crowd. This year I had a couple of misses…. The first was my Thanksgiving Eve cocktail, Tito’s Apple Cider Mule. It was okay- and we all drank it, of course!- but I had higher expectations as a Moscow Mule fan. I will have to work on creating an improved autumn version.

My daughter and I also made dinner rolls for our feast. After the dough was made, it could be frozen to rise and bake on Thanksgiving Day (a perfect make-ahead plan). They did not meet my expectations either which an unfortunate miss. I did enjoy the teamwork!

My son also contributed to our feast this year by making mashed potatoes. They were delicious. 🙂

The benefit of taking a risk by serving a new dish is finding a wonderful addition to the menu. The Cornbread Dressing with Bacon & Sage may be the best “stuffing” I have ever made. It will definitely be on my menu again next year! I also tried three new desserts and they were all delicious- especially the pear and almond tart.

Thanksgiving Eve Eve:

Thanksgiving Eve:

Thanksgiving Day:

Breakfast:

Lunch:

Dinner:

Leftover Dishes:

Thanksgiving Menu 2017

I selfishly love documenting my holiday menu because it is such a wonderful reference in the future. Hopefully, others may benefit when planning for the holidays as well.

I had considered trying a new Thanksgiving turkey and gravy recipe this year, but I was quickly outvoted. 😉 As much as I enjoy experimenting with new dishes, this year’s feast was comprised of many favorites from previous years. I did add a new roasted rainbow carrot dish and double apple pie. I am still searching for ultimate stuffing and apple pie recipes.

In addition to our tasty holiday feast, we had two surprise highlights from our celebration. The first was a “turkey hat” that my brother brought on Thanksgiving morning. Many photos were taken of everyone wearing it! Fun. 🙂

The second highlight resulted from roasting the turkey upside-down. (We had tried this for the first time last year and the meat was incredibly moist.) The roasting rack is lined with buttered ciabatta bread so that the turkey doesn’t stick when it is time for it to be flipped over. The resulting “turkey bread” was indulgent and absolutely delicious. I’m going to have to incorporate it into some sort of a dish next year.

Happy belated Thanksgiving to all of you and Happy Holiday season!

Thanksgiving Eve Eve:

Thanksgiving Eve:

Thanksgiving Day:

Breakfast:

Lunch:

Dinner:

Leftover Dishes:

One Year Ago: Thanksgiving Menu 2016

Two Years Ago: Thanksgiving Menu 2015

Three Years Ago: Thanksgiving Menu 2014

Four Years Ago: Thanksgiving Menu 2013

Five Years Ago: Thanksgiving Menu 2012

Thanksgiving Menu 2016

I apologize for the belatedness of this post. Hopefully, some of this feast will be helpful for others when organizing future (and upcoming!) holiday meal menus. I love documenting my Thanksgiving planning to help create a special meal the following year. 🙂

This was the year of the upside-down turkey! Per Martha Stewart’s suggestion, we roasted the turkey breast-side down for the first hour of cooking, and then flipped it over to brown the breast side. The thought behind this technique is that the juices during cooking seep into the white meat. The result was beautifully browned skin on the entire turkey and the juiciest turkey meat I’ve ever eaten. True. Really!

I purchased the turkey pre-brined (from Trader Joe’s) and we let it rest for a full hour before carving- factors which also possibly contributed to our successful result. It was a little scary lifting a 20 pound, 425 degree turkey- but my husband did a fabulous job. 🙂 Great!

My in-laws brought (and gave us <3) their beautiful wedding china and crystal. So, we dined elegantly in style! So much more fancy to eat the feast on formal plates. 🙂

I’ve posted our menu below and will fill in the links as soon as I am able. Happy Belated Thanksgiving! Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving Eve Eve:

Thanksgiving Eve:

Thanksgiving Day:

Breakfast:

Lunch:

Dinner:

Leftover Dishes:

One Year Ago:

Two Years Ago:

Three Years Ago:

Four Years Ago:

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