Five things to do to prepare for Thanksgiving
With Thanksgiving coming around, it can be hard to start planning for it, whether your are eating a home cooked meal or just grabbing something to eat, here are five tips to help get ready for Thanksgiving.
- Start planning- now
Do not be that person that did not get the pumpkin for the pumpkin pie and run out at the last moment. Plan ahead; take stock of the pantry, the fridge and any other place. Also, start planning out what you are going to make. If you want to make stuffing, put together a list of what ingredients you need to make that. If you are doing a potluck, make sure everyone is bringing what they are supposed to and make sure there is not a double of everything.
- Clean out the oven
Dirty ovens cause the food to cook unevenly and produce a foul smelling odor due to the food stuck to the bottom cooking at the same time the food does. If not cleaned soon or often enough this could cause a fire. Make sure to clean out the oven in advance to make sure the chemical smell of the cleaner has time to go away. Your guests do not want to smell that. Self cleaning ovens make the job easier but there are also an abundance of cleaners for the oven.
- Space out your time
Think about how long everything will take. How long does the turkey cook for? What food or other things that you can do while something is cooking? While the turkey is cooking, start thinking about setting the table, and if you have a double oven start cooking something else.
If time is not spaced out well you could run into time management problems. The turkey is not ready to cook, the pumpkin pie is not done and people are waiting for food.
- Gather recipes together
Do not wait until the last moment to look up recipes to throw together. This goes hand in hand with step one: make sure you know what recipes you are going to make so you know what ingredients you need to pick up. If something did not taste good, take the time now to find a new recipe or make adjustments to the old one. If you plan on making a new recipe that you have never tried before, make it now to see if you will like it come Thanksgiving.
- Arrange any travel plans
If someone is coming for Thanksgiving make sure that you have all the plans arranged. If you have a flight, make sure you get the tickets sooner than later. If you plan on staying in a hotel, get reservations as soon as possible. The last thing: plan for traffic. It can get very backed up on the holiday so if possible leave the day before so you do not get caught up in traffic. Most importantly have fun and enjoy time off with your family and friends.
