Thanksgiving Dinner Cheat Sheet

OK, let’s say it’s your turn to cook for the family and you are way too busy for this! Help!

Help is here!

There are many markets today that offer total package, cooked Thanksgiving dinners. This is by far the least expensive way to put on a dinner.  They can often be quite good. Call around to your local markets and check. 

Find out what they include and make a list from there of the things you’ll need to buy separately. For example, will you need to buy the cranberry sauce? Probably a good loaf of bread. Perhaps the pie.

On Thursday morning, take everything out of the refrigerator and let sit to get down to room temperature. You can at this time transfer the side dishes into your own oven-safe/microwave-safe casserole dishes. 

Most will have heating directions included but if not figure on warming things at about 325 degrees. Put your meat thermometer into the deep portion of the breast.

Turkey is done when the breast temperature measures 150-155 degrees. After you remove it from the oven, tent with foil for ½ hour. The temperature will continue to rise to about 160 which is perfect. Herein lies the problem that the dark meat cooks slower so you may find that the dark meat isn’t quite cooked enough.

While the bird is heating you can set your table and put out any extras such as olives, pickles, bread, butter, cranberry sauce etc that you plan to serve.

You can see a table setting in the picture at left. You may not require all the items shown, simply omit what you don’t want or need leaving the layout the same.

When the bird reaches temperature, remove and cover loosely with tented foil for 25 minutes or so. 

While this is cooling put your sides including gravy (I’m guessing the packaged dinner came with it) and heat. 

At the 25 minute mark of bird cooling, shut oven off and crack open the door leaving casseroles of sides inside. 

Carve the Turkey, place on platter in assembly line where people can serve buffet style. 

Place the sides on hot plates in the same area with spoons for serving. (Be sure to warn guests that dishes are hot and make sure an adult serves children or seniors.)

Tuesday

Just about everyone has a Boston Market nearby and they make some great side dishes. Pick out a couple of sides, including your mashed potatoes and gravy. Put into your casserole dishes, cover and refrigerate.

Most supermarkets offer a cooked bird with stuffing. Purchase this and refrigerate at home. They actually offer the entire meal, but I find the side dishes not to be very good, so I prefer the Boston Market. But you can certainly get the entire thing.

All you need to do is take the items out of the fridge and let sit until room temperature.

Roast turkey according to store instructions. Take out and cover loosely with foil and let sit for 1/2 hour while you heat up the sides.