I have a plan

Thanksgiving is a mere two days away, and I am in big-time prep mode.

First, there was the debate over the menu.  That’s settled, and it’s nearly the same as last year.  As we’re down to probably only three adults and two picky toddlers, we’re cutting out a side dish (goodbye stuffing, I like you a lot but I don’t think I’ll miss you terribly) and taking it down to one debatable dessert.  Much as I adore our usual pumpkin bread pudding and some kind of pie, it’s just way too much.  After the big dinner, we stuff some dessert into our bellies and still have entire platters leftover for the weekend.  And you know what?  It just isn’t necessary.  Yes, this is largely motivated by my current Weight-Watching (and things are going pretty well, if I do say so myself), but everyone else is in agreement: it’s just unnecessary.  So we’re actually only making pumpkin cranberry bread.  It hardly even counts as a dessert, it’s really just a quickbread.  But maybe we’ll saute the slices with a little butter and serve ‘em with a scoop of ice cream to make it dessert-y for the holiday, and then whatever leftovers we have will just be a simple quickbread and not a dense, eggy (delicious) lump of bread pudding.  Even the side dishes, which I refuse to make “light” versions of, will be moderated by only making half portions in order to have less leftover the next day.

Alright, so made my list of the menu.  Then, I made the ingredient/shopping list for each menu item.  Long list, some overlap, some things we already have.  But you have to start with a good list.

Actually, since it was such a big list (and it was already typed and easy to cut and paste), I went a little nuts and organized it by sections of the grocery store.  Because I hate getting all the way to the freezer case and realizing I forgot something in produce.  And with the two kids that will be strapped into the cart this afternoon, I want to be as efficient as I can be.

The pièce de résistance of Thanksgiving meal prep lists is my actual cooking plan.  For each menu item, I made a rough list of steps, so that I know which ones will need the oven (for how long, at what temperature), stovetop, or cuisinart; when in the day they need to be cooked (whether they can be made in the morning or need to be done at a certain time relative to the meal); and who will do what (M is in charge of smashed potatoes, SIL is making the pumpkin bread and cranberry sauce).  And the turkey has been thawing in the fridge since Sunday.

All this for a single meal for three, maybe four, adults.  Ah well.  I enjoy doing things big from time to time, and though it won’t be the enormous family gatherings I grew up with, I don’t think I could ever just skip the festivities entirely.

In the meantime, it’s pouring rain and Daniel seems to be boycotting the nap for the second time today.  We could be quite a spectacle at Stop & Shop this afternoon…