Planning Your Thanksgiving Meal Part 3: It's All In The Timing

 In part 2, we figured out how much time each thing takes to make.  In this part, we put it all together so things flow smoothly.  

Let's say that you want to eat at 4:00 pm.  You start there and go backwards depending on how long it takes to make.

4:00:  Eat

3:55:  Put together bagged salad. (5 minutes)

3:40:  Gravy (20 minutes)

3:30:  Green Bean Casserole (30 minutes)

3:00:  Put Pie in Oven, Start Mashed Potatoes. (1 hours each)

2:45:  Preheat oven for pie

2:35:  Start Banana Cream Pie. (1 hour 25 minutes)

2:00:  Start Rolls. (2 hours)

11:10:  Start Turkey and Stuffing for the inside. (4 hours 50 minutes)

There you have it!  But, one problem.  If you are cooking multiple items, they may need to be cooked at different temperatures.  So what do you do?  After years of doing everything on the day, and all the work in the kitchen, we finally started making the pies and rolls the day before.  Yes, rolls hot from the oven are best, but the decreased stress and time on the day of was so worth the trade off.  

This is just an example to get you started thinking on what you want to do.  Remember time to preheat the oven or carve the turkey or let it cool beforehand or whatever else depending on how your family does Thanksgiving.  

Have a great day from all of us at Spendwise Moms!