It's All In The Planning

What you see above you is my extra awesome (screenshot) layout of how things are going to be cooked for the BIG DAY, aka Thanksgiving*.

First half is tomorrow, when I want to get started at 9:00 with prepping ingredients - chopping, slicing, you get the idea.  Then it's time to cook! Anything with a topping will be baked without it, then reheated on Thursday.  I just get the feeling that those lovely fried onions won't be so lovely after sitting in the fridge overnight.  Same thing with the crunchy sweet potato topping and the yummy, golden cheesy goodness of the spinach gratin.  The stuffing will be baked tomorrow then reheated in the crock pot on Thursday since I don't forsee any room in the oven for it once that turkey gets out and the reheats go in! Rolls will be baked and frozen since they reheat like a dream.  I can almost taste them now...

Do I expect things to go as I've planned? No.  Of course not.  This is ME we're talking about.

But no one can say I didn't try.  The goal isn't perfection, anyway.  The goal is to be able to take some time on Thursday to relax, enjoy the company and not go into fits of time-crunched hysteria.  I also padded my times in order to be able to take pictures for y'all!

So that's why I did this.  Not because I'm a helpless control freak.  But because I know myself and how forgetful I can be.

And dang.  I forgot the peach cobbler.  Back to the drawing board, I guess...! (See? Told ya!)

How do YOU plan the cooking on holidays? (if you're the cook - if not, do you bring a dish to the party?)


*Rob caught a look at this and asked me who I got the idea from.  I gave him a dirty look at even insinuating that I couldn't come up with this by myself!