What to Prep Today, Wed. Nov. 27, for Thanksgiving, Part 5 of 5

Just one more day. I hope you are prepped better than you ever have been. And I wish you a very delicious, peaceful, and happy Thanksgiving. xox

Wednesday's Wisdom

The ​dry brine​ happens today, folks. Give that bird the spa treatment it deserves and the break you earned. Defrost your pie shells (or pies) and cake layers. Bake the pies and make the ​maple cream cheese frosting​ and frost the cake. Final veggie prep, herb chopping, and, for heaven's sake, take out the butter for tomorrow. No one likes hard butter.

Last tip: To get everything on the table without disasters, work backward. Choose your dinner time. For us, that's 6 PM. So our timeline would look like this:

6:00 PM

• Dinner

5:45 PM

• Microwave to reheat some side dishes, such as roasted carrots, which can stand up to the quick, intense heat.

5:30 PM

• Put mashed potatoes in a double boiler to reheat.

• Slowly simmer any soup. (Remember, if you're serving a first course, that buys you 20 or so extra minutes to reheat dishes before serving the main course.)

• Gently reheat the gravy.

5:00 to 5:15 PM

• Remove the turkey from the oven.

• Once you remove the turkey, load up the oven with any more delicate side dishes that need gentle reheating, such as sweet potato casseroles, creamed spinach, rolls, and stuffings.

4:00 to 5:00 PM

• Set out the cranberry sauce.

• Do any last-minute finishing steps to pre-made dishes.

12:00 to 2:00 PM

• Roast the turkey. CAVEAT: I'm ballparking it here because the size of your turkey, the temperature you roast it at, whether you have a conventional or convection oven, and whether you stuff it or not will determine the total cooking time.

A Chart

I snagged this cooking chart from Butterball. (I'm not crazy about their turkeys, but they do know how to roast them.)

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The One, Graycie, Georgie, and I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving!

Chow,

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