Discuss Simple Cook-ahead Thanksgiving recipes on IKEAFANS.com. We're Personalizing the IKEA Experience. Simple Cook-ahead Thanksgiving recipes - Cooking, baking...what are you doing in the kitchen?.
Next Sunday, I'm going to give my kitchen a serious workout. I'm having a bunch of people over to help me cook a bunch of stuff for some Thanksgiving baskets.
A friend of a friend organizes with some local organizations to locate families that cannot afford Thanksgiving dinner. Then he reaches out to his network to help feed them. Last year I did a basket for a family of 8 by myself including turkey, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. And a pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.
This year, there will probably be 10 people in my kitchen helping out and making baskets. It should be a blast! I've got plenty of workspace, as long as we're okay using the kitchen table, and I think I've got enough fridge space. The way I did it last year was to fully cook everything before hand except for the turkey and then just have them heat it up. That way, everything can be done and stored in the fridge til Wed when it gets delivered.
So, does anybody have any super yummy, super easy recipes for some Thanksgiving favorites? They need to be fairly reheatable, able to be kept in foil casserole pans, and just plain yummy.
Also, any tips for organizing a cooking fest like this would be great - I've never done this before!
What a great thing to do for Thanksgiving! Thank you for helping out.
Think about what recipes will use which cooking stations. For example, you don't want all your recipes to need to use the stovetop. Have some recipes that can be done in an electric skillet, crockpot, microwave, oven, or grill too. That way you can be using the resources more efficiently with less waiting. Now, when choosing recipes, is a good time to figure this out. If you do have several recipes that need the same resource, you can plan a timeline so you'll know which recipe gets the oven first, next, etc. Something that needs little prep can be baked first, then prep something that takes longer and it can bake later.
Homemade banana bread, cranberry walnut bread, or pumpkin bread sound like a good addition to me.
oooohhh, the bread is a good idea. I love quickbreads. One of my main strategies is to find recipes that all bake at the same temp. That way I can just keep the oven going and pull things in and out. I only have one oven, so spearate temps aren't an option. However, it does have 2 racks, and with just casserole type dishes, we should be able to fit quite a bit in there. So far, so good.
Right now I'm trying to compile recipes and put them into a spreadsheet, adding in costs so that I know how much a basket will cost, and therefore how many baskets I can do with the number of people coming.
Stations are really good too. I think it's going to be mostly chopping and putting together and then stick it in the oven. I'm thinking of having the recipes out and have people pair up or something and take a dish in an area. Also going to pull out a lot of the pots and pans and cutting boards and such so there isn't a lot of explaining where things are.
Well, I am happy to report that my massive cooking session was amazing. We had 8 people cooking in my little kitchen. It was tight, but with the help of my 8' by 4' kitchen table, we had enough space to lay out all the recipes, ingredients, and tools and make some great Thanksgiving dinners.
We ended up making 4 separate meals, each to feed 8-10 people, so we made dinner for 32-40 people yesterday. Each meal included:
Stuffing from scratch
Green bean casserole
Sweet Potato Thanksgiving Medley
Mashed Potatoes
Apple Pie
Cranberry Sauce
Gravy
Gift Certificate for a turkey
The kitchen performed beautifully. My stove was on and working from about 2pm to 6pm, and now my refrigerator is working over time just to try to cool everything and keep it that way.
The only thing I'd do differently next time is try to substitute one dish that could be done on the stove top for one that had to go in the oven. The oven was definitely our back up. We could put all four pans for one dish in the oven at once, but it still took a long time to do the sweet potatores, stuffing, pies, and green bean casserole.
The meals will be delivered in decorative boxes (from IKEA!) tomorrow in Boston and then brought out to the 4 families. The best part was, everyone that came immediately wanted to know if we could make it an annual tradition. Cooking, football, beer, snacks, friends, and charity -- who could ask for a better combination!
I'm nearly 40 and I've hosted only one Thanksgiving meal. What you did was tremendous! Wasn't it thrilling to see your kitchen hold up to the demand? Bravo for your good design!
Yeah, it was really fun to really work out the kitchen. Normally, it's only DH and I, and I think we've only hosted dinner or brunch for more people (like 6) about 5 times, so this was a major workout.
We definitely had enough counterspace in enough places for people to spread out. One challenge was that all the bowls, pots, and pans were in drawers under the main stretch of counterspace, which required some moving. We eventually just took all of them out and put them on the counter for easy access.
Oh, and even my cheap frigidaire range did great. We bought it because it was inexpenive, stainless steel, and matched the fridge. Perhaps not everyone's list of requirements, but it worked for us. Everything cooked evenly, and I didn't have to increase bake times because of the additional load. And even though the burners aren't super powerful, we were able to have four big pots of boiling water at once for the potatoes!
Bravo Kristen that's wonderful!!! Such a good thing to do for charity - and a wonderful way to spend time with family/friends!! That's awesome that everyone enjoyed it so much that they want to make it an annual tradition! And wonderful that your kitchen got a workout and came through with flying colors!
Doreen
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