Tuesday, November 14, 2006

THE Thanksgiving Menu

Well, my Thanksgiving menu is official. Or nearly. For ease, I put all my recipes in a Word doc. Each recipe is on one page. With everything in one place it will make it easy to create shopping lists, time schedules, etc . . . When it comes time for cooking, I'll print them all out and place them in some kind of binder. I'm pretty happy with the menu, although I think I will add a second stuffing. Lindsey gave me a recipe for Cornbread and Sausage Stuffing that would be a nice compliment to the meal.

I'm organizing my shopping this year according to store. This week I'm shopping at Trader Joe's for things like nuts, dried cherries, bittersweet chocolate, frozen green beans (they have beautiful Hericot Verts), etc . . . This weekend I'll shop at Stop n' Shop for canned goods and on Tuesday I'll go to Stew Leonard's for all the produce (fresh herbs included), cheese, dairy (I love that they have heavy cream in qt. size), and the turkey. Last year we ate a Stew's turkey and it was very good. Fresh (as in not frozen), and the perfect size and it hadn't been abused or forced to watch the Real World or other inhumane things some people do to turkeys. This year I'm cooking two 10-12lb. turkeys. This means less cooking time, moister bird, fits in the oven, and guarantees lots of leftovers for sandwiches and "turkey's finest hour." I am trying to convince my husband to BBQ the turkeys, but if I can't I'll use Ina Garten's roast turkey recipe. So, the menu and recipe links:

Lion House Crescent Rolls

Cream of Parsnip Soup

Walnut-Pear Salad

Trio of Cranberry Sauces

Perfect Roast Turkey

Turkey Gravy

Bread Stuffing

Holiday Sweet Potatoes with Marshmellows and Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Honey Butter

Green Bean Casserole

11 comments:

Mom in Mendon said...

Oh, how delicious! I can't wait.

Anonymous said...

I wish I was going to be your sous-chef!

Anonymous said...

I think your menu sounds fab!! The parsnip soup intrigues me. Thanks for including all of the receipes.

Anonymous said...

I love your menu! Can I copy it for my family feast? :) (Of course, I'll also have to do Aunt Alicebeth's stuffing since it's a tradition and fabulous)

Erin said...

i want robin to be my sous-chef. the parsnip soup is robin's recipe and it's so good. julianne, tell me more about aunt alicebeth's stuffing, i'm curious.

The Willfords said...

what is hericot vert (I'm so naive)? and i agree the real world is most inhumane. In fact you should add all of mtv to the inhumane treatments as it has all gone down the toilet. Although I have to admit that sometimes the 'cribs' stuff, although I have not seen that for two years, was interesting. I guess I like being shocked at the stuff super rich people waste their money on. :)

Kathryn said...

I am getting nervous about the turkey. Hopefully, I will have plenty of fresh--headed there tomorrow as well. I am thinking of a small turkey and a turkey breast to feed our crew. AAAH!!!

liz said...

unrelated to thanksgiving and your menu:

we had your potato soup for dinner and Mike literally said "it's like ice cream it's soooooo good"

just thought you should know.

Lisa said...

It all looks so GREAT!

Anonymous said...

Okay, Erin. I keep checking back for pictures and the commentary on how things went. I'm waiting.....because I'm addicted to reading your blog. I have to wipe the drool off the keyboard every single time.

Mom in Mendon said...

I can testify that the meal was fabulous!! I too would like pictures, but I'm betting Lee Lou Ann is taking a few days off to recover from all the cooking. Thanks for all you did. It was wonderful. xoxox