Thanksgiving Q&A| 108

The big day is almost here and I'm getting so excited! In this episode, I open the mail bag to answer all of your last minute Thanksgiving-related questions.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, everybody. I'm Kelsey Nixon and this is Kitchen Prescription,
the podcast you listen to when you don't know what
to make for dinner. Today's episode one hundred and eight
Thanksgiving Q and A. I think I think this is
the busiest week of twenty twenty four for me. I
put on my planning hat this weekend and I have
done my best to map out each day with specific

(00:26):
to dos for both like family and work. But it's
a lot. It's a lot. In the coming days, We've
got Norah's eighth birthday, her baptism, a day at Disney,
a baseball tournament, and a Laddin play production, and a
whole house full of guests arriving that will be with
us through Thanksgiving. Lots of fun and good things, but

(00:49):
a lot. So I'm taking deep breaths. I'm doing it
one day at a time. And you know, the floors
may be dirty when everyone around, because I just keep
pushing that deep clean the bathrooms thing to the bottom
of the list. Anyways, what I'm not putting to the
bottom of the list is Thanksgiving because I am an

(01:11):
unapologetic Thanksgiving enthusiast. I love it so much and I've
been having a blast kind of working with people on
Recipe Club and on Instagram and walking you through my
Thanksgiving timeline and just providing support where I can, and
a lot of that has been through Q and A.
So I've asked for a lot of questions throughout the

(01:33):
week on Instagram, and today we are going to tackle
some of those, some of the ones that I got
a few more than others. But before we do that,
let's discuss a few recipes you can throw on your
meal plan this week. These are the dishes that I'm
going to be making for a house ful of guests,
so they're easy and they feed a lot of people.
So here's what's on our meal plan for the week.

(01:54):
First up is this warm autumn harvest salad. Now, this
is a new recipe and I actually developed it this
year because I was getting a lot of questions for
I need to take a salad to Thanksgiving? What should
I take? Or I'm taking my book club does Favorite
Things in November and I want to take like a
Thanksgiving salad, and so I developed this mostly for that.

(02:19):
I don't always have a salad my Thanksgiving table, but
if you do, I'm here for that. This one's unique
in that it's a warm salad. So you roast a
bunch of stuff together, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, You've got some
herbs in there, like thyme and rosemary, and then you
cook off some furrow, or you could do wild rice,

(02:40):
and once that comes out of the oven, you toss
it with a really punchy vinegrette, a lemon parsley vinigrette,
and you fold in apples and cranberries and pecans and
feta cheese and it's really really yummy, definitely hardy enough
for a dinner, especially if you serve it alongside like
a rotisserie chicken, which you guys know that's like a
go to for me. I tend to get at least

(03:02):
one rotastery chicken from Costco every week and make something
like this that's chok foal of veggies, and it's just
so good. It's so good. So that's what we're gonna do,
is we're gonna do a rotestri chicken with this warm
autumn harvest salad. From one night, another night, we were
doing the weaknight Wow chicken, which is so good. It's

(03:23):
probably been the most popular recipe that I've introduced this year,
and I'm telling you it's all about the method here
where you hate you make a marinade and you reserve
a quarter of that marinaate. So like if your marinate's
a cup, you set aside a quarter cup and you
marinate your chicken in it, and then you cook it off,
whether you're going to bake it in the oven or

(03:44):
you're gonna grill it, or you're gonna cook it in
a skillet, and then just before serving, you take the
remaining marinade and you drizzle it over the top. And
this recipe is so good, i actually got a request
from my sister for it, so that's why we're having it.
And we're gonna do that one night, and then I'm
going to do apple bacon grilled cheese sandwiches. I love
this method of making a bunch of grilled cheese at

(04:05):
once on a sheet pan in the oven. And so
we'll likely do the apple bacon mustard goodness for the
adults in the house, and probably just playing grilled cheese
for the kids. And I'm gonna get the tomato lead
pepper soup at Trader Joe's to make my life a
little easier, and we'll have that for dipping and it'll
be great. So there are a few recipe ideas for
the week. You can find and print them all in

(04:27):
Recipe Club individually or in our weekly meal plan that's
got an easy to follow shopping list that's broken down
by recipe. You guys all know Recipee Club is my favorite.
It's my baby. It's my ad free recipe resource with
hundreds of recipes specifically developed for weeknights. The real magic
really is in the simple dinner system it provides. We
have weekly meal planning emails that go out. The site

(04:50):
is specifically designed to help with dinner time decision fatigue,
recipes that are family tested and clearly written. Really, it's
just an incredible resource for thousands of family and it
helps people get dinner on the table each week. So
our Black Friday sale it started early this year, and
the reason I did that is that I wanted anyone
who was considering to buy from us for Black Friday

(05:10):
to have access to the Thanksgiving content. So that's why
we started it early. It will go through Cyber Monday.
But I just cannot encourage you enough that if you
are thinking about getting a Recipe Club membership or one
of our bundles, which includes the membership plus a recipe binder.
Do it now so that you can get access to
all of that great Thanksgiving content. All right, let's jump

(05:32):
into the back half of the podcast and chat about
a few of your Thanksgiving questions. All right, it's the
final countdown to Thanksgiving, and we are dedicating today's podcast
to answering the most common Q and A questions I've
received from you this past week leading up to the

(05:55):
big holiday. So we're going to do this somewhat like
fire hose style or rapid fire style, and just get
through as many of these as we can. So the
first I am genuinely surprised how many people have said
this person wrote, help, I'm hosting and haven't started anything yet.
I'm overwhelmed. What should I do? First? Am I too late? No,
You're never too late. You're never too late. So I'm like, Wow,

(06:18):
a lot of people are hosting for the first time
this year. Is kind of what my Q and A
boxes felt like. But it's never too late to start.
And just because I start ten days in advance does
not mean that you are going to fail at Thanksgiving.
If you do not start ten days in advance. I
do think our timeline is incredibly helpful, and so even
if it is six days in advance, take a look

(06:40):
at that timeline and start at ten and just go through.
But I will tell you the number one thing you
should do, the most important thing you should do. Determine
how many guests you'll have. After that, determine your menu.
Write down all the dishes you plan to have at Thanksgiving.
Then you're going to delegate what are you making, and
what are you asking other people to make, or what
have other people asked to make. Then you are going

(07:03):
to indicate whether those dishes need to be served warm, cold,
or maybe hot, although hot and warm seem to fall
in the same category. And then you're gonna indicate whether
or not they need oven space, they need to be
on the stovetop, or you can make them ahead. Now
this I can already feel it from across from across

(07:26):
the waves, the airwaves of podcasting. If you need to
stop there, you stop there. You just write down, you
know how many guests you have to feed, because that's
important because that's going to determine how much food you make.
Then you write down what you're actually going to make.
Then I do think it is worth your time to
figure out what is going to be served warm, hot
or cold, because that is hands down the most popular question,

(07:52):
which we will get to is how do I keep
everything warm? So you want to know going in that
three fourths of my dish, if my dishes need to
be serve warm, if that's what your menu looks like.
So I like to indicate whether or not something's going
to be cooked in the oven, on the stovetop, or
if I can make it ahead. And if this is
if you're listening to this the day it comes out,
you've still got a week. You can totally make some

(08:13):
stuff ahead. That is where I would start. I think
that is the first thing you should do, and that
alone will give you peace of mind that you have
a plan. If you want some extra credit, print out
the recipes you're gonna make, put them somewhere. I clearly
I like a binder. Put them in a binder. I've

(08:34):
seen people recommend that you like on actual cooking day,
you tape them up to your cabinets so you just
right an eye level. You put them in a little
file folder, put them in a drawer in your kitchen.
Just print them out, because especially day of when you're
cooking so many different things, it is not a pleasant
experience to cook from your phone. It is too hard,

(08:55):
and your your laptop. Just print them out. So that's
extra credit there, and that's good. That's a good place
to start. Maybe tackle your first grocery shop. I like
to do two. I like to do one grocery shop
where I get everything that's non perishable, and a second
grocery shop where I get the perishable stuff. And you
should probably think about your turkey if you're in charge

(09:15):
of it. If you got a big group, it's gonna
take many days to thought that turkey. So start there.
Start at the turkey, all right. Next, we'll just jump
right into this question, how do I keep everything warm?
I bet I was asked this fifty times, So we're
going to piggyback off of what I just recommended. First,

(09:36):
you need to figure out what needs to be served warm, right,
So looking at your menu, what you're planning to make,
determine what needs to be served warm, and then think
about where you might be able to keep it warm.
So like mashed potatoes for me are always served in
a slow cooker, even if I make them on the stovetop,

(09:58):
which I usually do. I transfer them to a slow
cooker and just them just let them roll on the
warm setting. I put a couple of pats of butter
on top, I give them a stir right before, and
that's that. That's where they live. You could do the
same thing with an instant pot. There are certain I

(10:19):
mean I've actually never done this, but you can do this.
A cooler not only keeps cold stuff colds, but it
also keeps warm stuff warm. So let's say you have
like a nine x thirteen of I don't know stuffing
and you cover it with foil. Foil will be your
best friend. Always, always, always, foil foil is the first
line of defense for keeping something warm. You could stick

(10:41):
that in cooler and it would keep it warm. So
I mean, you're gonna have to have the right shape
of cooler, but keep that in mind. Also, I just
want to remind you that, let's say you're eating it too,
your turkey should not come out at two. If you're
eating it too, your turkey can come out out at
like one point fifteen or maybe even one, and that's

(11:06):
going to free up oven space. So I what I
typically do is I pull the turkey out and the
rolls go in because I like hot rolls. And then
once the rolls come out, I'm still got like twenty
minutes or so. Sometimes I'll just bump that oven down
to two hundred degrees, or I'll just turn it off
and I'll take anything that I want to be warm
and pop it in the oven. Or maybe the stuffing's

(11:27):
been out just covered with foil, and I want to
pop it back into the oven just to warm it
up a little bit. So that's one way to kind
of manipulate your oven space. And you were talking to
a girl who has never had the luxury of a
double oven on Thanksgiving. Never never Once. I lived in
New York City for years, I was lucky to even
have a full size oven, and in some apartments I didn't.

(11:49):
Even when I built my house in Oregon and I
lived there, I had a regular oven and a steam oven,
but not double I've never had double ovens. The tragedy anyways,
there's ways, there are ways to do it, but it's
the most important thing is to figure out what needs
to be warm and then work backwards. Also, I just

(12:11):
ordered something that I'm very excited about, and while I
pulled it out to test make sure it worked, which
it did. I have never used it in the setting
of Thanksgiving, but I bought a warming mat. Okay, so
I bought it on Amazon. It's twenty five percent off,
is like, I don't know, forty bucks. And it's like

(12:32):
a silicone mat that rolls up and it's got a
little place where you plug in and you unroll it
and you can put dishes on top of it and
it will keep them warm. It's like a silicone chafing dish.
So smart because the reason I don't want to deal
with chafing dishes has way too much space to take up.
But this is small. So if you're really worried about it,

(12:56):
maybe you look into those anyways. Okay, a plan, A
plan will be your best friend. What should I be
making in advance? What should I be Okay, this is
what I'm making in advance for my menu. I am
making homemade cranberry sauce in advance. I always make my
gravy in advance. I am doing I always do my

(13:19):
roasted vegetables served with a cider vinagrette because I'm obsessed
with roasted vegetables with something like tangy on them. And
so I'll make my vinaigrette and advance and my pie
do those are like my go tos make a head gravy.
This is huge because I also feel like gravy's very
stressful right before the meal because you're taking those turkey drippings.

(13:39):
But if you have made your gravy base in advance,
which is essentially butter, flour stock or broth, salt, pepper,
maybe some you know, some thyme and rosemary, and then
you set that aside. When you go to make gravy,
all you have to do is warm that up and

(14:00):
we're in the drippings. You're not worrying about adding the
wondra at the last second, and like, because that is
a stressful moment. So make your gravy in advance. I
have a recipe recipe club for that called make Ahead
Gravy PI Doo. Yeah, you can definitely do that that,
I mean you can make your full pies in advance.
I will definitely make my pies. I think I have

(14:20):
on my schedule to make them two full days in advance.
But the pie do for sure you can make that. Yeah,
in recipe club, in our timeline I have I did
a specific timeline with my menu, so you can see
everything I'm making in advance in the days leading up.
But it's really pretty manageable. All right, What shortcut ingredients

(14:44):
are you using? And what do I have permission to use?
I you know me, guys, I love a shortcut ingredient.
This is the home of five ingredient recipes. So I
never make a pumpkin pie from scratch because Costco does that.
Costco makes delicious pump pies for five dollars. Are they
five dollars? I think they're five dollars. Maybe they're ten dollars.

(15:06):
Whatever it is, it is you can't make a pie
for that cheap, and they are good, and let's be honest,
no one really is obsessed. I mean, maybe some people
are obsessed with pumpkin pie, but if you're gonna make
a pie from scratch, I certainly wouldn't make a pumpkin
pie from scratch. I would let Costco do that, and
I think Sam's has them too. Anyways, Okay, so permission granted.

(15:27):
Buy your pumpkin pie next stuffing mix. I know a
lot of people like I'm they might consider be not
a Thanksgiving enthusiast. Because I do not do a stuffing
with homemade bread. I don't make corn bread to turn
into stuffing. I don't make ficasha to turn into stuffing.
I buy the Pepperidge Farm Country Stuffing mix. And the

(15:49):
real reason I do that is because that's what my
mother did, and that's what tastes like Thanksgiving to me,
and I think it is lovely. So that's a short
cut ingredient I do. And you, oh with the cranberry
orange relish it Trader Joe's. If you don't want to
makekom cranberry sauce, that stuff's awesome. That stuff's really good.
Or maybe you are like a fun retro family and

(16:12):
you're like, give me the cranberry sauce from the can. Great,
here for it. So that's a good one. Pre Chopped veggies, okay,
things like I feel like you're seeing more and more
pre chopped onions, and if you just hate chopping onions,
by all means, buy the pre chopped onions. Things like
sweet potatoes are great if you have butternut squashed any dishes.

(16:35):
Pre chopp veggies can be a huge time saver. I
always buy my garlic, my garlic ginger all of that
stuff is I buy it in the frozen section, those
little frozen cubes. They're amazing. If you're like, I'm not
making dessert, I am just making the meal. Getting a
pie from a local bakery is a great idea, but

(16:58):
I still get the pumpkin buy it us. They're just
maybe I've just trained myself to love them, but they
really are pretty good. And then this, if making homemade
roles feels a little too intimidating for you on a
day like Thanksgiving, Roads Roles like the frozen bread dough.
I think most people have access to him. I'd I've
lived in New York, Oregon, LA, and Utah and have

(17:21):
always been able to find them. But Roads Roles makes
a really great frozen bread dough that you just got
to take it out of the package and follow the instructions.
So that could be a great way to eliminate something
that might feel stressful and a good shortcut to use. Okay,
last question, question number five, I'm hosting for the first
time in Stressed Out the Table. This isn't my forte.

(17:44):
I'm no Martha Stewart. How should I approach it? Okay?
Great question. So, first of all, if it's not your forte.
Consider asking someone who has offered to help to be
in charge of the table. That could be a great
way to handle this problem. If you have a sister
in law that you know, oh like, does have a
you know, a glimmer of Martha Stewart and her and

(18:06):
she would enjoy being in charge of the table, it's
a great thing to delegate now if not and that
just doesn't make sense for your setup. These are the
basic things I use to build my table. Rather than
using a tablecloth, I use a runner. I have a
burlap runner I use, and I use place mats. Now,

(18:27):
if you don't have enough place mats for everyone at
your table, there's this really great company called Hester and
Cook that makes the most beautiful paper place mats. We
are using them this year. I was with my mom
a couple months ago. We saw them in a store
and we're like, those are so pretty. We got them.
We're using them for our table and it adds like
a pop color and dimension to the table. I do

(18:49):
have chargers. I have gold chargers that I got at
Michael's for like a dollar apiece, and those just feel
a little elevated, so I go charger plate. I use
the Simulnen napkins. Those are on to give me five
a couple of weeks ago, and you can get them
on Amazon. They're like they're a disposable napkin, but they

(19:10):
feel like linen. They're really good quality. I wouldn't use
them all the time, but for something like Thanksgiving, they're
a great fit. Okay, if you don't want to use
real plates because you've got a ton of people, you
don't want to do the dishes. Costco sells a really
good plastic white plate that feels substantial enough that you

(19:35):
totally passes for Thanksgiving, So consider that. I'm sure they
have them other places, but I just always get mine
at Costco because you get like a set of fifty
for ten bucks, and that is a tough price to beat. Okay,
so now let's talk about the centerpiece. I always get
greens at Trader Joe's because they are the cheapest. So

(19:57):
I usually get some collection of you kalyptus, just whatever's
looking good, but just greens. Just worry about greens and candles.
This is going to handle this for you. Maybe you
could put a little pumpkin in the center, like if
they've still got pumpkins. You could do something like that,
or you could do like an actual centerpiece, like floral centerpiece,
like a short floral centerpiece where you have eucalyptus on

(20:20):
each side on top of the burlap runner and then
candles work wonders so especially because like I don't love
my dining room because it's very dark and it's actually
pretty tight. Like if I'm being honest, I actually feel
a little bummed about it. For this Thanksgiving, I'm getting

(20:41):
over it. But I was like, you know what, I
should got add more candles. So I ordered a couple
of extra candle holders on amazons and brass ones in
different heights, and I am going to light like twelve
taper candles on the table. I just to me, it
feels so special and it can make like a less

(21:01):
than desirable room feel more moody and fun. So that's
what I'm gonna do. That's kind of how I'm gonna
build my table. But it does not need to be fancy.
You could even make you could if you don't really
care what looks like. You could put the kids in
charge of it. That's something you could do. I don't
know though, thinking about that, I don't think I would

(21:22):
do that with my kids. Maybe your kids have better
taste than my kids. That would be one heck of
a table. And I also just have to mention this,
This is like, guys, I have fluctuated between different chapters
of life, and I do have a glimmer of Martha
Stewart and me. And there was one year that Nora's
birthday was the day before Thanksgiving, So were you're doing

(21:42):
combined Thanksgiving and Nora's Birthday? And I decided to do.
She was turning three, and she loved rainbows, and we
did a rainbow Thanksgiving and it was the cutest thing
you've ever seen. And so I took like a whole
rainbow palette, like a pastel rainbow palette, and decked that
table out and it was pretty darn cute. So there's

(22:03):
a lot of fun to be had. All right, let's
finish how we always finished with my weekly gimme five
five things that made my life easier or more enjoyable
this week. I have already mentioned a couple of them,
so we can fly through this. Number one on my
list is this warming mat. I am so excited to
use it for Thanksgiving. It for what it is. I
think it's a really fair price. It stores so compactly,

(22:26):
and I just think it's a really smart I'm surprised
this has not existed before, or who knows, maybe it hasn't.
I just didn't find it. But that's on my Gimme five.
The Hester and Cook paper place mats are on my
give Me five, and the exact ones I got that
are like this very pretty autumnal floral print are on
sale right now, but I'd order them quick so they

(22:49):
get here in time. But the brand Hester and Cook
makes really beautiful high end paper place mats. Candle holders.
Oh my gosh, did I mention everything? Candle holders. I
ordered a new set from an Amazon just so I
could have more candles on my table. Oh I did
not mention this. Guys, Thanksgivings in a week. You deserve
a pair of Thanksgiving pants. You deserve to slip into

(23:12):
something more comfortable after that meal. And I would suggest
the Gap vintage Raglin sweatshirt and sweat pants a sweatsuit.
It comes in a million different colors. It is like
the best thing Gap has come out with in years.
I already have it in two colors. I think I'm
gonna buy a third color. I love the sweatshirts. It's

(23:34):
the sweatshirt I buy and the crew neck for all
of my kids' sports teams and the color of their
sports teams. It's so good. And if you're a shorty
like I am, the sweatpants come in petit. See you
people don't you tall people don't think about petit sweats.
There's nothing worse than your sweatpants dragging. So this is
this is a great set and you've earned it. So

(23:56):
get yourself a pair of Thanksgiving pants. Oh and then
pass the potat So we got this game last year.
It's a fun. I mean, our kids are going to
be like ages twelve and under and it's a fun.
It's like hot potato, but it's an actual potato that
makes noise and the kids got a kick out of it.
So I pulled out Pass the Potato, and we're going
to play that at Thanksgiving. All right, that's it for today.

(24:16):
Make sure you are subscribed to the podcast so that
you never miss an episode. I created this entire podcast
so that you could have a quick twenty to thirty
minute listen while you map out your meals for the week.
I've always felt like listening to a podcast, while imeal
plan has made the whole process a bit more enjoyable.
So that's what I try to provide here. Thank you
so much for listening today. I'm so glad you're here,

(24:37):
and I probably won't speak to you until after your
Thanksgiving dinner, so if that's the case, have the happiest Thanksgiving.
I am so grateful for those of you that listen
to the podcast. I'm grateful for this space to be
here and to share my passion for food and cooking
and connecting over the table. I am very, very grateful
for you and your support. All Right, until next time,

(24:59):
happy cooking, happy Thanksgiving. I'm Kelsey and look forward to
chatting with you at