How to Time Your Thanksgiving Dinner with Roxanne Webber

Published on Friday, November 6, 2009, by Meredith Arthur, Blake Smith, and Roxanne Webber / Edit Post

How to Time Your Thanksgiving Dinner with Roxanne Webber

By Meredith Arthur, Blake Smith, and Roxanne Webber

CHOW Associate Editor Roxanne Webber shares the basic principles of timing for a simple Thanksgiving menu by demonstrating the things that people do wrong, including giving too little time for the turkey to defrost (patience is key when H2O is changing state) and trying to cook everything at once. Do it right: Start defrosting the turkey Sunday, make sure you have your utensils on Tuesday, do your shopping on Wednesday, and make your stovetop dishes on Thursday while your turkey roasts; as the turkey rests, reheat the dishes that you made the day before.


More Thanksgiving Rights and Wrongs:
How to Make a Moist Thanksgiving Turkey
How to Make Thanksgiving Stuffing
How to Make a Flaky Thanksgiving Pie Crust
How to Store Your Thanksgiving Leftovers

You’re Doing It All Wrong is constructive criticism. Don’t take it the wrong way: Just learn the right way.

ALLYou're Doing It All Wrong
POST A COMMENT |4 Comments

COMMENT

  • You kind of have to have 4 ovens at least 6 burner stovetop and space for cooks to do their things,to really make a multi-dish /multi-cook Thanksgiving meal come together, with every contributor able to say, "This is my best, really" and it's all gourmet.

  • I think the pie is better if it's the last thing you bake. Have it in the oven while you eat your meal (but watch the time!). Then when it comes out it will have time to sit but still be warm when you eat it.

  • I like to make my gravy from the turkey drippings and because I do, I never have cold gravy or run out, which use to be an issue years past. I guess everyone does it a bit differently. I am also not real big on precooked food because even though it may taste good for me it is just not the same, but I'm a finicky cook and baker. Good tips thou!

  • Nice. The figs on the platter look delicious.