Don’t think of a holiday meal as a one-day cooking project that
will only take a few hours to cook. Be prepared and start in advance. Our
advise to you is to Prep, Prep, Prep!
Start
a couple of days ahead of time. Plan what you are going to make way in advance, make your grocery list a
week before the event, and start getting some of your items ready just a few
days before the big holiday feast. Here are some helpful tips of things that
you can do with your appliances to make it easier for you on those big
important holiday meals.
Refrigerator
About a week in advance,
clean out your refrigerator. The best time to do this is right before you go
grocery shopping. This will make it easier for you because all of the things
that you do have will be fresh in your mind.
Make
sure to start unthawing your turkey about 4-5 days before the feast. That big
turkey will take a lot of room in your refrigerator, so utilize your
refrigerator's special features like the extra shelves, airtight crisper
drawers, herb storage, or the adjustable fridge freezer compartment. If you
still find yourself not having enough storage space, utilize a second
refrigerator stored in the garage or basement.
A
few days in advance, you can start cutting your produce and store them in air
tight containers in your refrigerator.
You
can organize your refrigerator by putting the ingredients that take the longest
to cook in the front of your refrigerator. The things that take the least
amount of time to cook can be stored in the back of your fridge.
Range
Preheating
your oven can sometimes be a struggle. A great tip for preheating your turkey
is to have the temperature at about 500 degrees Fahrenheit while it's
preheating and then lower it back to the cooking temperature at around 350
degrees Fahrenheit when you put your turkey in. Because the turkey is so big
and cold, it sometimes can shock your oven and make the temperature decrease even
as low as 90 degrees Fahrenheit making cooking times even longer. So to avoid
longer cooking times, make sure your oven is at the right temperature at the
beginning.
On the day of cooking, more
burners can be a blessing on a busy day in the kitchen. If you can, consider adding an induction cook
top to your Kitchen. What I like about induction cooking is there’s no flame,
so you’re keeping the surface area cool making it safer making sure none of the
kids or guests get hurt. It’s going to be more efficient than gas, and it can
be as precise. If you want to melt chocolate, it can set it at 78-79 degrees.
It’s more about the precision temperature than anything else. Of course, if you
use induction cooking, you’ll need cookware made from cast iron or another
magnetic material.
Some
ranges have a fifth burner in the middle and/ or a griddle on gas burners. The griddle
is nice because you can just place some of your food directly on the surface
without using pans. As an extra bonus your meat and veggies can have those nice
grill marks on them to make them look like you grilled them outside.
At
the bottom of most ranges is a warming drawer. Utilize this space for big meals
by placing bread in there to rise the dough before you cook it and keep it warm
after they are done.
Microwave
A
week before your event, make sure to clean inside and outside of your
microwave. This appliance is sometimes the thing that we forget about during
the holidays. None of your guests want to open up a dirty microwave.
A
microwave oven is made for a Thanksgiving feast! Microwave ovens use the
precision of convection cooking with an element and fan the distribute the heat
better. This speeds up cooking times three times faster than conventional
microwave cooking.
Dishwasher
About
a week before your holiday feast, clean your dishwasher. Use an Affresh
dishwasher cleaner tablet and have your dishwasher run a cycle with no dishes
in it. This cleaning product will take out any mineral build-up and will clean
inside of the machine making it work more effectively.
Make
sure that your dishwasher is completely empty at the beginning of the day of
your feast. That way it is ready for new dishes.
On
the day of, pre-wash your dishes while you are cooking by filling half of your
sink with hot soapy water. Once they have soaked for a little bit, place them
in your dishwasher.
If
you have a quiet dishwasher (a sound rating of about 46 dba or lower) will make
your life so much easier on event day. Once everyone is done eating and you
load up your dishwasher, you can run it while mingling with your guests. It is
so quiet, no one will even know that it's running.
With
these tips, you will be ready to tackle the challenge of cooking for 10 plus
people. You can always have helpers in the kitchen and remember to have fun!
