Everyone loves the feast, no one loves the stress. How can you have only the good parts of Thanksgiving? Planning. Make as much as you can in advance, and tell everybody to bring pie. That’s a great holiday!
Pioneer Woman’s Do-Ahead Mashed-PotatoesThe secret to do-ahead mashed potatoes is plenty of fat—and the Pioneer woman uses cream cheese, butter, AND half-and-half, which is both insane and wonderful. Also, I don’t use seasoned salt, just straight up salt and pepper, but you do you. You can definitely make these this weekend and warm up on Thursday.
The Kitchn’s Do-Ahead Green Bean CasseroleFrozen green beans are better than canned or fresh for the classic casserole, and if you do everything except put the onions on, you can do this on Monday or Tuesday:
Real Cranberry SauceAll you need is a bag of cranberries, a cup of sugar, and some apple (or orange) juice, and you’re basically done with your cranberry sauce. I like to put a little tangerine zest in mine, because I’m very fancy. Maybe some candied ginger if you’re a wild one!
Wednesday Night Classic Herb and Fennel StuffingWhy not make your big old pan of stuffing on Wednesday, and just bake it on the big day? I mean really, why not. Why are you torturing yourself when you could be chilling?
Mulled PunchSometime this weekend, make some holiday tea syrup. You do that by getting some gingerbread tea from Celestial Seasonings, or some fancy holiday tea from someplace else, and brewing two bags with 12 ounces of water, and sugar. Now on Thanksgiving you just get out your punch bowl, combine the tea-syrup with a bottle of vodka and a bottle of sparkling wine, juice some lemons, throw in some orange slices, now you’ve got a door-greeter of a fancy cocktail and it goes great with pie!