My Thanksgiving Menu + Tips For Holiday Entertaining

Since Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year, I have put a lot of thought into what’s going to be on my table this year. It is going to be, in a word, EPIC. I’ve already picked out my “fat pants” to wear after all the cooking is done and the chowing down begins!

(But first, can I just say how weird it felt to type out “holiday entertaining”? For me, that sounds like something “adults” with “nice houses” do. Never mind that I AM an adult with a nice house. It just doesn’t seem like something I will ever do. Shoot, if I’m being completely honest, I’m not sure I can even set the table correctly. Where do the napkins go? LOL)

But anyway.

I wanted to share my menu in case you were running around trying to figure out what to make. If you’ve never cooked Thanksgiving dinner before and this is your first year, take a deep breath. It’ll be fine!  Here’s my tips for the following dishes:

Traditional turkey (similar to this Barefoot Contessa version except I add celery to the pan)

It’s pretty simple to cook a good turkey, okay? Don’t be scared. Get a turkey, thaw it in the fridge for a few days prior to Thanksgiving. Take it out and clean out the insides (take out the little baggie with the liver and kidneys and giblets). Rub butter all over that bird, sprinkle it with seasoning and stuff it some onions, celery and lemons. Slide it into the oven at 350. Use a meat thermometer to tell when it’s done.

Cornbread stuffing and gravy

My father always cooked his cornbread the day before and let it sit a bit to get firmer before cooking. I still do this too. I add celery, onions, and peppers to mine, and occasionally I’ll use my mom’s secret ingredient (a sprinkle of the chicken seasoning from a Ramen noodle packet – so ghetto but it tastes delicious! LOL).

Sweet potatoes (pictured above)

The picture above is of Bon Appetit’s Sweet Potatoes with Bourbon and Maple. It sounds delicious, but I’m going to swap out the maple syrup for…

 

Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice.

Since it’s 100% pure Florida orange juice, I feel good about using it instead of fresh oranges (psst – because it’s made from fresh oranges!). Plus, I don’t know what’s up what the oranges in my area, but they have been horrible lately! Very much hit or miss. At least with Tropicana I know what I’m getting. Plus, it tastes better than other brands (my opinion). (Psst, since I’m a TropiMomma, working with Tropicana, can you click through to connect with the folks at Tropicana on Facebook? They’d love you for it and so would I.)

Greens with smoked turkey OR Roasted green beans

I was going to do both but now I think I’m just going to stick to one. The roasted green beans are my favorite (season them with salt and pepper and a little olive oil and pop them in the over for 20 minutes) but oven space is going to be tight that day. Maybe I’ll make them the day before?

Hawaiian sweet rolls

These are like crack. ESPECIALLY if you warm them up and put a little butter on top? WORTH EVERY CALORIE.

Sweet potato pumpkin pie (Yes, a hybrid! What y’all know about that?)

Most people I know either use sweet potato or pumpkin, but I recently fell in love with pumpkin this year, so I figured why not use both? They’re both pretty cheap and add a couple eggs, some brown sugar, cinnamon and you’ve got yourself a sweet ending to a fab dinner.

So there’s my menu. I’m hungry already.

What’s going to be on your Thanksgiving table this year?

Disclosure: As a Tropimomma, I have been compensated for my involvement with Tropicana and was asked to write about holiday entertaining. All ideas and opinions (on my menu or otherwise) are completely my own.