Happy Thanksgiving!
We cooked an early Thanksgiving dinner over the weekend, and I wanted to share some of our menu and recipes, just in case you haven’t yet nailed down all the details for your holiday.
Having a really cute baby around this year meant that I couldn’t spend days prepping and cooking. Usually, I’d plan a menu with lots and lots of side dishes (which everyone knows are the best part) and *at least* a few dessert options. But this year we decided to cook only as much as we could manage in one full Saturday, with my parents bringing one or two dishes. That turned out to be:
a cheese board to start
two roasted chickens (no hard feelings, turkey, but we only had 6 people!)
mashed potatoes and make-ahead gravy (without the onions so that it’s smooth)
Suzanne Goin’s sourdough stuffing with kale
the easiest fresh cranberry sauce (with grapefruit instead of orange)
Samin Nosrat’s fried sage salsa verde
store-bought dinner rolls
I did make a few tweaks to some recipes, mostly just to speed things along and simplify. We used dry vermouth instead of sherry in the stuffing, because that’s what we had at home, and it was delicious. We also bought really good frozen chicken broth for the gravy, stuffing, etc.
I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving: Part 2 this week in LA! Please let me know if you have any burning cooking questions. I always love to receive texts from friends, asking if they can substitute one ingredient for another, or wondering if it’s worth it to make your own gravy (yes!). Hope you have a wonderful holiday! xo
