Tips to Make Thanksgiving Stress-Free

As much as Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks and celebrate with your friends and family, we at Meadow know that it’s also a holiday that can induce a lot of stress. From shopping and cooking to cleaning and hosting, the joy of Thanksgiving is often overshadowed by the stress of preparing for the holiday. 

So, we’ve rounded up a few of our best tips and tricks to keep yourself organized this Thanksgiving:

• Make a list for everything — and yes, we mean everything! Writing down your shopping list, to-dos, and any other notes you need to remember will help keep you organized as you prepare to host one of the largest dinners of the year. (Pro tip: we may be biased, but we recommend using the Meadow fine stationery to keep your lists organized and beautiful!) Things to consider creating lists for are:
• Items needed from the grocery
• Items needed from the farmers market
• Seating arrangements
• Table decorations/dishware
• Times each dish needs to go into and be removed from the oven
• Do as much as you can in advance — Certain tasks can be done prior to Thanksgiving day. Tackling these tasks in small increments during the week before the holiday will make for a much more seamless Thanksgiving Day. Things you can do before the holiday include:
• Grocery shopping for non-perishable items the week before
• Grocery shopping for perishable items the day before
• Setting the table as early as a week in advance (as long as you don’t use your dining room table on a day-to-day basis)
• Cook, bake, and brine as many dishes as possible the day before
• Ask your loved ones to help out — Even though you may be hosting Thanksgiving dinner, it is completely okay to ask your friends and family to assist with the preparation! While we tend to cook the main dishes on our own, we do ask others to bring some of the sides. Some things that are a reasonable ask of your guests to bring include:
• Ice cream
• Ice to keep the drinks chilled all night long
• Small appetizers
• Wine or other beverages
• Side dishes

Not sure where to start when it comes to planning your Thanksgiving meal? Take a look at Stacy’s go-to Thanksgiving menu for inspiration:

• Turkey (brined for two days)
• Stuffing
• Popovers
• Gratin
• Assorted vegetables
• Homemade ice cream
• Pecan pie
• Cranberry tarts
• Pumpkin cheesecake

We hope these tips help make your Thanksgiving just a little bit less stressful this year so that you can spend more time focusing on being grateful for your friends, family, and loved ones. At Meadow, we are immensely grateful for each and every single person in the Meadow family who helped bring this business to life and for every customer who chooses to bring Meadow products into their home.

Ingredients:

4 cups milk, warmed

8 eggs

4 cups flour

1 ½ heaping tbsp salt

2 ¼ cups grated gruyere cheese

Prepare:

Preheat the oven 350

Heat the popover pans in the oven.

Gently warm the milk over low heat and set aside.

Whisk the eggs until frothy and then whisk in the milk, slow so as not to cook the eggs.

Set the mixture aside. Sift flour with salt.

Slowly add the dry mixture and gently combine till mostly smooth.

Once combined, remove the pan from the oven, and spray it with a on stick spray.

While the batter is warm, or even room temperature, fill each popover cup ¾ full.

Top each popover with 2 tablespoons of the grated gruyere.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes rotating the pang half a turn after the first 15 minutes of baking.

(Just before I remove the popovers from the oven, I invite everybody to sit at the table for thanksgiving to ensure the popovers make a grand entrance!)

Remove from the oven, remove from the pan and serve immediately.

Enjoy!