Thanksgiving for 6 Under $60 – The Menu

Last year was my first-ever “make it myself” Thanksgiving dinner. It was an accident really. We ALWAYS go for the big T-day meal with Nick’s family – like 28 people. It is both Nick and my own favorite holiday. Unfortunately, last year both Mackenzie and Nick ended up with mild pneumonia. I was pregnant. Not a good situation within our own family. BUT, it was really not a good situation to be taking pneumonia over to the great-grandparents house. Thanksgiving wasn’t going to happen for us.

I decided Thanksgiving day that I wasn’t going to just let the holiday pass us by. I headed out (in the snow up hill both ways) to the grocery store and bought all the necessary items for a true Thanksgiving dinner. Ha! If you have EVER made a turkey – you already know. You can’t just buy a turkey on T-day and have it roasted in time. We had a “large chicken” instead.

First Thanksgiving

Everything turned out great and we now have a new tradition – not the chicken. We now have a special Thanksgiving dinner with our little family BEFORE the real one. That’s why we’re having an early T-day before the big one back in Seattle.

BUT, I learned a lot from that experience. No, I’m not trying to sell you on the idea that one Thanksgiving meal has made me an expert – what I am going to tell you is that having hosted countless large, formal dinner parties at my house, combined with my Thanksgiving experiences in both the “family” kitchens and in my own – I know a thing or two about structuring a meal, cooking order and making it all come together.

See? I’ve got some decent experience under my belt. (These are both pictures from our annual Christmas Cocktail – which started in 2004 and has grown each year… this past year we had 27 people attend)

Back to Thanskgiving, I went a little backwards in giving you the shopping list first. Typically, you would come up with a menu and then make your grocery list but I wanted to give a little teaser about the concept before jumping into the thick of it.

The Menu

Turkey

Cranberry Sauce

 Sweet Potato Wontons

Garlic Rosemary Mashed Potatoes

Sage Whole Grain Stuffing

Classic Baked Sweet Potatoes

 Cranberry Walnut Salad

Perfect Pumpkin Pie with an Oatmeal Pie Crust

I also have a Sugarless Pumpkin Pie recipe here.

For the rest of these posts, I will be posting the recipes in the order that you should be preparing them. Starting with prep items and leading up to the actual setting of the table. I will indicate when (whether it is days or hours) before the big meal so that you can easily prep your meal and not spend your entire T-day in the kitchen. Actually, you should be free to get in on that flag football game in the yard, or to settle in for the Macy’s parade on TV – along with whatever other family traditions you guys do.

** If you have a family favorite food item that isn’t on my menu, you can easily fit it in to the prep time – you’ll have lots of spare time! This is a pretty traditional menu – save for the wontons which I promise will become a family tradition once you try them.