Granini's Thanksgiving Timeline

 

Granini's Thanksgiving Timeline

When to make what for Thanksgiving Dinner

and when to put it in the oven

Several years ago I started to prepare a Thanksgiving Timeline. I wanted to make as much stuff as I could ahead of time, so that on Thanksgiving Day, I could whirl around the kitchen like a crazy person, but not feel quite as frantic.

And THEN I had this brilliant idea.

Why not create a fancy spreadsheet, so that I could simply refer to it every year, rather than try to recreate the same list year after year after year??

And so I did.

 I make a LOT of food for Thanksgiving. AND, I make a lot of pies.
So I made spreadsheets.

I also have spreadsheets for grocery lists.

It sounds insane, but it has helped me immensely with preparing an entire feast by myself two separate times in one week. Yes, that's right. I make Thanksgiving twice, each year. Once on Thursday, and once again on Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year, I made Thanksgiving a third time (last Saturday). Yes, I'm that crazy.

I do not give myself a lot of extra time for each item, as I have made every recipe hundreds of times, and I know how long it takes me to make everything. You may wish to add more time to each item if you are a beginner cook, or if you're not as adept at cutting, dicing, and mixing. But for me, these timelines are divine. And they even allow me a quick nap, a good rest period to watch a bit of football and put my feet up, as well as time to eat breakfast and an hors d'oeuvre filled lunch. This year my goal is to add in Drinkies to the list -- Holiday inspired Cocktails. Delish!!

So, for those of you who would like to see them, here they are.

I hope that they help you immensely on the BIG DAY OF DAYS.


The day before Thanksgiving

  

Thanksgiving Day

 




Friendsgiving (smaller Thanksgiving dinner)

 

I'll gather up my grocery lists and post those too if you're interested!!

Links to my Thanksgiving Recipes:

Appetizers and Other Tasty Savory Treats

Spinach Artichoke Dip
Granini's Stuffed Mushrooms
Cream Cheese Red Pepper Dip

Turkey

Roasted Turkey
(or what I like to call bathing a turkey in butter in a toasty oven)

Side Dishes

Cornbread Stuffing / Cornbread Dressing
Bacon Beer Cheese Dressing (recipe to follow shortly)

Mashed Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows

Gravy

Dinner Rolls (aka Parker House Rolls)

Ratatouille (for the vegetarians!)

Cranberry Orange Relish
Glazed Carrots

Creamed Corn Casserole
Cheesy Creamed Corn Casserole (recipe to follow shortly)

Sautéd Green Beans with peppers and onions
Sinful Macaroni & Cheese

Additional Recipes you may want to peruse:

Cornbread
Spaghetti Sauce (for the Ratatouille)
Chicken (or Turkey) Pot Pie for the days after Thanksgiving

Pies!

The week of Pie 
(all of my pie recipes in one place)


Pie Crust recipe & instructions
Traditional Apple Pie
Dutch Apple Pie with caramel drizzle
Blueberry Pie (with 3 crusts!)
Cherry Pie
Chocolate Cream Pie
Chocolate Pecan Pie
Chocolate Eclair Pie
Coconut Cream Pie
French Silk Pie
(it's a fancy chocolate cream pie with chocolate crumb crust)
Grasshopper Pie
La Tarte aux Sauterelles Chocolate
(chocolate mint pie)
Lemon Meringue Pie
Minced Meat Pie with rum sauce
Pumpkin Pie

Snickerdoodles

(What to make with the leftover pie crust)

OR, if you prefer to drool over recipes with pictures, see below:

Dutch Apple Pie with homemade caramel sauce

Appetizers and Other Tasty Savory Treats

Spinach Artichoke Dip
Granini's Stuffed Mushrooms

Links to all Granini's Desserts and Sweet Treats

Pie Crust
Traditional Apple Pie
Dutch Apple Pie
Blueberry Coffee Cake
Blueberry Pie
Cherry Pie
Chocolate Cream Pie
Chocolate Pecan Pie
Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Chocolate Cupcakes
Cinnamon Sugar Cookies
Cinnamon Rolls and Caramel Sticky Buns
Coconut Cream Pie
Coffee Cake
Danish Pastry Dough
French Silk Pie
Grasshopper Pie
Lemon Almond Cake
Lemon Breakfast Cake
Lemon Crinkle Cookies
Lemon Meringue Pie
Lemon Pound Cake
Oreo Cheesecake
Oreo Truffles
Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats with chocolate on top
Pecan Tassies (Mini Pecan Pies)
Pumpkin Pie
Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies
Sugar Cookies
Snickerdoodles (Cookies made from leftover Pie Crust)
Thin Mint Truffles

* * * * *

Find other tasty Thanksgiving Dinner dishes here:

And tasty pie recipes here:

* * * * *

I not only bake and cook, I write murder mysteries too!

Both books are available in paperback and kindle versions

Diamonds for Diamond 
(Book 1 in the Jack Diamond Mystery series)
and
No One Noticed

(Book 2 in the Jack Diamond Mystery Series)

Granini's Orange Cranberry Pecan Scones

Granini's Orange Cranberry Pecan Scones

Yum!

Ingredients

1 ¼ cups heavy whipping cream (if you don't have heavy whipping cream, you may substitute ⅓ cup melted butter, cooled
¾ cup half & half, slightly warmed)
2 cups flour
½ cup (take 1 Tablespoon away) sugar (you'll need 2 more tablespoons later)
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cardamom
½ cup candied pecans, roughly chopped
½ cup craisins, roughly chopped
2 clementine oranges, zested (you'll need one more). [You'll need roughly 2 tablespoons of zest, but don't bother with the measuring spoon. A rough guestimate is fine.] *And, yes, you can substitute oranges. I just don't happen to have oranges lying around, and my fridge always has clementines. So whatever. Honestly. This recipe is completely adaptable.
1 piece of parchment paper & a cookie sheet

For the topping:
1 tablespoon butter, melted to brush onto the unbaked scones

2 tablespoons sugar
1 clementine orange, zested. [You'll need roughly 1 tablespoon of zest, but again, don't bother with the measuring spoon. A rough guestimate is fine.] 
In a small bowl, stir the sugar and orange zest together

I adapted & fidgeted with a recipe from epicurious (click here for original recipe) that called for apricots (blech) and lemon (which I didn't have). It also called for heavy whipping cream which I also didn't have. I'd blame Covid, but frankly, I almost never have heavy whipping cream on hand.

Frankly, you could probably add in any dried fruits and/or nuts that suited your fancy, or whatever you happened to have in your pantry, and you'd make a pretty darned tasty scone.

I've made scones before, but they haven't always turned out. Often they weren't sweet enough. Or they were a bit stodgy. This time, however, they were quite delicious. I think adding a wee bit of sugar on top really helped to sweeten them up without ruining the dough. I hope you enjoy!

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 415℉.
2. Melt butter and allow to cool to room temperature, without solidifying.
3. Heat up your half & half so that it's warm, but not hot.

*If you have heavy whipping cream, you can obviously skip steps 2 and 3.

4. Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cardamom.
5. Stir in the chopped pecans, craisins, and orange zest.
6. Carefully mix together the cooled melted butter and the half & half in a bowl. If the two do not want to mix together on their own, use an immersion blender to encourage the marriage.
7. Pour the butter and half & half blended mixture into the dry ingredients.
8. Very carefully, stir the ingredients together. You do not want to overmix, or the scones will be chewy and dense and stodgy. Only mix until all the dry ingredients have been moistened.
9. Form the dough into a large ball and pat it down until it's roughly 1 inch thick. Slice into 12 pieces. Or, maybe into 8 pieces. 12 pieces makes small scones. I think I honestly prefer larger scones. But hey, whatevs. This recipe is adaptable, remember??
10. Put a piece of parchment paper onto a cookie sheet.
11. Carefully transfer the scones onto the cookie sheet, leaving a wee bit of room between each of the scones. They will expand while baking. But I did find that all 12 of them fit onto one cookie sheet. I just alternated the way they were facing to make them fit (see picture below).
12. In a small bowl, mix 2 Tablespoons of sugar with 1 Tablespoon of orange zest.
13. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter.
14. Gently brush melted butter on top of each scone.
15. Sprinkle sugar/zest onto each scone. I found there was ample sugar for each scone to get a rather liberal sprinkle.
16. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes.
17. Transfer to a cooling rack and allow to cool slightly (or completely) before serving.

Next time, I think I'd like to make some lemon curd to serve alongside with the scones. I've heard of clotted cream being served with scones too, but I've never had nor made clotted cream. Perhaps I should look into that.

Anywhoooooo, the scones did NOT last long. They're tasty and delicious and yum.

I hope you enjoy!!

See pictures below.

Making the sugar orange zest for the topping

Dry ingredients all mixed together.

Added in the milk and melted butter.

Formed into a ball and patted down to 1 inch thick. Ish. It's not as if I get out the ruler and check.

 Cut into 12 pieces. Immediately regretting not cutting into 8 pieces for bigger scones. There are 4 of us living here now. I think two apiece sounds good. Three each feels a bit guilty. Hmmm.

Brush with butter. I wonder what they'd taste like without the butter. Hmmm. Something to try.

Sprinkle some of that sugar orange zest onto each one.

Ready for the oven.

Mmmmmm, boy howdy that looks amazing. SOOO hard to wait until they were cooler to eat!!!

Deliciousness on my plate. Yummm!!

* * * * *

I not only bake and cook, I write murder mysteries too!

Both books are available in paperback and kindle versions

Diamonds for Diamond 
(Book 1 in the Jack Diamond Mystery series)
and
No One Noticed

(Book 2 in the Jack Diamond Mystery Series)

Currently writing:
Book 2.5: Yet to be named: Jack and Claire's love story

* * * * *

Granini's Cheesy Biscuits

Granini's Cheesy Biscuits

I've been making biscuits for a gajillion years.  They're incredibly easy to make, and are so very simple that they're hard to screw up.  Not only do we eat them with breakfast (biscuits and gravy!), and dinner (soup and biscuits), but sometimes I sweeten them up with a bit of powdered sugar, and we eat them for dessert as a 'base' for strawberry shortcake.  We've also been known to eat them for snack time, sliced in half, and toasted with melted sharp cheddar cheese.

BUT THEN...

I got addicted to Kashmiri chili powder. There's a long story there... but needless to say, I started putting it in everything.

So I've adapted my original biscuit recipe, and turned it into a cheesy biscuit recipe, and the kiddos and the hubster LOVE them. This morning I made them to go with mushroom gravy and scrambled eggs. Delish!!!

Ingredients:

5 Tablespoons butter (unsalted) or margarine

1 teaspoon Tony Chachere's original creole seasoning
½ teaspoon Kashmiri chili powder 

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 3/4 cups flour

2/3 to 3/4 cups buttermilk

** I truly do prefer these biscuits using buttermilk, rather than milk.  However, I very rarely remember to save any buttermilk aside after having made my buttermilk pancakes.  But if and when I happen to have buttermilk just hanging around in my fridge, I use it.  If I don't have any, I use regular milk, but then I add in 3 teaspoons of lemon juice (sounds weird, but I promise, it works), and the biscuits are still quite delicious!  I promise.  It won't be the end of the world if you don't happen to have any buttermilk.  No need to dash off to the store just to make these biscuits.  And, just to be honest, 9 times out of 10, I make them without the buttermilk.  They're just über delicious with the buttermilk.  Just sayin'.

Directions:

1. Using a pastry knife, cut the butter, salt, baking powder, and flour together until the mixture looks like course oatmeal.
2. Pour milk over the mixture.
3. Using a fork, using as few strokes as possible, slowly stir the mixture together until a dough ball forms.  
4. Sprinkle a little flour onto a surface area.
5. Turn the dough out onto the lightly floured working area.
6. Gently roll the dough to about an inch and a quarter thick.  When I'm in a hurry, I just pat the dough flat, skipping the rolling pin altogether.  Why wash another thing?  I'm lazy, I know.
7. Lightly flour a biscuit cutter and cut the biscuits out, and place them on an ungreased cookie sheet.
8. Bake at 390° for 12 to 15 minutes, or until very lightly golden brown.  Best served while hot.  But they're VERY tasty when they're room temperature too.

Oh yeah.  That's just mouth waterin' goodness, right there.  

Try them with Granini's Biscuits and Gravy.  

With super cheesy scrambled eggs.  

Mmmmmm.

What's that? You want the recipe for my biscuits and gravy?  Why, of course!!  You can find the recipe here: Granini's Biscuits & Gravy

And here's the link to my original biscuits recipe: Granini's Biscuits

Enjoy!

* * * * *

I not only bake and cook, I write murder mysteries too!

Both books are available in paperback and kindle versions

Diamonds for Diamond 
(Book 1 in the Jack Diamond Mystery series)
and
No One Noticed

(Book 2 in the Jack Diamond Mystery Series)

Currently writing:
Book 2.5: Yet to be named: Jack and Claire's love story

* * * * *

Granini's Au Gratin Potatoes

Granini's Au Gratin Potatoes
or as my favorite father-in-law calls them,
Baked cheesy goodness with some potatoes

Ingredients:

5 to 6 medium sized potatoes.

3 Tablespoons butter (salted or unsalted. Either works)

3 Tablespoons flour

3 cups ½ and ½ 

1 ½ cups sharp white cheddar cheese, grated

1 ½ cups sharp cheddar cheese, grated

1 to 2 teaspoons Lawry's Seasoned Salt

½ teaspoon smoked paprika (optional)

A nice sprinkle of regular paprika (optional)

*I typically use yellow potatoes, but red potatoes will work too. I'm not a big fan of using russet potatoes (baked potatoes) for any recipes except for baked potatoes and twice baked potatoes. But that's just me.

Directions:

1. Lightly spray a 9x13 or 8x11 glass baking dish with cooking spray. 

2. Preheat the oven to 350℉.

3. Fill a medium to large pot with hot water, sprinkle in some salt, and bring the water to a boil. While the water is heating up, start peeling your potatoes.

4. Peel all your potatoes.

5. Using a mandolin, thickly slice all your potatoes into evenly sliced pieces. If you don't have a mandoline, just do your very best to get the potatoes as evenly sliced as possible. 

My mandoline looks a bit like this. It is one of my newest, and most favorite, kitchen gadgets. Particularly when it comes to making au gratin potatoes.

6. Now. Here's a trick. When you're putting your potatoes into the boiling water, try to feed the potatoes into the water ONE AT A TIME, but do it quickly. One of the biggest hurdles with au gratin potatoes is having either potatoes that are underbaked and raw and nasty, or, having potatoes that are stuck to each other and thus not cooked properly and not coated with cheesy goodness. Boil the potatoes for about 8 to 10 minutes or so. It's more of a par boil than a true, boiled all-the-way-through kind of situation. You want them mostly boiled, but not so over boiled that they fall apart when you pour them into your baking dish. Once they're done boiling, drain them in a sieve and let them sit there and kinda hang out until your sauce is done.

7. While the potatoes are boiling, you can get your cheesy sauce going.

8. Grate all your cheeses and set aside.

9. In a large skillet with deep sides, melt your butter on medium to low heat. Turn the heat down to low and add your flour, and whisk together, allowing the flour and butter to cook together for a good 5 minutes or so. DO NOT cook the flour and butter on medium or high heat, or you may end up burning your flour and making the whole mess turn brown and taste nasty. Low to medium heat is the trick here.

10. Pour your half & half (you can use milk or cream, but I prefer half & half) into a small sauce pan and allow your cream to heat up a bit on medium to medium high. Don't allow it to boil.

11. Once your flour and butter mixture has cooked for several minutes, sprinkle on the Lawry's seasoned salt, and the (optional) smoked paprika. Then, slowly, a little at a time, pour in a little tiny bit of your heated half & half, using a whisk to bring the mixture together. Do not pour all of your half & half in all at once, or you risk the chance of getting lumps. Low heat, a little at a time. That's the trick here. Once all the half & half is mixed in, raise the temperature of the sauce to medium, or medium high. Bring the mixture to a slight boil, and then turn the sauce back down to low. Raising the temperature will allow the sauce to thicken up. Add in the cheeses, stir, and then turn off the heat.

12. Once the cheesy sauce is done, bring out your lightly sprayed baking dish. Ladle a layer of cheesy goodness onto the bottom of the baking dish. Then add a layer of your potatoes. I tend to slightly stir a wee bit, to try to make sure all the potatoes are covered in cheesy goodness. Ladle another spoonful of cheesy goodness over the top. Then add in another layer of potatoes. Repeat as necessary until all of the potatoes are covered in cheesy goodness. On the very top, sprinkle very lightly with paprika. Bake at 350℉ for about 40-45 minutes or so, or until the potatoes are bubbly and the cheesy mixture is browning lightly on the top.

I usually serve my au gratin potatoes with thick ham slices, deviled eggs, roasted asparagus or my green beans, and my glazed carrots.

Mmmmmmm.



* * * * *

I not only bake and cook, I write murder mysteries too!

Both books are available in paperback and kindle versions

Diamonds for Diamond 
(Book 1 in the Jack Diamond Mystery series)
and
No One Noticed

(Book 2 in the Jack Diamond Mystery Series)

* * * * *

Granini's Gnocchi and veggies in cream sauce

Granini's Gnocchi in Cream Sauce

Here is part 3 of the trifecta of today's blog entries!

Granini's Gnocchi in Cream Sauce
Once the gnocchi is made, the whole thing just takes a few minutes to throw together. So if you have extra gnocchi in your freezer, you can simply plop them onto the counter, thaw them while you're prepping your veg and making your sauce (or pop them into the microwave for a wee bit), and just make sure you cook them long enough to heat them all the way through! Fast and easy dinner.

(And frankly, the gnocchi isn't complicated, difficult, or terribly time consuming to make from scratch by any means -- it just SEEMS like it is, because its name is all fancy.)

Ingredients

Gnocchi:
Leftover mashed potatoes (about 2 ½ cups)
 2 1/2 cups flour
1 egg

Veggies:
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons (approx) olive oil
olive oil spray
parmesan
9 stalks of roasted asparagus (see below)
1 onion, diced
1 red pepper, diced
½ jar (4 ounces or so) sun dried tomatoes (Trader Joe's has a great jar of these), drained and chopped
1 cup fresh spinach, chopped

Pretty much anything you can acquire at Trader Joe's is amazing. I know that sun dried tomatoes went out of style back in the 90s. However, I still love and adore them, and every so often, I incorporate them into my meals because I just can't help it. I ♥︎ me some Trader Joe's!!

Cream Sauce:
2 Tablespoons butter (I used salted)
2 Tablespoons flour
2 cups half & half
1 sprinkle (about 1/8 of ¼ a teaspoon) of kashmiri pepper (optional)
salt & pepper to taste

This pepper is my new current and most favorite spice I currently have in my cupboard. It has all the lovely flavor of chili, but very little of the heat. I struggle with spicy foods. I love the flavor, but the heat of the chilis burns my tongue in such a way that I cannot enjoy it.
My friend Hiro who owns a lovely Indian restaurant in Manila introduced Kashmiri pepper to me back in October. My many thanks go to him for introducing me to Kashmiri pepper, as well as to the wonders of butter chicken with roti, and chicken tikka with a cilantro/mint chutney. Oh my! that sweet, sweet goodness is just about the bomb diggity of all deliciousness. Hopefully next week I'll be able to acquire both cilantro and mint so I can try to replicate his unbelievably delicious meal!! Meanwhile, back to gnocchi...

Directions

1. Heat the oven to 375℉
2. Spray a jelly roll pan (a cookie sheet with sides) with olive oil spray. Wash your asparagus and pat dry. Place the asparagus onto the olive oil covered jelly roll pan. Spray the asparagus lightly with olive oil spray. Sprinkle withe parmesan. Bake for 8 minutes. Cut the asparagus into ½ inch (or so) pieces.
3. Make gnocchi. I have a pretty good step-by-step set of instructions if you're in need. Just click on the link here.
4. In a large saucepan, heat up olive oil and toss in chopped onions and peppers. Once everything is soft, add in your sun dried tomatoes. Then add in the butter and allow to melt.
5. Add in your kashmiri pepper, and a sprinkle of salt & pepper.
6. Sprinkle the flour over the entire mixture and stir to create a paste of sorts. Cook for several minutes on low heat, stirring frequently.
7. If you're feeling the need, you can heat up your half & half by pouring it into a small saucepan, and allowing it to slowly heat up. I am a lazy cook, so I just pour my cream in very slowly into my not-too-hot sauce. If your mixture is too warm or on too high of a heat, you risk curdling the sauce by not heating up the half & half before hand. I find that if I have my mixture on low heat, and if I just slowly add in the cream until it's all incorporated, and then I raise the heat of the pan, I can avoid the curdle without having to heat up my cream ahead of time. But like I said, I'm a lazy cook. So at this point, it's time to add in your half and half, a little tiny bit at a time, until it is all incorporated.
8. Add in your asparagus and the chopped up spinach.
9. Taste your sauce and add a wee bit more salt and pepper if needed.
10. Right before serving, plop in your gnocchi, stir, and serve! I added in 2 cups of gnocchi (about), and the whole mixture served four people very ample servings.

For those of you who like pictures, here you go!

 Stirring in the spinach.

Stirring in the gnocchi

 Trust me on this one, it tastes DELISH!! I only wish smell-o-vision was a thing!

* * * * *

I not only bake and cook, I write murder mysteries too!

Both books are available in paperback and kindle versions

Diamonds for Diamond 
(Book 1 in the Jack Diamond Mystery series)
and
No One Noticed

(Book 2 in the Jack Diamond Mystery Series)

* * * * *