@RunnerGirl:

Tofurkey? That's just sick ...

So instead of eating an actual turkey, you eat the likeness of a turkey and do it with a nasty stale substitute. Goofy ...

Ace in the Hole

Tofurkey is a new favorite of mine, as of last year. I do not know how to cook meat very well, so Tofurkey was a better option for my family. Everyone enjoyed it too. The other time saver was to cook only food enough for that night. For too many years, we have spent the entire day cooking and getting stressed out only to be too tired and irritable to enjoy our dinner.

Make it easy. No more than four dishes and that's it!

RunnerGirl

My time/life saver is to not do a huge Thanksgiving dinner. I work until 1:00 on Thanksgiving Day. The best Thanksgiving was when we had pizza with our young daughters and then went to the opening of one of the "Potter" flicks.

Of course, we are the same famly who bbq'd chicken at Easter once...in North Dakota and drifts of snow in the backyard.

karlawithak

CV, who are you trying to fool?!

I find that the best way to cook a bird is to use those plastic bag things and just have it roast itself

neonenergy

There are no secrets, the key is prepwork in advance (what the French call "mise en place"). A far better resource for Thanksgiving tips resides at sunset.com/thanksgiving.

This Western lifestyle magazine has been in publication since the late 19th century and their recipes and techniques are far better tested than 99% of other deadtrees publications and 99.9% of blogs.

Frankly, if you're a home cook, cooking American cuisine, and you're not using Sunset and the Fannie Farmer cookbook as your primary go-to reference sources, you're just hurting your chances at success.

On a side note, Sunset's garden guide is the de facto home gardener reference.

Forget all the blogs, wikis, etc.

cv

Turkey bags, ftw!

If you're pressed for time, I know there's a few ways to speed cook turkeys. A small breast can be done in a large enough crock pot (not fast, but you can set it in the morning and leave it). Also, there's the 'cooking the crap out of it at 500 degrees' method that's supposed to be yummy. And, lastly, there's deep frying, which is supposed to take a fraction of the time.

For us, the thanksgiving meal is always worth the effort... but then again, we have 26 people coming over. The way the traditional Thanksgiving meal is structured, its meant to feed a boatload. Don't think we'd put on the ritz for just six people.

MrsIrB

Is the irony of the phrase "40 Ways To Simplify" lost on everyone but me?

ajeys

@ajeys:
Well, there were some *awfully* good points in subsection 56, paragraph D...

In all seriousness, I think the real utility of this sort of guide is that it does the thinking for people who haven't necessarily learned what would once have been considered very basic kitchen management skills. Thanksgiving asks a lot of people to draw on knowledge that they never really mastered. People who run screaming from raw chicken breast have to wrangle 12-pound turkeys. Bad, bad things can happen...

MameDennis

"their recipes and techniques are far better tested than 99% of other deadtrees publications and 99.9% of blogs."

Wow...that's a good one...

Proper planning, simple and approachable menu, mise en place, delegate, maintain confidence.

Done deal.

crimsonfancy

If you're a programmer (or just compulsive about getting organized), you might want to try "Take Control of Thanksgiving" [www.takecontrolbooks.com] . This will be my second Thanksgiving executed by this e-book, which costs $10, and comes as a screen PDF and a print-optimized PDF. The author mostly writes for Mac fan boys, but he has a geeky gourmet alter ego. The book helped me pull off the "In-laws for Thanksgiving" challenge without a hitch. This year I'll be blending it with Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything", which anyone who steps foot into a kitchen should own.

Steve Kusmer

Let's see--tips. Last year my roommate cooked our turkey with butter and it was the juiciest thing imaginable. Fattening but most delicious!

I also want to point out an (amusing to me) Excel spreadsheet Thanksgiving Plan posted at my blog [www.todolistblog.com]

The level of detail makes me smile.

sashac