If y’all have been here for a bit, you know how much I love Thanksgiving. LOVE. IT. Maybe even more than Christmas.

Last year I shared our menu for Thanksgiving, but I didn’t really share how we plan. I got so many sweet messages asking me to share how we plan and keep it all together, and I realized something: I don’t really plan out the day too well. Dinner ends up being like 90+ minutes later than I tell everyone to prepare for, and inevitably something is underdone and I’m so stressed out by the time I sit down, I can hardly eat anything.

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A post shared by Libby | Blogger + Influencer (@miacupcake) on Nov 23, 2017 at 7:16pm PST

One rather notorious year where my kids were both with their dad, I managed to drink about half a bottle of wine while trying to baste the turkey, and I fell asleep at the dinner table. *AHEM*.

So this year, we are trying a plan.

And we are trying to keep it a little low-key, which means only two kinds of potatoes. And two kinds of rolls. And maybe only 3 pies. For five people.

So how do we plan our Thanksgiving?

• I used a google doc for the first time this year, which we are excited about.  My mom can add comments if needed, and when dad is ready to go to the store, he can just print it out and check off items as he goes.
• We start with the menu. Always a meat, always at least 2 kinds of potatoes, always a salad or veggie of some sort. Everything else is gravy. (Not literally.) This year to make things easy, I also added links to the recipes. (Those without links either don’t need recipes, or we have made them for so many years, we have the recipes memorized.)
• This year, I color coded the items that will need oven time on the day of Thanksgiving. We only have one oven, so it makes it kind of hard when you’re trying to balance a turkey and seven sides that all need to be straight from the oven to the table. You have to figure out what can be made ahead and finished just before taking it to the table, and what has to be oven to table in one move.
• I went through the recipes one-by-one to see which ingredients we had on hand. I made a list of what herbs we could snip from our garden, and what I thought my mom and dad would have in their kitchen. Then I built the shopping list from there.

I’m hoping this will get dinner onto the table around the time we set to eat (2pm) and that my brother (who works in a professional kitchen in Seattle) doesn’t make too much fun of me.

I used a google doc this year, which is great.

 

We used to have our “color charts” done when I was younger, so we would know which colors to wear and which makeup would flatter our skin tones.

I was ALWAYS an “Autumn”. Truth be told, I loved being in the fall category, but I really hate wearing yellow and orange and brown. SO MUCH.

Colors and makeups aside, fall is far and away my favorite season. Mostly because it means APPLES.

All of the apple orchard trips we can handle (which thrills my children)! Applesauce in the crockpot! Apple pies and canning pie filling!

I love apples, can you tell?

So! Without further ado, I’ve sifted through some of my favorite blogs and found 30 (!!!) different apple recipes for your fall needs.

I do it because I love you and want you to be happy.

Crockpot Apple Butter

Apple Sandwiches

Apple Cake Cupcakes

Apple Blondies

Apple Cheesecake Crumble

No-Bake Cinnamon Apple Date Bars

Caramel Apple Granola

Caramel Apple Popcorn

Glazed Apple Pie Cookies

Apple Cider Caramel Popcorn

Apple Cashew Snack Bites

Chocolate Covered Apple Cider Caramels

Roasted Crisp Caramel Apples

Apple Oatmeal Muffins

Apple Protein Muffins

No-Bake Caramel Apple Pie Protein Bars

Apple Cinnamon Crumble Doughnuts

Apple Fritters

Apple Cinnamon Granola

Apple Gingerbread Muffins

Easy Cinnamon Apples

Apple Crisp Bites

Slow Cooker Applesauce

Baked Gluten Free Apple Cider Donuts

Crazy Caramel Apple Pie Bombs

Apple Pear Sangria

Apple Crumble

Apple Dump Cake

Pumpkin Apple Chimichanga

Chicken and Apple Sweet Potato Stirfry

If you have any apple recipes you love but didn’t see here on the list, please feel free to add them in the comments!

I usually stand in the same position at the stove when I’m tending to whatever is bubbling. Weight shifted onto one foot, toes of the other foot tucked into the arch of the standing foot.

I suppose it’s a throwback to 10 years of strict ballet lessons, the kind with high windows in an old building with a scarred hardwood floor and a ballet teacher who pounded that floor with her crystal-knobbed cane in time with the music like a giant strict top-knotted French metronome, who would yell (in French) if you were off beat and she never lost tempo.

But now, I stand at the stove in my kitchen in some sort of 3rd position variation, 20+ years after I hung up my pointe shoes.

I hear someone singing softly from the other room. Carefully approaching notes like they might run away if you hit them too aggressively. They’re making up songs as they clean the living room, and it’s something about a dust bunny and a cat. I can’t quite make it out.

Behind me through the open kitchen window, I hear the neighbors across the alley. They’re playing one last game of cornhole before the weather turns and we have to spend more time indoors.

She’s laughing and he’s telling some splendidly terrible jokes. As usual, I’ll send Wolfgang over to them with some of whatever I’m experiment-cooking when I am all done.

They’re really amazing taste testers, and I’m grateful for the willingness they had in opening their door in the dead of winter last year to their weird new neighbor and a plateful of marshmallows. They also introduced me to the joy of Fluffernutter sandwiches, and my life will never be the same.

Inside the kitchen, fall has arrived.

It smells like pie, but there will be no pie today. (And not because I have not yet mastered the pie crust.)

There will be marshmallows.

Oh, there will be marshmallows.

(For my cold-brew marshmallows, check here. For candy corn marshmallows, check here.)

Need to snag yourself some Vital Proteins gelatin? Use my affiliate link here and get a HUGE tub for only $49!

This post was written as a part of the NaBloPoMo, a daily blogging journey I am committing to in November 2017.

I used to date a gentleman whose family had Thanksgiving down to a SCIENCE.

There were spreadsheets and schedules and so much organization involved, it was so impressive! Rendered me almost completely moot for the handful of Thanksgivings we were together…which made me kind of sad.

ANYWAY.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, even more than Christmas.

I do have a process I like to go through, but it’s not as exact as my ex’s super-organized family.

How I do Thanksgiving planning: 

• I stock up on Thanksgiving magazines, and pore over them like I did with Seventeen and Lucky magazines when I was in high school. I spread them out all over the floor and start to organize.
• I dogear the pages of everything that looks good, and then go back through them with pink post it notes to mark the dishes that are “viable”. (i.e. if I need 2 ovens simultaneously, it’s not happening. Ditto with deep-fried turkey and anything sous vide.)
• I whittle down the pink post-its to 3-4 sides, 2-3 pies and a turkey recipe. Potatoes are a given, two different types (see menu below).
• I take a nice clean sheet of paper and write out a list of the dishes, including the magazine and issue (or website, or cookbook) where I can find the recipe and the amount of oven time it will take (and if it needs to rest after cooking).
• Then I make my shopping list. I’ll go through, recipe by recipe, and write out each ingredient on a piece of paper, adding everything up.
• I’ll pull out the serving pieces and put a sticky note on each one with the name of the dish they’ll hold.

BOOM.

I would go over my shopping method, but it’s kind of willy nilly and depends on who has the best price on a good brand of turkey, to be perfectly frank.

Menu for Thanksgiving, 2017

1. Turkey. I’ve tried multiple recipes over the years for turkey. I’ve had two turkeys I didn’t know needed to be thawed before cooking. I’ve burned the crap out of at least one turkey.  My favorite is a classic dry brined, oven roasted bird – trying this recipe this year!
2. Rolls. My momma makes her world famous homemade crescent rolls, and this year I’m going to try Parker House Rolls as well. We do love our carbs.
3. Stuffing. This is made in a traditional way, with very few variations. I tried making my own cornbread one year for a new kind of stuffing and was informed I should never do that again because it’s not the same. We cook half of it in the turkey and half of it in the same dish my mother has used since the 70s.
4. Potatoes. Two kinds, never varies except the one year I tried Hasselbeck potatoes and nearly had a riot on my hands. I make my mashed potatoes, where I add cream cheese and sometimes a bit of heavy cream and Maldon (always, NEVER TABLE SALT) and sometimes a little bit of rosemary and just whip all of it together. The second potato is (at least) one casserole dish of “Grandma’s Potatoes”, from my maternal grandmother. Cornflakes on the top, sour cream in the base. It’s delicious.
5. Brussels Sprouts. My whole family loves them, which completely baffles me. I always have hated them. (The sprouts, not my family.) We have tried a couple of recipes, but this one is on the list for this year.
6. Green Bean Casserole. I’m a weirdo who LOVES green beans. We are trying this recipe with mushrooms this year, and I have a feeling I will be eating a butt ton of this by myself. I don’t mind at all.
7. Pies. We are still deciding on these. I’ve put my foot down and said only 3 desserts, because everyone wanted their own pie and there’s no way in the holy Lord’s good green earth that I am making a separate pie for each person. Nope. Did that one year. Right now, we have a chocolate cream pie, a dutch apple or a double crust apple pie, a dual layer pumpkin cheesecake, a pumpkin pie and a mincemeat pie in the request pile.

That’s our Thanksgiving for this year! We will stuff ourselves with food, then lie around on the couches and watch Elf for its scheduled annual viewing.

What are you having for your turkey day? Do you have any traditions?

This post was written as a part of the NaBloPoMo, a daily blogging journey I am committing to in November 2017.