Happy Thanksgiving Week! Today’s post is all about the Thanksgiving menu. If you care about the rest of our dinner plans for this week, it’s Hello Fresh meal kits Monday – Wednesday, then leftovers after Thursday. Pretty simple!

Okay, here is this year’s plan for Thanksgiving. I will be combining forces with my family this year, which means way less work than usual. Yippee for me!

2021 THANKSGIVING FEAST

• Turkey (dry brined, spatchcocked and roasted + a few smoked turkey breasts from Nate and my brother)
• Gravy
• Stuffing
• Mashed potatoes
• Charred greens
• Salad
• Marshmallow fruit salad
• Brown butter squash and sweet potatoes
• Homemade crescent rolls
• Squash rolls
• Cranberry sauce
• Cranberry slush (traditional family drink)
• Pumpkin pie
• Apple pie
• French silk pie
• Bread pudding

OTHER WINNING THANKSGIVING RECIPES

We aren’t cooking these recipes this year but not because we don’t love them. In fact, we love them so much it’s hard to strike them from the list! But there is already so much food on our plates, so what are ya gonna do?

• Sweet potato souffle
• Green bean casserole from scratch!
• Broccoli casserole
• Rose’s creamed onions

Your turn! Share your weekly menu plans and/or Thanksgiving menu! Have the most delicious week!

THANKSGIVING IS THIS WEEK HOW IS THIS SO?!?!? Miraculously I graduated from the hard splint from my hand surgery, so while my thumb doesn’t work yet and I still have to be careful, I will be able to help cook Thanksgiving dinner! The girls and Nate are ready to help with the cooking this year. While I’m sad we won’t be with extended family (COVID!), I think it will be a special year, all of us cooking together in the kitchen. I did make a few store-bought modifications to our menu to simplify cooking, but for the most part we are still cooking up our usual feast!

MONDAY:

• Beef Bulgogi Meatballs (HelloFresh)

TUESDAY:

• Pork Tostadas Supremo (HelloFresh)

WEDNESDAY:

• Pineapple Pork Meatballs (HelloFresh)

THURSDAY | Thanksgiving 2020!

• Turkey (for real this is the BEST technique for cooking turkey, be sure to click through and check it out!)
• Classic Mashed Potatoes
• Classic Stuffing (full disclosure we are using Trader Joe’s stuffing mixes – cornbread and gluten-free – because of my darn hand)
• Gravy
• Crescent Rolls 
• Cranberry Slush (my great-grandmother’s recipe that we have EVERY YEAR NO MATTER WHAT)
• Cranberry Sauce
• Sweet Potato Souffle
• Butternut Squash
• Charcuterie Board
• Dessert: Pumpkin Pie, Crumble Apple Pie, Chocolate Mousse (we actually bought the pumpkin pie and apple pie this year because I just can’t do pie crust with my hand, but we will for sure make the chocolate mousse from scratch!)

FRIDAY:

• Leftovers

SATURDAY:

• Leftovers

SUNDAY:

• Leftovers

Please share your weekly menu in the comments, including your Thanksgiving menu plans! Have a happy and delicious Thanksgiving and please stay safe!!!

I love it when Thanksgiving is a little early because then there’s more time in between Thanksgiving and Christmas but HOLY CRAP HOW IS IT ONLY ONE WEEK UNTIL THANKSGIVING?

Just letting you know I’ve tagged all of my Thanksgiving goodness on the blog. Simply click HERE to scroll through it all. You’ll find all kinds of goodness, including from-scratch green bean casserole that is to die for, cranberry slush, SERIOUSLY THE BEST WAY TO COOK TURKEY EVER and so much more. (Did I mention the turkey? Oh, yeah, okay, I did, but really, check out my turkey roasting technique.)

Happy Thanksgiving prepping!

This giveaway is now closed, but keep reading for a great recipe!

I’ve decided this year I’m going to make a lot of our food for Thanksgiving ahead of time. So, this week I’m going to get cooking and freeze it all so that we can really enjoy our time with family next week. To kick off the flurry of pre-Thanksgiving cooking I made homemade cranberry sauce!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, one of the best parts of blogging has been building relationships with wonderful, amazing people from all over the country. One of those people is Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman. Ree is pure kindness and I am thankful to know her! As you may know, Ree just came out with another fun and colorful cookbook, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays.

I decided since Thanksgiving is right around the corner I should check out the Thanksgiving section of her book, which is chockfull of homemade goodness, including several different kinds of stuffing. I decided to make the cranberry sauce because, well, we need some for next week! The recipe is delicious and very simple to throw together. So simple, in fact, I forgot I was cooking the sauce. Like, as I was typing this paragraph and I started typing the word “cranberry sauce” it reminded me that I was simmering the sauce on the stove for quite some time and had to stop typing immediately and  run to the kitchen to save the sauce from certain destruction. Crisis averted, cranberry sauce is a-okay! So, in addition to being delicious and easy, this sauce is also indestructible!

The cranberry sauce and the book are both great, which is just what I would expect from Ree! And today I get to give away her wonderful book! THREE of you lucky people will win a SIGNED copy of Ree’s new book The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays.

Here is how to enter the giveaway! (Comments must be posted by Midnight PT on Monday, 11/25.)

• Simply leave a comment, any comment, on this post! That’s it!
• Bonus entry: Follow This Week for Dinner on Facebook and leave a separate comment telling me you did! (If you already follow, that counts!)
• Bonus entry: Follow me on Pinterest and leave a separate comment telling me you did! (If you already follow me on Pinterest, that counts!)
• Bonus entry: Follow me on Twitter and leave a separate comment telling me you did! (If you already follow me on Pinterest, that counts!)

To wrap things up, here is the recipe for Ree’s Easy Homemade Cranberry Sauce. Enjoy!

Easy Homemade Cranberry Sauce from The Pioneer Woman {Giveaway!}

 

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From The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays

Author: Jane Maynard

Cuisine: Side Dish, Thanksgiving

Ingredients

• One 12-ounce bag fresh cranberries
• 2 large oranges
• 1 cup pure maple syrup

Instructions

1. Rinse the cranberries under cold water. Zest the oranges. Add the cranberries and zest to a medium saucepan. Squeeze the juice from both oranges into the saucepan. Add the maple syrup and stir it all together. Bring to a gentle boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, until it’s nice and thick. If the sauce still seems a little thin, just simmer longer until it’s the right consistency.
2. Transfer the sauce to a dish and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Can be made up to 2 days in advance. Store in the fridge. (I am going to freeze mine and defrost it the day before Thanksgiving.)

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