Holiday Meal Prep

[ejagno]

Looks like I'm off for a week unexpectedly so I've turned my attention to holiday meal prep. Yesterday I made several holiday favorites in a jar for fast and easy desserts such as cobbler mix, cookie mix, and brownie mix. Just add wet ingredients and your good to go. I also did my pecan pie filling in a quart jar and canned. Each quart is perfect for a 9" deep dish pie shell.

Today I turned my attention to Thanksgiving and cooked my cornbread and crumbled it along with all of the dry seasonings for our traditional cornbread dressing. I'd also love to try my luck at making individual hand pies with various fillings. I think this would be alot less messy than slicing large pies on the holiday table with my 7 grandchildren.

Chopping, dicing and more chopping and dicing onions, bell peppers, celery, green onions and garlic are essential to have on hand for most meals so I've also gotten this underway.

Every kitchen needs a well stocked pantry and I figured it was time to get my dry seasoning mixes up to par as well such as my powdered ranch dressing mix, country gravy mix, muffin mix, pancake mix, etc.....

These are all things that become time consuming during a holiday rush but make for fast and easy when done ahead.

So what are your ideas for prepping your pantry for the holidays?

 

[sweetpumkinpye]

Ellen, you are certainly on top of the prep. I like the idea of the individual hand pies, I think it would be a good thing to try.
We don't do Thanksgiving here so in December we will be doing a lot of prep for Christmas Day

 

[Myron's Mom]

I’m all about working ahead and a well stocked pantry. When I was working I often came home after a 12 hour shift to make a holiday meal. Getting things done ahead time decreased the stress of cooking on no sleep.
I’ve already made cabbage rolls for Christmas Eve dinner. Cookies and pie crusts are made too. Everything is vacuum sealed and tucked away in the freezer. I still need to make chicken soup but I’m holding out to find parsley root.
I just did a major restock of the pantry so we are in pretty good shape.

 

[Minta]

Last month I made and canned apple pie filling for the holiday pies. I noticed over weekend I was low on some spices for baking so I will be stocking up on them over the next few weeks. I do need to stop at the farm stand and grab some peppers to cut up and freeze before the end of the month.

@ejagno quick tip on making individual pies .. using the large mouth canning jar lids and rings. They make perfect size pies. Spray the ring with nonstick spray to make popping out the pies quick and easy.

 

[Holiday_Mom]

For Thanksgiving, I have made a list of all the ingredients I will need and the total amount of those ingredients combined. I then check my supplies, keep an eye on sales and buy the food I need. For instance, here's the shopping list without the turkey:

• 10 slices of bread (5 white and 5 wheat)
• 1 lb. sage sausage
• 2 onions
• 3 celery stalks
• 1 apple
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 10 lbs. of Potatoes
• 5 pkgs. of cream cheese
• 3 c. of cream
• ¼ lb. butter
• 4 lbs. sweet potatoes
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• 4 (10 oz) boxes of frozen spinach
• ½ c. Parmesan cheese
• vanilla
• salt
• cinnamon
• nutmeg
• cloves
• butter
• garlic
• pepper
• paprika

Having the amounts (such as ½ c.) helps me to really gage the amount needed. I also will read through the recipes a few days before cooking the food to see what I can do ahead of time like chop onions or cube the cream cheese or toast the bread for the stuffing.

I have applied that same idea with my baking ingredients for Christmas cookies.

 

[Myron's Mom]

For Thanksgiving, I have made a list of all the ingredients I will need and the total amount of those ingredients combined. I then check my supplies, keep an eye on sales and buy the food I need. For instance, here's the shopping list without the turkey:

• 10 slices of bread (5 white and 5 wheat)
• 1 lb. sage sausage
• 2 onions
• 3 celery stalks
• 1 apple
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 10 lbs. of Potatoes
• 5 pkgs. of cream cheese
• 3 c. of cream
• ¼ lb. butter
• 4 lbs. sweet potatoes
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• 4 (10 oz) boxes of frozen spinach
• ½ c. Parmesan cheese
• vanilla
• salt
• cinnamon
• nutmeg
• cloves
• butter
• garlic
• pepper
• paprika

Having the amounts (such as ½ c.) helps me to really gage the amount needed. I also will read through the recipes a few days before cooking the food to see what I can do ahead of time like chop onions or cube the cream cheese or toast the bread for the stuffing.

I have applied that same idea with my baking ingredients for Christmas cookies.

I like your list! I see sweet potatoes on your list. You can bake those ahead and freeze to save time. I make sweet potato casserole as freezer meal side dish. It has eggs cream and butter and freezes great. I would freeze my potato mixture flat along with a separate bag of the topping. It would defrost fast (overnight)and all I had to do was dump in a casserole dish and bake.

 

[Holiday_Mom]

You can bake those ahead and freeze to save time.

OOoo... I like that tip. Did you bake them, let them cool and then freeze them in the skin? I'm trying to do as much as I can ahead of time. For the first time since hosting Thanksgiving, I'm working the three days before Thanksgiving and the weekend leading into it is my dd's play. Thankfully, my college students aren't relying on me for transportation home.

 

[Myron's Mom]

I take them out of the skin and mash them together to freeze(I don’t add anything to them). The plain mashed potatoes I heat up in the microwave. I’ve never tried freezing them in the skin. I’m wondering if you freeze them in the skins if the insides would discolor. Not sure about that.

 

[Holiday_Mom]

I take them out of the skin and mash them together to freeze(I don’t add anything to them). The plain mashed potatoes I heat up in the microwave. I’ve never tried freezing them in the skin. I’m wondering if you freeze them in the skins if the insides would discolor. Not sure about that.

Ah, got it. Thanks!

 

[Myron's Mom]

Has anyone seen the Kraft roka blue cheese in a jar in the stores? I know it’s seasonal so maybe it’s not out yet. It flys off the shelves here.

 

[missjane]

Has anyone seen the Kraft roka blue cheese in a jar in the stores? I know it’s seasonal so maybe it’s not out yet. It flys off the shelves here.

I've never seen it, but we're not bleu cheese people...

 

[Lori K]

Has anyone seen the Kraft roka blue cheese in a jar in the stores? I know it’s seasonal so maybe it’s not out yet. It flys off the shelves here.

Not sure if you have a Meijer near you, but I checked this afternoon and they had a complete filled row of it.

 

[Myron's Mom]

Lol! I checked in the one closest to me yesterday. Maybe I’ll give them a call tomorrow to see if they got any in. Thanks for letting me know!

 

[Lori K]

Lol! I checked in the one closest to me yesterday. Maybe I’ll give them a call tomorrow to see if they got any in. Thanks for letting me know!

In mine, it was all the way to the left, against the divider for the end-cap, one down from the top shelf. Looked like they'd just restocked the Kraft dressings.

 

[Cindylouwho]

I'm looking at doing some serious meal prep in the coming month. Trying to figure out when. Still need to defrost the freezer first!

 

[missjane]

I've been working on lists and picking up items that can be stored or frozen. I put away a planned amount of money earlier in the year to cover extra grocery expenses during holidays and have started putting back money each pay period to help cover other unexpected costs.

 

[Lori K]

Although I don't advance prep meals for the holidays, since it's just me and I only have my side-by-side refrig/freezer, I've been strictly cooking from my freezer for the last few weeks, in an attempt to make some space for other things I'd like to be able to have on hand. @Cindylouwho, would suggest that you use what you find when defrosting in your freezer meal prep, when possible.