Dancing Spoon

Planning Thanksgiving Dinner

Planning Holiday

by J. Michael Wheeler
Thanksgiving Tips: Game Plan
There’s no question about it, for me, Thanksgiving is absolutely the best holiday: it’s all about getting together with friends and family and eating a great meal. No Christmas present stresses or New Year’s Eve anxiety. Cook a lot of good food and share it with friends and family. One of my favorite Thanksgivings was when I was in college in San Diego and I organized an “Orphan’s Thanksgiving” for my fellow college friends who wouldn’t be traveling home for the holiday. It was a bit less than traditional, but the spirit certainly was there.

Of course, for the host, Thanksgiving might not be all that stress-free. Still-frozen turkeys, wallpaper-paste gravies, and well, we’ve all got our stories (we’d love to yours). So in the interest of everyone enjoying our favorite holiday, we’re sharing with you some tips for a great Thanksgiving. We’ll start out with an overall game plan that we call, cleverly, T-Day Game Plan.

Break it Down
Sit down with paper and pen well before your first trip to the grocery store (yes, you’ll shop in phases) and starting with the menu, break the T-Day undertakings into steps. This will give you a bird’s eye view (couldn’t resist that one) of what needs to be done and when. As you accomplish each task you can check it off, giving you a measure of your progress, as well as what tasks remain to be done. Learn to love Lists.

Big Helpful Tip: Organize all of the recipes you plan to use ahead of time. Photocopy each recipe from your cookbook, recipe card, or torn out newspaper article and create your own personal T-Day Cookbook for that meal. With all of your recipes together, in one place, you won’t have to flip through several books and different pages.

Stir Fry On a Budget

Contributor Guest

by Guest Contributor Calissa Leigh
Basic Chinese Stir Fry On a Budget
Recently, I've become obsessed with learning about Chinese cuisine. This has lead to many trials and errors when it comes to cooking the Chinese way. Having grown up in a home where Southern foods were the main cuisine, it was a steep learning curve to prepare a simple bowl of rice.

But I've learned a lot in the past couple of months. I've learned that the combination of ginger, garlic and spring onion tastes great and has been flavors I had loved from Chinese restaurants for years, but never realized what they were. I also learned a few different methods when it came to cooking stir fry. While I still make mistakes, and while I'm still experimenting with recipes, I have learned a handful of techniques and items of interest when it comes to basic Chinese cooking.

A Chinese stir fry can be a very healthy meal. When people hear "fry" some automatically think of those deep fried breaded wonders of delight we usually try to avoid if eating healthy. However, a stir fry can be done in very little oil, using healthy oils like canola. Most Chinese stir fry recipes include heavy rice and vegetable usage, with very little meat added as flavor, not as a main course. Skipping the meat altogether happens a lot. Broccoli raw? The Chinese don't often eat raw veggies, but instead prefer to cook it, even if in a brief stir fry.

Here's a basic stir fry recipe:

Ingredients

3 tablespoons canola oil
3 spring onions, chopped
1 tablespoon garlic
1 tablespoon ginger
1 cup broccoli (pre-boiled or steamed)
1 1/2 cups cooked rice

Directions

1. Heat Heat a nonstick skillet or wok over medium high to high heat.
2. Add oil and heat. Add the onions, garlic and ginger, stir fry for 30 seconds. You'll be able to 'smell' the release of flavors from the ingredients.
3. Drop in the broccoli. Stir fry for a few minutes.
4. Add Add the rice, stir fry for two to three minutes.

It's a simple recipe, and inexpensive and can be served as a main dish. Already prepared stir fry sauces can be purchased or pre-made at home to add extra flavors, but often they aren't needed.

Exchanging vegetables or adding bits of chicken, pork or beef, is completely optional. Stir fry is so versatile, that it can be a great way to use up leftover ingredients. Budget friendly? Incredibly so!

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Calissa Leigh is a geeky girl who loves healthy cooking, building robots and talking tech.

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