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After you’ve done it a few times, hosting Thanksgiving in a relatively small family is no big deal. As long as you have a big enough kitchen. It’s a good thing we’ve got a second fridge out in the garage though because I’ve gone overboard — AGAIN.
It’s very nearly the same menu every year and with a small family you’d think, who needs a spreadsheet? But, this is what my job does to me. I had a binder for my wedding and we’ve got a spreadsheet for Thanksgiving with 7 people. Mine is nothing as advanced as the one above from the folks at Instructables – for one thing I’m no ace when it comes to spreadsheets. But the shopping list compiled from the ingredient list for each recipe makes the shopping easy. And for a small family, we do a lot of dishes – turkey, bread stuffing, yams, corn pudding, green beans amandine, cranberry conserve, jellied cranberry and mashed potatoes, and a big batch of Chex Mix. So you need a spreadsheet to tell you how big a bag of almonds to buy and so you don’t forget the details like garlic powder and onion powder for the Chex Mix because inevitably it has turned into a rock inside the jar since the last time you made Chex Mix.
