HANCOCK COUNTY — As the owner of Homeplace Catering in Greenfield, Joyce Holmes excels at cooking for a big crowd. Since her mom passed away 10 years ago, she’s prepared an elaborate Thanksgiving Day spread each year for roughly 45 family members.
This year, however, she’s only cooking for her immediate family of 10.
While the threat of COVID-19 is keeping her extended family apart this Thanksgiving, Holmes is focusing on cooking up smaller batches of holiday favorites this year, or even delivering full meals to people’s homes.
While she hasn’t yet booked any catering jobs for next Thursday, she has prepared and delivered entire Thanksgiving Day spreads to customers in years past.
Ordering a complete holiday dinner from a caterer or restaurant isn’t such a bad idea for those who want to avoid the hard work and mess of cooking themselves, said Holmes, especially in a year when some people might be cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the first time.
For those inexperienced chefs who opt to prepare the holiday meal on their own, Holmes encourages them to keep it simple and to focus on the holiday itself, rather than creating a picture-perfect spread.
Instant mashed potatoes and boxed stuffing can eliminate a lot of the work, she said, and simple sides can easily be tweaked to make them taste more homemade and unique.
Consider adding some cooked sausage, celery and cream of mushroom soup to a batch of boxed stuffing, or blend in some sour cream and shredded cheese to give instant mashed potatoes some extra pop, she suggested.
As for the main course, be sure to buy your turkey way ahead of time, since stores often run low on supplies, she said. “I typically take my turkey out of the freezer on the Monday before Thanksgiving and let it sit in the fridge all week to thaw,” she said.
Nobody wants to deal with a frozen bird on Thanksgiving morning, said Holmes, whose go-to method for cooking turkey is in an oven bag to keep it moist.
Shannon Swindell, a 35-year-old mother of three in Wilkinson, also has a few tricks to creating the perfect Thanksgiving Day feast.
As a member of the Hancock County Extension Homemakers, she’s part of a group of community-minded women who also know their way around a kitchen.
While she has a number of go-to recipes she likes to use at the holidays, she’s also a fan of Googling for new ideas.
“If I don’t know how to prepare something, I read up on it and check out several recipes, or sometimes I just go with the flow. Just be confident in what you’re going to make,” she said.
Even the main course doesn’t have to be complicated. “You can even buy a pre-packaged turkey breast with no bones, or you might completely forgo turkey for ham, or try roasted potatoes instead of mashed. Not everything has to be traditional, so long as you enjoy it,” Swindell said.
Researching recipes online helped her discover a new method for cooking turkey this year — “spatchcocking” — which is essentially deboning and butterflying a whole turkey so that it cooks more quickly and evenly.
Prepackaged foods are also great for side dishes and desserts, said Swindell, whose family is a big fan of refrigerated crescent rolls.
While time is quickly running out to finish up Thanksgiving grocery shopping, she suggests getting supplies gathered up as soon as possible. Curbside pickup is a quick and convenient way to pick up everything on your list, provided you order soon enough, she said.
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“If I don’t know how to prepare something, I read up on it and check out several recipes, or sometimes I just go with the flow. Just be confident in what you’re going to make.”
–Shannon Swindell, Hancock County Extension Homemakers
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