How A Kitchen Hack Does Thanksgiving Dinner

With Thanksgiving less than a week away, have you made your menu plans yet?

I love cooking and I’m brilliant at it! So of course I have… 

Umm… Correction. I love to eat. I’m a competent cook, but mostly, I’m a kitchen hack. So when Whole Foods offered a sample pre-cooked turkey dinner and all of the sides for a pre-Thanksgiving trial run, I was eager for the opportunity!

The Menu

We were sent an organic pre-cooked Diestel turkey– prepped, seasoned, and ready to pop in the oven. It took a little over an hour and half on 350 degrees to continue roasting the bird. It was a vast improvement over the four hours it took to roast my very first Thanksgiving turkey while living in London, but that a whole OTHER story…

The sides included: a surprisingly delicious field roast stuffed en croûte (a vegan option!), stuffed acorn squash, a spicy posole soup,  a savory mix of glazed sweet potatoes and figs, and a creamy, delicious broccoli cheddar potato gratin. 

With the exception of the  field roast stuffed en croûte, the side dishes arrived in oven-ready trays and took an additional 20 minutes from fridge to table. So simple!!!

The field roast stuffed en croûte took 45 minutes to bake at a higher temp and was, by far, my children’s favorite dish.

Rich grain meat seasoned with toasted hazelnuts and rosemary stuffed with sausage-style mixture of field roast cranberries, apples, and crystallized ginger wrapped in an en croûte vegan puff pastry.

With Whole Food’s Holiday Menu, I was able to get an impressive Thanksgiving dinner to my table…  on a busy school night… in just under two hours.

My secret to “homemade” pie

I have a well-established history of burning pies. Just ask my friend, Valerie (@DomesticValerie ) from Suburban Bites who so lovingly made me a flaky, buttery peach pie to bake at home over the summer…

All I had to do was put it in the oven for a set amount of time. Let’s just say, it’s so sad that we’ve never spoken about it again. (Nor, has she made me another pie…) This is my burn-proof method of making a perfect Thanksgiving pie…

A Perfect Pumpkin Pie from Whole Foods

The Finishing Touch

Don’t forget to grab a bottle of wine and holiday flowers to complete your holiday table!

Pacific Rim Riesling 

Good moms cook from scratch, but smart moms outsource.

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Whole Foods Market has a variety of delicious food and pre-cooked menu options to make entertaining this Holiday Season a breeze! There are plenty of new items from goose, vegan and super healthy to traditional favorites.  If you’re in the Bay Area, check out Whole Food Market’s Regional Twitter Handle, @WFMNorCal and Microsite, Holiday Worth Sharing.

Follow them on Twitter and tag #WholeForTheHolidays for a chance to a win a turkey dinner!  There will be one winner a week.

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Disclosure: Whole Food Market provide my family and I with a lovely Thanksgiving dinner to get a flavor of the new offering from their 2011 Holiday Menu, which we thoroughly enjoyed! I was not otherwise compensated. The thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are my own and do not reflect those of Whole Foods Market.

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