Episode 041 - How to Reduce Thanksgiving Stress

In episode 041, we talk about what we have planned on the podcast for the Thanksgiving season. We will help you to reduce stress when it comes to shopping for and cooking the meal.

🛒 Transcript

Happy November everyone!

This entire month on the podcast we will be talking about Thanksgiving. We have lots of great episodes coming your way.

One of the things I like to focus on is reducing stress for Thanksgiving from the shopping to the cooking. That's what I hope the episodes we will be publishing this month will do.

Some of the topics we will be covering include:

How Far in Advance to Buy a Turkey
How Sous Vide Cooking Can Save Your Thanksgiving
How Much Does a Turkey Cost
What Can You Make Ahead for Thanksgiving
How to Keep Gravy Warm
How to Make Mashed Potatoes with the Instant Pot
How to Quickly Thaw a Turkey
How to Know When a Pumpkin Pie is Done

When it comes to shopping for Thanksgiving dinner, I believe that it all comes down to knowing when to buy the food. How early can you buy a turkey? How early can you pick up your potatoes or cranberries? At the same time you want to take advantage of the sales that come up the week or so before Thanksgiving.

A couple Thanksgivings ago, I created a Low Stress Thanksgiving Shopping Guide. It's a downloadable PDF file. Let me talk about how this guide can be helpful to you.

Cut down on trips to the stores.
Avoid spending time in busy lines.
Have the best selection of ingredients.
Know exactly how far in advance you can pick up ingredients.
Be organized before you head into the store
Spend less time shopping and more time to cook the meal.
Be inspired to make the best Thanksgiving meal you ever have.\

What is in the guide?

Tips on shopping for the most common ingredients for the Thanksgiving meal
A breakdown of how early you can purchase food for the meal, including the turkey.
Turkey term explanation and ideas for specialty produce items to try.
4 different types of printable shopping lists to best fit your needs.

In years past, I have been selling this guide, but this year, I want to offer it up for free for anyone that wants it. If you subscribe to this podcast in any of the podcast players like Apple, Google, Amazon Music, or Spotify, you then just need to send me a message on IG @eatshopwastenot or email me at [email protected] and I will send you the guide for FREE!

Once you have the shopping thing down, then it's time to figure out how to make the meal making process itself less stressful. I believe that comes down to good planning. Figuring out what things you can make or prepare before Thanksgiving and when it's Thanksgiving Day, what are you using to cook the meal. I think relying on the oven for everything is where people start getting stressed. Thanksgiving is great time to use your other appliances, like the Instant Pot, Sous Vide machine, slow cooker, air fryer, etc.

I have several posts on the blog that will help you with those things such as making mac & cheese in the Instant Pot or gravy in a slow cooker. Make sure to listen to all the episodes we will be posting throughout November.

If there is anything that you are feeling stressed about whether it's buying the food or planning the meal, please reach out to me. Best way to do that would be to follow the podcast on Instagram @eatshopwastenot and send me a direct message or you can email me at [email protected]

Thanks everyone for listening today and I hope your meal this year will be the best yet!

👀 Check out our Thanksgiving Troubleshooting page