Catfish Out of Water

The holidays are always a busy time for work. Thanksgiving might only be the beginning of the holiday feasts. Although no one wants to cook before they're about to cook for the whole family. That compounded with pre-black Friday and holiday shopping? Means that everyone still has the money to splurge. The day before Thanksgiving is statistically one of the busiest, if not the busiest, day of the culinary year. Most places you're going to get the actual day off. Maybe two, if you're lucky. But it marks the first day of an awfully busy couple of months! Only ended by the New Year's resolutions not to eat quite so much cheese. Forgotten by Valentine's Day. Hence, the Lackadaisical Thanksgiving that I'm going with today.

What to Make for Lackadaisical Thanksgiving?

This year, I went for a classic Thanksgiving menu. I usually do either Thanksgiving or Christmas as something a little more out of the box. Although this year I'm in full on classic lasagna and zinfandel trifle mode. I also tens to watch a lot of lentils during the wintery season. Which go just as well with spinach and, of course, mashed potatoes. Which absolutely no holiday meal would be without! I also opted for homemade bread because that's also a holiday staple and chèvre with cranberries.

The Lackadaisical Menu

For this year's Lackadaisical Thanksgiving:

• No-knead Dutch Oven Bread
• Mashed Potatoes
• Lasagna w/ Mashed Potatoes, Spinach, & Fresh Mozzarella
• Lentils w/ Sweet Potato, Spinach, Ginger, & Garlic
• Trifle w/ Raspberries, Red Zinfandel, & Whipped Cream

Gallery

How to Get All of the Dishes Out at the Same Time

The fun thing about this meal is that almost everything can be made ahead of time. All of these dishes both keep and reheat well.

Dishes to Prepare Ahead of Time

Not all of these dishes needed to be made at the same time! I absolutely could have made the trifle the night before. If I had more time and foresight, that would have been a good idea. Although what are the holidays for if not frantically getting everything together all at once? It's part of the fun! I would recommend making desserts ahead of time.

Lasagnas are a great dish to assemble the night before. I do this when I'm not hosting and am bringing a lasagna. You can either assemble the dish and cook it when you get there or partially cook it. Par baking lasagna is actually a great restaurant trick that most people don't know about. No restaurant is making lasagna to order (they take an hour to cook!). So, they're cooked about 3/4 of the way and then just roasted in the oven the rest of the way to serve.

Mashed potatoes are also a great dish to make the day or two before. Since they're going to be in both the lasagna and on the side, they'll need to be reheated, anyway. So, either make them beforehand or make them pretty quickly on the day of.

I routinely reheat lentils if you want to make them ahead of time. And the trifle is refrigerated, so feel free to make that whenever as well.

Dishes to Cook on the Day Of

The first thing that you have to do is start the bread. I started this too soon in the day and it was a little bit over proofed. You really only need to start it about 3 hours ahead of time. Although you can make it beforehand if you don't have enough room in the oven for everything. I did bake it about an hour before I cooked the lasagna. If you do cook them at the same time, though, use the 450 degrees Fahrenheit for the bread. The exact temperature of the lasagna is less important than bread. You can cook the bread and the lasagna at the same time. Just cover the edges if it browns too quickly on the top. It's not a great idea to open the oven while bread is cooking, but the Dutch oven within the oven does help shield against temperature loss if you have to quickly pull the lasagna in and out.

The next most important thing to make is the mashed potatoes because they're doing double duty here. You do need to make sure that you make them before the lasagna because they're also going to be in the lasagna. So, after I got the bread proofing, I started cooking a big bushel of Yukon gold potatoes. Half for the lasagna and half because it's almost not a holiday without mashed potatoes. Half that will need to be reheated when you're ready for dinner. Because of this, mashed potatoes are also an easy dish to do the day or two before!

Oven Times

If you want to do them at the same time, start the bread proofing and make the mashed potatoes right away. The zinfandel has a 1 hour cool time, so get that started as well. Then, go on to assemble the lasagna and get the lentils ready to go. Put the bread, lasagna, and lentils in the oven/rice cooker at the same time. They should all be ready within 45-60 minutes, so starting them at the same time is just fine. And then assemble the trifle while the rest of the dishes are cooking.

Cooking Times

• Bread: 3 hours, 15 minutes (45 minutes in the oven 450 degrees Fahrenheit)
• Mashed Potatoes: 30 minutes (15 minutes on the stove)
• Lasagna: 1 hour, 45 minutes (45-60 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit)
• Lentils: 50 minutes (45 minutes in the rice cooker)
• Trifle: 1 hour, 40 minutes (20 minutes on the stove)

Conclusion About the Meal

Overall, this was a great, relatively classic Thanksgiving. I'm an over the top person, so don't be intimidated by the lengths that I'll go to to barely feed anyone more than myself. Especially during the busiest time of the year for work and not having any additional days off this year (I always have Thursdays off and was then back to work on Friday!) Although the chaos of doing everything all at once is mitigated slightly be good timing and a couple glasses of Zinfandel. That will honestly probably still be on my counter if I don't drink it today! Because I don't ordinarily drink red wine and will forget that it's there.

This Page Contains Edited Images

As a general rule, I don't like to edit images. Food styling, editing, alteration, and even faking entirely is just as rampant a problem in the recipe realm. Cooking is a very visual art and you can tell when a lot of foods are cooked based on the color. So, when this is altered and you can't use the coloration as a gauge, it makes it quite difficult to follow some recipes. I have an entire article about Food Styling and Unrealistic Expectations of Recipes. My place has very warm lighting, though. So, sometimes my camera overcompensates and ends up with an unnatural hues. I've adjusted the hues, levels, and/or cropped the following images: