The Penn Foster catering course has taught me many things
but the one thing that it all starts with is the menu. Most people take their
Thanksgiving Day menu for granted, turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed
potatoes, gravy, veggies… it’s all pretty traditional, but we all have our own
ways of making these dishes whether it’s to open a can of jellied cranberry
sauce or open a bag of whole cranberries and make it from scratch. Regardless
of what you’re serving on that important day, you must, MUST, MUST start with a
menu.
How many times have you been in the middle of making your
holiday meal and then realized that you were missing an ingredient? At that
point you’re praying that your local grocery store is still open and you either
send someone there for you, or you make the trip yourself. Either way you’re
wasting valuable time.
Creating your menu gives you the opportunity to make a list
of needed ingredients. You are able to check your pantry to see if you have
what you need, and make a grocery list for the items you’re in need of. This
will prevent you from the last minute run to the store, or scrapping your dish
because you didn’t have everything you needed.
Trust me on this one, your menu is your key to success. You
can even print one up and post it in your kitchen to prevent unwanted visitors
from asking the yearly question, “Whatcha was cookin’?”