Setting a Gold-Star Holiday Table

While the main focus of Thanksgiving is spending quality time with family and loved ones over a delicious meal, the experience can be made even more fun with seasonal decorations. We’re big fans of personal touches for any event because they tend to add a splash of personality and interest. Plus, personal touches and decorations are often great conversation starters.

There are countless ways to enhance your Thanksgiving table and decor around your home. Oftentimes when people think of decorations or table settings for Thanksgiving they automatically think it’s a stuffy or formal gathering, but there are definitely some more casual ways to dress up the table. If you’re not a confident crafter, many craft shops sell kits with pre-cut leaves and seasonal shapes to make garlands, place cards, and other fun pieces. Garlands can be draped around the edges of tables and wooden or paper leaves and flowers can be scattered around the table to add some additional color to the spread.

To start a great conversation, you can put “I am thankful for” cards at everyone’s place setting. These can be found at most craft stores this time of year or you can always quickly design your own and decorate them. This could also be a great task for kids if you want to keep them busy! Each guest can fill out what they’re thankful for and you can go around the table and read them aloud, or if you want to spice things up a bit, you can put them in a box and guests can guess who wrote each card.

If you want to bypass the traditional tablecloth and linens and do something a little more rugged or natural, you could purchase several yards of burlap from a fabric store, which is very on trend this fall, and drape it over the table. Kraft paper is often sold by the roll and makes a great table cover as well. The effortless look and feel of it is most likely why craft stores can’t keep it in stock these days… it’s another popular product this season! Plus, it’s extremely inexpensive and you can toss it after dinner which makes for an easy cleanup and you won’t feel guilty if it gets dirty. For more decorating and table-setting tips, check out Butterball.com.

Regardless of the type of Thanksgiving you host, whether it be a fancy gathering or a casual laid back open-house style dinner, take the opportunity to let your personality shine through your table!

12 Thanksgiving Pinterest Recipes We Love

By now, most of us have heard of Pinterest – a great way to organize and share all the things you love! It is a social media frenzy in the best possible way! It allows us to dream and lose ourselves in this amazing content. Why do I love Pinterest? The recipes of course! With Thanksgiving right around the corner, there is no better site out there to feed your inner chef!

While looking at recipes on Pinterest, memories began to flood my mind about the holidays. My daughter is 11, and she went to culinary school this summer. She comes from a line of cooks so I figured she was never too young to begin getting a handle on this cooking stuff!  I asked my daughter to start thinking about something that she would like to make this year. So, we went to Pinterest to pick something out! Every year she likes to take something to school to pass out for the holiday. The chocolate sandwich cookie turkey won hands down. How cute are these cookies?! Truth be told, I’ll probably bring them to the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line® to share with the experts too!

Thanksgiving is the perfect beginning to culinary success. A recipe, as I have told her, is so easy to follow. While on Pinterest I discovered so many wonderful recipes that I want to share at our Thanksgiving table this year. Here are my 12 top picks:

• Turkey with 7-grain bread and Squash Stuffing
• Parmesan Roasted Green Beans
• Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
• Pumpkin Pie Milkshakes
• Thanksgiving Cocktail Recipes
• Pumpkin Pear Crisps
• Caesar Salad Cups
• Blooming Onion Bread
• Apple Cinnamon Butternut Squash Soup
• Pumpkin Maple Cupcakes
• Pumpkin Gravy
• Green Bean Casserole

And don’t forget all of our amazing recipes on Butterball’s Pinterest page, our new Butterball Cookbook Plus™ App and Butterball.com. Every year we add many new recipes, tips and ideas. One is soon to become a staple and a favorite in your home.

So hopefully this got the wheels rolling and the imagination flowing! Spend some time on Pinterest this holiday season – the visuals alone will motivate you to try something new! But beware, you can spend hours and hours on it forgetting all about time…but what’s wrong with that?

What is your favorite Pinterest recipe?

T-Minus 3 Days: Tips to Make Sure Your Meal Goes Off Without a Hitch

Three days until Thanksgiving. No, calm down, there is no reason to panic. You’ve got this.

Is your turkey safely thawing in the refrigerator? Your turkey should be sitting in a shallow pan in the lowest possible portion of your refrigerator.

Always wash your hands after handling your Butterball turkey, even when your turkey is still in its easy open packaging. Tiny pin holes make opening the turkey package a snap so just play it safe and wash your hands. Additionally, sanitize any food preparation surfaces that come into contact with the turkey, too.

For more great turkey thawing and safe handling tips and ideas check out Butterball’s Turkey 101.

The finish line is in sight, let’s just make sure we haven’t forgotten anything important.

Have your guests confirmed?

You didn’t leave off anyone important, did you? You don’t want crazy Uncle Phil cutting you out of the will because of a simple oversight. You know how he can hold a grudge.

Do you have enough table settings for your guests?

Yes, disposable counts.

Your menu has been completely planned, right? You’re ready for your Golden Thanksgiving, right?

What? No?

If you’re an iPhone®, iPad®, or iPod touch® owner, you may want to download the Butterball Cookbook Plus™ App from the App Store℠ (as a bonus it will sync between multiple devices). It has cool things that I loved, like voice commands, so you don’t have to try to explain to someone else to proceed to the next screen when your hands are all covered in flour or turkey goo. (Yes, that IS the technical term). The Butterball Cookbook Plus App has:

*Hundreds of Butterball recipes

*Voice command

*Prepare mode

*Useful kitchen tools

*iCloud® recipe and shopping list sharing between devices using the same Apple ID

*Shopping lists

*And the ability to add your own recipes

What about serving dishes?

If you’re serving buffet style, serving dishes aren’t as critical as when you are serving family style. What’s the difference you ask? With buffet service, all of the serving dishes remain stationary and Hefty EZ Foil disposable pans work wonderfully. If you plan on passing dishes around the table, it’s important to have actual dishes that won’t bend and leave Great Aunt Beatrice with a lap full of sweet potatoes. Do you really want to help Great Aunt Beatrice clean herself up when there is a golden, delicious Butterball turkey to eat? I didn’t think so.

Do you have plenty of Reynolds Wrap Aluminum Foil on hand to tent the turkey and use while baking as well as send your guests home with leftovers?

Post-turkey dinner clean-up will never be a treat, but lining baking dishes with foil can prevent struggling with baked on mess while fighting off that post-turkey dinner nap. Additionally, if you have room in the refrigerator, you can cover and store leftovers immediately. Worry about transferring them into smaller containers after the bulk of the mess has been cleaned up — unless you have an army of willing volunteers, of course. If you have helping hands, by all means, take full advantage.

Did you check and make sure you have a dish for each menu item?

This is rather important because not all stores are open on Thanksgiving, and if we all do our part to make sure we’re not running out for forgotten items, fewer stores will be open on the holiday and more people can be home with their families. Can you say winning?

Have you thought out your cooking time table?

Coordinating a large meal takes planning. Even experienced professional chefs sit down and think through these things (granted with practice it can become second nature for some). What time will you serve dinner? Subtract 30 minutes from this time and an additional 10 minutes carving time and calculate how long your turkey needs to cook, depending on your cooking method. The turkey needs to go into the oven: serving time – carving time – resting time – cooking time. Got it? Good.

Know what’s cool?

You don’t have to subtract time for unwrapping the turkey or finding the scissors or running to the ER because you slipped and cut yourself with the knife that you shouldn’t have been using to open the turkey in the first place with Butterball’s easy open packaging.

And remember Butterball is there to help, if you have any questions about cooking your turkey, the fine folks at the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line® are waiting to help.  1-800-BUTTERBALL (1-800-288-8372)

*Please note that the characters depicted in this blog post were chosen for comedic effect. Your uncle Phil may not be crazy and your Great Aunt Beatrice may be a real firecracker who is perfectly capable of cleaning up a sweet potato disaster; any resemblance to any actual person living or dead is purely coincidental.*

Simple Steps for Sweetness: Easy No Bake Pumpkin Pie

When it comes to Thanksgiving dinner, there’s a lot to remember. If you’re entertaining for a crowd, you’ll likely be spending lots of time in the kitchen trying to coordinate all your dishes to make certain you have enough time to prepare them and that they can all cook at the appropriate temperatures and be done at the right time. That’s one of the reasons we’re so excited about this easy no bake pumpkin pie. It’s no bake, so it doesn’t take any of your precious oven space or time! And because it’s incredibly easy, you can make it in minutes, pop it in the fridge to chill, and carry on with the other important things… like the turkey!

Make sure you prepare the pie ahead of time, as it needs at least 3 hours to chill in the fridge. We love that this can be made up to a day ahead, meaning you don’t even have to think about it come Thanksgiving Day! When you are ready to serve the pie, slice and top each piece with some whipped cream and a little sprinkle of cinnamon. Your guests will be impressed you actually had time to make the perfect pumpkin pie and will likely not even realize you didn’t bake it. It looks and tastes just like a pie you spent hours laboring over.

Traditional pumpkin pie in minutes with no oven time or complicated crust-making? That just means you can spend more time tending to your turkey and spending time with your guests. We’re in!

Prep Time:          20 minutes

Total Time:          3 hours 20 minutes

Makes:               10 servings

Ingredients:

*1 envelope unflavored gelatin
*1/3 cup water
*1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin
*1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
*1-1/2 teaspoons Libby’s pumpkin pie spice
*2 cups whipped cream
*1 large graham cracker pie crust (10-inch, 9 ounces)
*Whipped cream for garnish, optional

Directions:

1. Sprinkle gelatin over water in small saucepan; let stand 1 minute. Cook and stir over low heat until gelatin dissolves.
2. Combine pumpkin, milk and pumpkin pie spice in large bowl with wire whisk until well blended. Stir in gelatin mixture. Let cool 10 minutes. Gently stir in 2 cups whipped cream until combined.
3. Pour mixture into crust. Chill at least 3 hours, or until set.
4. Cut pie into 10 slices. Top each slice with a serving of whipped cream, just before serving.

Note: A 9-inch pie crust may be substituted if desired. Crust will be very full.

Tips and Ideas:

*For a festive touch, sprinkle whipped cream garnish with cinnamon if desired.
*This creamy pie almost has the texture of baked pumpkin pie, without all the time and fuss.
*Pie may be prepared up to a day ahead.

Get the Family Involved: Printable Thanksgiving Chore Chart and Turkey Craft Ideas

I may be a young[ish] mother, but I’d like to think I have Thanksgiving preparation down to a science. Maybe I’m a little OCD, but I find having a printable Thanksgiving chore chart or schedule can make life a lot easier.

Creating your own Thanksgiving printable chore chart isn’t too hard. All you have to do is create a document in a program like Word and then save as a .pdf, then print. If that’s too difficult, no worries, Butterball has a Thanksgiving chore chart ready for you.

Having the printable Thanksgiving checklist is one thing, but remember to actually follow through to have the smoothest, Golden Thanksgiving ever.

Every cook is different. Some, like me, generally don’t mind having children help out in the kitchen. Generally, I give them simple chores like tearing collard greens or running out to the compost pile with vegetable scraps. Letting children help is a great way to allow them to feel a sense of pride and ownership in the Thanksgiving Day meal. This generally means a few less arguments about what they want to eat from the selection. If you’re super patient, kids can use cookie cutters to cut out shapes from pie crust to use instead of a traditional lattice top for an extra fancy apple pie. Please note, I’m not that patient. . .

However, if there are a lot of kids, only a small space, or a shortage of patience, having Thanksgiving Day crafts ready will keep little hands out of the way. Older kids can be persuaded into heading up the Thanksgiving Day craft festivities.

Here are a few great suggestions:

*Kaboose.com – cute Hands and Feet Turkey crafts

*Turkey Favors –  this would be for older, coordinated kids, not the pre-school set

*TipJunkie.com –  a list of 50 Thanksgiving crafts and activities for kids

*Martha Stewart  –  she won’t let you down as she has a ton of ideas for Thanksgiving crafts, just note that not all of them are kid-friendly (I’m looking at you shimmery corn ornaments)

*Tonya Staab  – a great round up of very kid-friendly Thanksgiving crafts

*Evolving Mommy – simple fall handprint wreath

*Blissfully Domestic – DIY centerpiece using dried beans

And of course, Pinterest won’t let you down, here are two fantastic boards to check out:

*Butterball’s Turkey Inspiration board has some cute ideas

*Thanksgiving Craft

*Thanksgiving Craft #2

Side Dishes That Will Shine: Broccoli and Cheese with Turkey Bacon and Golden Mashed Potatoes with Chives

While the standout course of Thanksgiving is always our Butterball turkeys, we of course look forward to the tasty side dishes, too. Being able to dip your fork full of turkey into delicious sides like creamy mashed potatoes and veggies is what it’s all about!

A lot of families tend to have their go-to tried-and-true side dishes that they turn to year after year. But there’s nothing wrong at all with adding new sides to your Thanksgiving repertoire. This year, if you’re looking to introduce a new vegetable to the mix try Broccoli and Cheese with Turkey Bacon. The Butterball® Turkey Bacon adds a hint of surprise and just the right amount of crunch to this dish! Or, if you’re looking to add an updated mashed potato, Golden Mashed Potatoes with Chives could be just what you’re looking for.

For other great recipes, check out Butterball’s Pinterest page for more inspiration!

Broccoli and Cheese with Turkey Bacon: broccoli in a turkey bacon-mustard cream cheese sauce, sprinkled with sunflower kernels

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Makes: 8 servings (about 1/2 cup each)

Ingredients

*6 cups fresh broccoli florets
*1/2 teaspoon salt
*4 ounces (1/2 of 8-ounce package) reduced-fat cream cheese cubed
*1/4 cup milk
*2 tablespoons spicy brown mustard
*4 strips Butterball Turkey Bacon, heated, chopped
*1/4 cup sunflower kernels, roasted & salted

Directions

1. Place broccoli, 1/2 cup water and salt in saucepan; cover. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer 8 minutes, or until crisp-tender. Drain and keep warm in a separate container.
2. Place cream cheese and milk in same saucepan over medium heat. Cook and stir until cheese is melted and sauce is smooth. Stir in mustard and turkey bacon; cook 1 minute.
3. Add broccoli; mix lightly. Spoon into serving dish; sprinkle with sunflower kernels. Serve immediately.

Golden Mashed Potatoes with Chives: russet potatoes mashed with a Midwest favorite, sharp Cheddar cheese, and fresh chives

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 22 minutes

Makes: 8 servings (about 1 cup each)

Ingredients

*2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
*1 1/2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
*2/3 cup half-and-half
*1/4 cup butter
*2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
*1/2 teaspoon salt
*1/8 teaspoon pepper
*handful of whole chives, if desired, for garnish

Directions

1. Place potatoes in large stockpot and cover with water. Bring to boil on medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, for 10 to 12 minutes or until tender when pierced with a fork. Drain potatoes, return to pot and heat on low until excess moisture has evaporated, about 1 to 2 minutes.
2. Add cheese, half-and-half and butter to the potatoes. Mash with potato masher until smooth. Stir in chopped chives, salt and pepper.
3. Transfer potatoes to a serving bowl and garnish with whole chives.

Celebrate Golden Thursday with Butterball: Cost-Savings, Tips and Recipes to Make the Holiday Memorable

We’ve always been Thanksgiving lovers, but this year, we’re especially excited for Golden Thursday! What’s Golden Thursday, you ask? Well, you know how Black Friday gets everyone amped up for Christmas and Hanukkah? That’s exactly what Golden Thursday does for Thanksgiving. It’s meant to get you totally prepared for the big day, so that when Thanksgiving rolls around, you can actually relax and enjoy yourself, instead of stressing out and rushing around.

So, how can you prepare for Golden Thursday on November 15? Instead of dusting off your sneakers like you do for Black Friday, you’ll want to download the Butterball Cookbook Plus™ app to your Apple device. The app will provide you with all kinds of Thanksgiving recipe tips that will ensure that you’re set for the perfect meal before Thanksgiving Day hits. You’ll also want to start really tuning into the Butterball Facebook page (though we seriously hope you’re already paying attention to it!). Today,  a week before Thanksgiving, they’ll be offering a very special Golden Thursday deal. And don’t forget to head to Butterball.com to start asking any questions you have. While, of course, the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line is open in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, we recommend getting your questions answered as soon as possible. You can also head to the Butterball Twitter page for this. If you’re following @Butterball, it’s likely you’ll see answers to questions you didn’t even know you had! If you still don’t have your menu set, head over to Butterball’s Pinterest page for some fabulous recipe inspiration.

We’re big fans of lists and recommend you get all your lists settled on Golden Thursday. Your menu should be set and you should know who’s bringing what. You should also know exactly what you need to do each day leading up to Thanksgiving and precisely what you need at the grocery store. In fact, Golden Thursday is the perfect day to start your shopping!

Another important list? One that lays out the 3 T’s of Thanksgiving and what you need to know. The 3 T’s are thawing, temperature, and two-hour rule. If you memorize these or at least have them written out and hanging on your fridge, Thanksgiving prep will be a snap for you. When it comes to thawing, make sure you allow one day of fridge thawing for every 4 pounds of turkey (turkey should be breast-side up on a pan in your fridge). Always remember that your turkey is done when the thermometer reads 180 degrees in the thigh and 170 in the breast. And if your turkey is stuffed, it should come in at 165 in the center of the stuffing. The third “T” to remember is the two-hour rule: always refrigerate your turkey within two hours of carving to prevent illness.

If you make sure to spend a little bit of time prepping for Thanksgiving dinner on Golden Thursday, you really will be “golden” come Thanksgiving!

The New Butterball Turkey Talk-Line Space

As the new Butterball Turkey Talk-Line season was starting, I was excited to come and see the newly remolded remodeled space – the Talk-Line was getting an update! When we were told it was undergoing some changes and would look different, they weren’t kidding! I arrived and the colors were bold and the changes were very high tech!

When I walked in the door I looked to the right and saw the first major change – the Butterball kitchen now has all new Frigidaire appliances and it was beautiful! We even have a double oven for cooking turkeys. Plus, even more space for our training new Talk-Line experts and recipe testing.

I then ventured to the left of the kitchen to see the large and newly re-done Butterball Turkey Talk-Line room. This is where all the magic happens! As I walked into the room it was modern, looked more culinary and ready for us to start helping Thanksgiving cooks. The desks were made out of beautiful wood all curved with deep pocket drawers to fit all of our belongings – very important for the turkey experts. In the corner of the room, highlighted by a wooden floor and large screen monitors hanging from the ceiling, is the brand new Social Media Center where our community managers and social media experts we’ll be helping cooks via emails, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and  Live Chats. We also have nice new flat screen TVs on the walls around the room, which highlight the most recent updates on our turkey information, recipes, images and much more.

The Butterball Turkey Talk-Line experts are now ready to talk turkey and help millions of cooks this Thanksgiving in our newly remodeled space!

Golden Thanksgiving Memories

As we head into this holiday season, it’s time to reflect on your golden memories of Thanksgiving. Butterball wants to know how you make your Thanksgiving Good as Gold – post your stories here or pin images on our Pinterest page.

How do you cook your turkey? Is your method a family tradition?

Growing up, my mother was very busy and didn’t have time to do a lot of cooking, but she always took pride in our Thanksgiving meal. I vividly remember waking up to the smell of celery and onions sauteing in butter. Sure, Coco Chanel will never bottle it, but whenever I cook anything that calls for Trinity (that’s Cajun mirepoix), I am instantly transported to those early Thanksgiving mornings, watching the parades while Mom began cooking for the day. She always oven roasted the biggest turkey she could find, so it had to go in the oven very early in the morning for our late afternoon feast.

Since there wasn’t always a lot of room in the oven and we didn’t have a big kitchen, some of her favorite side dishes were cold, like Waldorf Salad.

I like my side dishes, like I like my coffee. . . hot!

Which leads me to a confession: I’m a fried turkey fan.

Frying turkeys is a family tradition, it just wasn’t my family’s tradition. I’ve incorporated it into my own family’s celebration of Thanksgiving. I even enjoyed the Butterball Indoor Electric Turkey Fryer during Butterball University last year – easy, tastes great and uses less oil.

Later, in my young adulthood I was introduced to the fine art of turkey frying (Please remember to follow safety guidelines and recommendations if you choose to use this cooking method). I was dating a young man from Jacksonville, Florida and spent the holidays with his family. Since I’m incredibly socially awkward – read that as painfully shy – I spent the morning tagging along with his father who taught me the ins and outs of how to fry a turkey. That was a wonderful afternoon and one of the only ones I got to spend with him. Sure, his son and I eventually went our separate ways, but 16 years later I still smile and think of Daddy Hughes when I prep the turkey for its dip in the fryer.

Which brings me to the present day. . .

Since I’ve been writing my Countdown to Turkey Day series, I have learned that it is much easier to cook and photograph all of the  Thanksgiving recipes in one go. To keep this from being a dreaded afternoon, I have created a tradition of inviting friends over for the adventure. Everyone pitches in, my photography buddies all help by shooting pics throughout the day, and then, when all is said and done, we sit down and enjoy the fruits of our labor. My children are growing up to see Thanksgiving as a celebration, a reason to gather, work together, laugh, and then enjoy. How lucky are they to be blessed with two holidays!  I believe we have two families in this life, the ones we are given through biology and the ones we are blessed with through fate and happenstance. Treasure them both and share the holidays with those you love.

Before I began the pre-Turkey Day Tradition in my home, I would often celebrate Thanksgiving on a different date because of conflicting work schedules or because friends had familial obligations and couldn’t attend. Thanksgiving is a celebration of our blessings and while it technically has a specific date on the calendar, there is no reason you cannot celebrate on a day of your choosing, with those you most enjoy.

Early Bird Tips from a Butterball Turkey Talk-Line Expert

When a friend tells me – with a little bit of dread in their voice – that they will be hosting Thanksgiving, they invariably ask me to share some of my early-bird tips. They know I work that day at the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line and therefore I must have some secrets. These aren’t secrets but tips I have learned with more than my 20 years at the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line. I tell them to get organized by making a plan – be detailed, it will save time later – like the below:

*Compile a list of desired side dishes and shopping lists

*Write a guest list

*Decide where everyone will be seated so that the tables are set and you have enough chairs

*Determine your table decorations – do you need to add leaves to the table for a fall feel?

*Confirm what serving dishes and tablecloth you might use

I actually create two shopping lists. The first list is for pantry and non-perishable items which I can buy three weeks out. I always buy extra Reynolds Aluminum Foil, regular and Heavy Duty. I do not want to run out!  The second list is for one week out and is for items that need refrigeration, such as whipping cream and my fresh or frozen Butterball Turkey (they are all-natural and hormone and gluten-free!). This year my tip to friends is to watch for our Golden Thursday coupon on November 15^th on the Butterball Facebook page.

Also, check out our Turkey Calculator at Butterball.com to determine the amount to buy per person.  I always round up or buy a second Butterball Turkey to have plenty of leftovers. A cook once told me that she always roasts a Butterball Turkey the day before Thanksgiving. Her guests love to have leftovers to take home.

I always remind cooks that recipes and kitchen prep can be done ahead of time too. I will chop and sauté the celery and onion for my stuffing two to three days before Thanksgiving and refrigerate. Measuring out ingredients ahead of time is also big time saver.

These weekly and daily ‘to-do’ lists make life so much easier and I love being able to check off the ‘done’ items. With these early-bird tips, you really can enjoy special gatherings any time of the year.

Share your favorite early bird planning tips below!