With holiday plans all around us, it can sometimes be difficult to think about what we're eating in the days right before a big holiday celebration. It can be easy to feel like you have a refrigerator and pantry packed with food and nothing to eat! Do you end up calling for take out or eating odd combinations of mismatched food as to not spoil the upcoming feast?
When we head to our parents house for Thanksgiving dinner, we're always there a few days in advance to help out with things. Breakfast and lunch preparations can end up being more on the, how shall we say creative side of things as most the food packed into the refrigerator is already designated for another meal or snack.
To help out other family members home for the holidays, try keeping a list on your refrigerator stating what items are for what meals or plans. No one wants to be the culprit for eating the last of a certain ingredient, making someone else brave the crowds and head to the store.
What do you end up eating right before a big meal? Do you raid the stash of tuna cans in the back of your pantry? Or boil up a quick pasta? Or go the opposite route and order in? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Related: What Do You Eat When You Come Back from Vacation?
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Comments (21)
My parents are coming, so we are apparently having a pork roast on Wednesday night. I think it's crazy, but my mom says it will give my dad something to do. If it were up to me, we would have a spicy vegetable curry to balance out the rich food of Thanksgiving!
This week it has and will be about eating a little more on the lighter side (salmon and lentils last night, omelette/eggs on wednesday) and leftovers tonight (chili) to use up the food in the fridge and freezer; thereby making room for even more leftovers!
We'll be at our families' homes so we made a crisper-drawer clearing soup - wanted to free up the fridge to make room for the leftovers we get to snag!
I usually have trouble deciding what to have for breakfast the morning of a holiday gathering... but by the time I get hungry it's time to start cooking and I just snack as we go along!
I'm not having Thanksgiving at my house, so I don't have the usual overstocked fridge problems. But to be honest, for the last two nights I've been eating on this curried pumpkin soup at http://appetiteforconversation.blogspot.com/2009/11/different-take-on-pumpkin.html. I'm definitely going to have beta carotene overload before the week is over!
Cheeseburgers last night because Thanksgiving is about the only day every year when ground beef is NOT one of the top 100 food options!
We started our fridge cleansing last week; the initial efforts yielded a butternut squash kale casserole and vegetarian paprikash (click through if you want recipes). Then there was a little out-of-town detour, and now we're back with a handful of light recipes for the next couple of nights: quinoa, rapini, peppers, mushrooms, leeks, couscous either have starred in a dish or are about to make an appearance before Thursday.
Funny you should mention it. Just had this discussion with DH this morning - do we have anything for dinner tonight in our full fridge or are we doing take out? Turns out we'll be sharing 1 piece of baked ziti, the last serving of sweet potatoes w/ chipotle, plenty of broccoli, & the last serving of lentil soup. So, yes, we are clearly going the odd combo route.
Whenever I'll soon be out of town, it always strikes me much too late that my fridge is brimming with produce.
Usually I end up with a vat of "whatever's in the fridge" soup, but last week's enthusiasm for avocados and baby romaine has led to a lot of salad this week -- a lot.
At least I'm storing up some healthy food karma for Thursday. If my math is right, five days of salads for lunch and dinner means five servings of everything on Thursday.
We travel and so like everyone else, we just clean out the fridge. Last night we really got down to the dregs--I caramelized some onion and garlic, added some carrots, and then some red cabbage and cooked down while boiling spaghetti. A good douse of nice olive oil, lots of pepper, and the teeny bit of feta left in the fridge cleaned out every last drop of perishables from our apt. before we leave. I thought the pasta would be weird, but it was actually very nice.
I made a big pot of broccoli soup that I've been eating for lunch, and will probably make a homemade pizza for dinner. It's very tempting to do carryout, but those meals tend to be filling and I want to be hungry on Thursday!
made a big pot of french onion soup and have been eating that day in and day out for 3 days. My pores are probably leaking the stuff, but i dont want to make anything until the weekend.
Like others here, we're eating soup, and lots of it. In our case, a kind of Spanish/Portuguese soup with smoked paprika, smoked sausage and kale. No particular reason. We just like it.
Ha, me too on the soups. Also sandwiches. Last night was roast beef with lots of horseradish.
We have a tradition of going out for sushi the night before Thanksgiving.
I am usually either cooking at my house or at the homes of friends or family. One year, I was cooking with one of my oldest friends, and her mom made us poached eggs and black forest ham on toast. It has become my Thanksgiving Eve meal. We always have bread and eggs on hand, so it is just a matter of provisioning the ham. If I don't feel like meat, I add a slice of cheddar instead. Sigh....loking forward to it tomorrow night!
We just ate frozen Chicken Pot pies for dinner (comfort food from my childhood). A good excuse to have a not so healthy dinner for a change. Multi-tasked the oven with Thanksgiving app prep (Thomas Keller salmon cornets).
Tomorrow's dinner is a quickie pizza thrown together with pre-made pizza dough. As the counter will already be full of flour for the potato roll prep and the oven will be hot from pies, it's a good easy solution to dinner.
Being Korean-American, the week of Thanksgiving includes visits to my non-Asian in-laws and eating lots of non-Asian food. The day before Thanksgiving, my taste buds need a good kick in the you-know-what. In years past, my husband and I have gotten Indian food. But tomorrow, to mix things up this year, we're going for Japanese ramen and sushi and then to my parents for a good Korean home-cooked meal. Can't wait!
I had absolutely nothing in my fridge that I could bring to work for lunch today because it's all Thanksgiving stuff - so I brought a container of froot loops, two clementines, yogurt, and a hard-boiled egg.
we've been being a bit creative--pasta monday night, "poor man's tomato soup" last night--but tonight i need to make stuffing for a turkey and have a standing dinner date with friends, so pizza it is! i rarely do takeout, so i don't feel too bad about it. plus, i'm going to be cooking all day tomorrow, so it's not like i'm just being lazy! maybe next year i'll be more ambitious. then again, maybe next year i won't be the one hosting! =)
It's been frozen dinners all week at my house - very busy work plus prepping the house for 18 guests = no time left for cooking...
SALAD! Between now and the end of the year, I plan on over-indulging. I also anticipate the results of said gluttony, so it makes me feel slightly better to eat salads before the holler-days kick into full force ...