The Joys of Being a Yesterday Person

The holidays are quickly approaching. Yikes! I never feel ready even when I have almost 4 weeks before Thanksgiving! What is wrong with me, you might ask? I am just a yesterday person. An intense personality that will always do things ahead if I can. I would sleep 16 hours in one night just so I would not have to go to sleep for the week. Just think of everything that I could get done with my sleep requirement out of the way.

I must get this trait from my mother who will make a salad 3 days in advance with dressing, I might add, and wonder why no one ate the macerated mush and then gave her any compliments. Well, you will be happy to know that I am not THAT bad.

I will, however, make all my pie crust dough and freeze it ahead. This can be done up to 3 months in advance. That’s productive because all you have to do is thaw the dough in the fridge, and roll out your crusts as you bake your pies off.

I have also been known to bake bread and freeze that ahead as well. I strongly suggest that you do that and then just re-heat the bread before you are ready to serve it on the big day, whatever big day that is. Be sure that you wrap any bread really well before freezing it. I usually do it in this order, for the best results: bake, cool to room temperature, wrap in plastic wrap, then foil AND then place in a large freezer bag and seal getting as much of the air out as possible. Always label whatever you are freezing. No one likes searching through the freezer looking for an unlabeled item with no name and no date showing when it was made. Everyone always has a story of an item that they found the following year way back in the freezer, dug it out and wondered what the heck it originally was. We have ALL been there!

So all you yesterday  people start your engines, and when you have an hour or two to kill start baking off cookies or just cookie dough. You will feel that much more in control when the family comes to visit, and they will think that you worked for days and days. And maybe you did, but you did it piecemeal and on your own time.

Never feel guilty about making things ahead, except maybe for that salad!

Happy Baking!

Chef Gail