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Show FARManJHOMEfii UTAH STATE EXTENSION SERVICE ACR1CULTURB HOME ECONOMirja By Mary Lois Reichert Home Demonstration Agent ADVANCE PREPARATIONS When you plan your holiday dinner, it's smart management to make a list of the foods that can be prepared ahead of the big day to save time, labor and confusion. When dinner is to be served at noon, it's especially especial-ly helpful to get as much of the meal as possible ready the day before. What and how much you can do in advance depends partly on the food and partly oh how much refrigeration space you have. For example, a time-consuming job like preparing stuffing stuff-ing is well worth doing the day before if there's room to keep the stuffing in the refrigerator. In contrast, cooking vegetables ahead of time doesn't pay because be-cause they lose quality in reheating re-heating and doing so means extra pans to wash. Here are some possible day-before day-before jobs: 1. Stuffing whether made with bread crumbs, flaky cooked cook-ed rice or corn bread. Keep in the refrigerator closely covered If oysters are used in stuffing, add them just before the stuffing stuf-fing goes in the turkey. 2. Cranberry sauce of jelly can be made the day before or earlier. Many people like uncooked un-cooked cranberry-orange relish which keep two to three weeks in a tight jar in the refrigerator. To make: Put through the food grinder a pound of cranberries and an orange rind and all except seeds. Then mix with a cup of sugar or starined noney and 1V&4 teaspoon of salt. 3. Fresh raw vegetables for relishes may be washed and prepared pre-pared the day before. This includes in-cludes celery, radishes, carrot sticks or lettuce, which will keep crisp overnight in the refrigerator. re-frigerator. 4. Gelatin salad may be made a day ahead, but green salad should be mixed just before serving. 5. Filling for pumpkin pie may be mixed a day ahead and kept in the refrigerator. Mince pie is best freshly baked, but some homemakers .bake it a day ahead and reheat it in the oven after the turkey comes out. Thawing Time For Turkey If your holiday turkey is coming com-ing out of . your freezer or if you buy a read-frozen bird, you need to plan ahead for thawing. Otherwise, your bird may not be ready when it's time to put it in the oven, or it may be thawed too far in advance. The following tips are for your convenience con-venience and as precautions against spoilage and possible food poisoning: There's no safer place than a good cold refrigerator to thaw your bird. Take off the freezer wrappings and cover the turkey loosely with waxed paper. Then allow tow to three days in the refrigerator to thaw a large turkey or one day for a small one. To speed the thawing, the turkey may be thawed partially in the refrigerator and then placed under cold running water until completely thawed. To thaw entirely under running water, a large turkey takes several sev-eral hours. Never thaw at room temperature or in warm water and never let the bird stand in water warm or cold. Don't re-freeze re-freeze a thawed turkey. As soon as the turkey is thawed, remove giblets and wash them. Giblets usually are packaged and frozen in the body or neck cavity of the bird. After removing1 giblets, wash the bird thoroughly inside and out with clear cold water. If turkey and giblets are not to be cooked at once, cover loosely and keep in the refrigerator, refrig-erator, but be sure to cook within with-in 24 hours after thawing. Here are some other important import-ant rules: Don't cook turkey partially par-tially one day and finish the next even if it's a big turkey and even if you have to' rise early to get it in the oven. Don't stuff turkey until you are ready to cook it. Make the stuffing the day before and keep it in the refrigerator, if you wish, but put the stuffing in the bird just before roasting. |