Cooking a full meal for ten requires a lot of work and most of all good organizational skills. Several components of these recipes can be made way ahead. After you have gone shopping for the ingredients, gather the following recipes:
If you’re buying a frozen turkey, allow at least two days defrosting time in the refrigerator.
Oyster Stew (doubled)
Maple-Glazed Turkey
Bread Stuffing with Sausage, Apples, and Cognac
Glazed Winter Squash
Brussels Sprouts with Chestnuts (doubled)
Cranberry Sauce
Apple Pie
Pumpkin Pie
To assemble the meal, use the following tips:
Make the piecrusts up to a month ahead and freeze them.
The cranberry sauce comes next and can be made a week ahead.
Two to three days ahead, prep the stuffing and pumpkin pie filling.
Make the Brussels sprouts, the chestnuts, and both pies the day before.
The day of, concentrate on the turkey, the squash, and the stew.
If you have two ovens, you can bake the pies the day of your meal, which is all the better. If you bake the pies the day before, warming the apple pie before serving is a nice touch.
You can scale the recipes up or down as follows:
Oyster Stew: May be scaled up or down directly.
Maple-Glazed Turkey: You’re not going to make, or even find, a 40-pound turkey, so forget about scaling this recipe up. Even if you did find a turkey worthy of feeding an army, it wouldn’t cook evenly and wouldn’t fit in your oven. So if you need to feed a larger crowd, add another main dish, like a ham.
Bread Stuffing with Sausage, Apples, and Cognac: May be scaled up or down directly.
Glazed Winter Squash: May be scaled up or down directly.
Brussels Sprouts with Chestnuts: May be scaled up or down directly.
Cranberry Sauce: May be scaled up or down directly.
Apple Pie: May be scaled up directly (making additional pies, not a larger pie).
Pumpkin Pie: May be scaled up directly; same as apple pie.