Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure heat stuff up and use crockpots but really, with a large group stuff will be cold on plates. It’s okay.

Only if you insist on decanting hot food into cold servingware and pass, pass, passing family-style at the table. I’ve hosted 25 buffet style from the stovetop, crock pots, island and chafing dishes, and it’s all perfectly warm—even for seconds.

We do a buffet but realistically, people are waiting at the table for other people, people are making plates for seniors and babies, people are talking in the kitchen on the way to and from the buffet…I just wouldn’t worry too much about the food staying “hot.” It’s not a big deal.

It takes a village. Thank goodness for microwaves.

Warming serving dishes and dinner plates go a long way

I have never understood the insistence on serving dishes and passing at the table. It’s always cold by the time you eat. Not only that, but the mashed potatoes basically harden up. Putting hot food into cold dishes and then passing them around and not getting to eat until Uncle John has hemmed and hawed about whether or not he wants a scoop of corn casserole, and you can’t hand heavy dishes to kids or older adults who don’t have as much strength and dexterity, so adults have to help everyone anyway. Annoying and pointless.

I had cranberry sauces, relish tray, and rolls and butter on the table when I set the table. Son did ice water and we set out wines for easy refills.

When turkey (small one) was finishing up its last half hour I also used the oven to roast the veggies (cut the night before and tossed with oil/marinade right before the oven), and bake the mac and cheese + sweet potatoes + green bean casserole (all made the night before). Potatoes were done cooking on the stovetop when I got all those in the oven, so I mashed the potatoes and made them a little runny and kept them on the stove very low (they'll thicken up).

Turkey comes out, oven turns up to brown/crisp all the sides for another 15 minutes. I removed mac and cheese and covered in foil, tossed the veggies to brown the other sides, covered green bean casserole in fried onions, and gave the sweet potato casserole a little more time because it was kind of wet.

During these last 15 minutes of oven time, husband cheats and does stovetop dressing, which we like. It sits covered for its required time while he carves the small turkey, and I put all the sides on the table on a ton of trivets - they are hot as hell.

Call everyone to the table.

I run back and make the gravy in a few minutes, pour it into the gravy boat. We walk into the dining room -- him with the turkey and dressing on a platter and me with a gravy boat -- while everyone is sitting down.

Food is hot, but not on fire. Hot enough that people sitting next to really hot stuff serve for others.

PERFECT.

Anonymous wrote:Sure heat stuff up and use crockpots but really, with a large group stuff will be cold on plates. It’s okay.

Only if you insist on decanting hot food into cold servingware and pass, pass, passing family-style at the table. I’ve hosted 25 buffet style from the stovetop, crock pots, island and chafing dishes, and it’s all perfectly warm—even for seconds.

We use chafing dishes and write out an excel spreadsheet with timing.

Sure heat stuff up and use crockpots but really, with a large group stuff will be cold on plates. It’s okay.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^Write out a game plan like this and just follow it day of. Think it through and time it out.

Timing like that wasn’t the issue. Everything was ready simultaneously; it was just getting corn, green beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, stuffing, gravy, rolls, and turkey into bowls and onto two tables while staying as warm as possible.

Why into bowls, and why on the table? We serve from the stovetop, directly out of crock pots, and on the island. No thanks on cold gravy in a boat when you can just keep it on warm on a burner. Stuffing in a crock pot, mashed potatoes in their pot with a lid on the stovetop. Turkey on a platter.

Only warm rolls in a basket/towel, passed at the table.

We serve buffet style and food is always perfectly warm. ILs do cold serving dishes family-style at table, and by the time you actually eat after all that passing, it’s cold.

Better casserole dishes that retain heat. Or at least cover with foil.

Buy one of those hot/cold insulation bags and place heated dishes in there for the 10/20/30ish minutes you need while everything else warms up.

If the food is from the refrigerator, pull it 30 minutes and set on counter to take the initial chill off before microwave or heating.
Going straight from refrigerator to oven/microwave NEVEr works out . Set on counter fir a bit first.

Crock pot for things like stuffing or keeping gravey warm prior to table.

Chafing dishes

Anonymous wrote:^^Write out a game plan like this and just follow it day of. Think it through and time it out.

Timing like that wasn’t the issue. Everything was ready simultaneously; it was just getting corn, green beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, stuffing, gravy, rolls, and turkey into bowls and onto two tables while staying as warm as possible.

^^Write out a game plan like this and just follow it day of. Think it through and time it out.

10:30 Turkey out, unwrapped

11:40 Preheat oven to 350

11:45 Start dressing in crock pot

12:00 Turkey in oven

1:00 Wine open to breathe

1:45 Stir dressing

2:00 Appetizers/cocktails
-Cheese ball and crackers out, big white plate
-Veggie tray out, brown tray/silver dish
-Guest contribution

3:10 Put potatoes on (large silver pot)
Turkey out, cover with foil and towels
Gravy on (small silver pot with lid)
Put rutabagas in oven

3:30 Put rolls in oven

Set out cranberries

Set out butter


3:40 Drain potatoes (silver colander)

3:45 Mash potatoes, cover with towel

DH carve turkey, cover with foil (blue platter)

Aunt-in-law sets water on table (ice bucket); re-ups wine

3:50 Microwave green beans, blue bowl
Stir dressing
Rolls out of oven/white bowl with towel, on table
Rutabegas out

4 p.m. Dinner

5 p.m. Offer coffee, dessert

Thanksgiving was my first big multi-food hosting event. Maybe we just had too many items, but getting everything to the table hot was a struggle. Trying to get everything scooped up and served at the same time was challenging. If the dishes were warming in the oven or microwaved, they were too hot to pass around the table. The green beans and corn sent to the table first became cold. Any tips beyond a line of crock pots (which I did have my stuffing and sweet potatoes in because they could hold up!)