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2024 Thanksgiving Menu and Meal Prep Timeline

* image These past few months have been busy for our family, especially since our oldest joined a local swim team. Between juggling our work schedules and balancing school with practices... we're all pretty wiped out. Although it's a lot of work, I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. Preparing the holiday meal for our family fills my heart with joy, and I can't wait to get started. To make things easier for me, I don't deviate much from  our first Thanksgiving  as a family. The dishes I make are familiar ones, and the recipes for them live at my fingertips. Keeping the same menu year after year means I don't have to spend time researching recipes or planning a new one. Here are my tried-and-true Thanksgiving recipes, as well as my prep timeline for the big day!

Menu Plan: December 28 - January 3

Sharing our Menu Plan for December 28, 2014 - January 3, 2015

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Bowl of Holiday Candy

As you probably have surmised, I took a little time off from blogging to enjoy the holiday with family and friends. While it felt strange "disconnecting", I have to admit that the break felt nice. It allowed me to focus my attention on the people who mean the most to us.

I was also to spend some time thinking about how I want to approach blogging in 2015. I'm about to begin the third trimester of my pregnancy, and Baby Rittler will be here before we know it. With the baby's arrival will come a major lifestyle change. Taking that into consideration, I've decided to keep blogging, but I'm going to ease up on my rigid self-imposed blogging schedule, which, let's face it, fell apart a long time ago but was always something I thought I'd be able to get back on track.

*ahem*

It boils down to this -- I'll blog when I want to blog rather than when I think I should. That way the content I publish will continue to come from my heart and will continue to represent sentiments that are genuine. The moment I start writing out of a perceived obligation is the moment that Taste As You Go starts to feel fake... and I don't want that! Sure, writing regularly is important, but writing when I actually have something worthwhile to say (as opposed to writing for the sake of keeping a schedule) is much more important.

Now that you know where I stand, let's get to this week's Menu Plan. Keep reading to see what's on deck for dinner for us as we wrap up 2014 and head into 2015!

Menu Plan: December 28, 2014 - January 3, 2015

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Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Sunday: Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Buttered Garlic Bread

Stephen and I have probably driven 1,000 miles over the past week visiting family and friends for the holiday. We're tired. Rather than attempt to make something from scratch after returning from Connecticut today, I pulled out a batch of Roasted Butternut Squash Soup that I had made several weeks ago and kept in the freezer for exactly an occasion such as this.

Monday: Cheese Ravioli Lasagna

Tuesday: Stephen's Choice

Wednesday: Indian Take-Out

Stephen and I decided to stay in this New Year's Eve. We want to enjoy every last second of "down time" we have before the baby arrives, so we're ordering take-out from our favorite Indian restaurant and camping out in the living room in front of the fire with Monty and a bottle of sparkling cider. If we make it to midnight, I think it'll be a miracle. ;-)

Thursday: Pasta Salad

Friday: Pizza with Broccoli and Caramelized Onions

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Basic Baked Meatballs

Saturday: Spaghetti with Basic Baked Meatballs

Again, I'm relying on food that I made ahead of time (the meatballs) and kept in the freezer. Subconsciously, I wonder whether part of me is using up the food we have in the freezer to make room for the food I want to put in the freezer before the baby is born. Has my nesting instinct taken over?

What's on your Menu Plan this week? Let me know in the comments below!

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