Friendsgiving season is coming up! For all of you newbies who don’t know about it yet, Friendsgiving is when you celebrate Thanksgiving with your friends before the actual Thanksgiving you’ll celebrate with your family. As college students who are just learning how to cook, our Friendsgiving is not as intricate as the one we spend with our families. Nonetheless, it is a nice tradition everyone should have with their friends to celebrate, eat, and be thankful for your friendship. So here are some tips on how to have the perfect Friendsgiving:
1. For Friendsgiving, each person attending should cook at least one thing.
2. Budget-wise, everyone should probably go to the grocery store together; each person should buy the items that they are using for the food they’re cooking.
3. I would recommend roasting a chicken rather than a turkey; they are similar, and a chicken is much smaller. If not, get turkey legs rather than the whole turkey so as to reduce the amount of leftovers.
4. Essentials: Choice of poultry, veggies, mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, and of course dessert.
5. When you cook your food, be sure to use the supermarket’s disposable aluminum pans. When you eat, use disposable utensils and plates. This will limit how much you would have to clean up afterwards.
6. Since we are college students, we take a lot longer than most people to make certain foods. I recommend a FG dinner, so you have the whole day to cook.
7. For the clean-up, everyone should put a little time aside to clean as a group after eating; it makes the overall cleaning a lot faster.
8. You will most definitely have leftovers, so you should all divide it and take some. Depending on the items, leftovers could last about a week.
9. Menu Example:
- Roasted Chicken
- Ex: Orange Herb Roasted Chicken
- Brussels Sprouts with Bacon
- Candied Yams
- Mashed Potatoes
- Mac & Cheese
- Bread
- Ex: Focaccia
- Pound cake
(You can pick and choose which items to cook, but this is an example of what each friend could cook. If they can’t cook, they could get drinks, or just use the Internet as a guide.)
10. Most important tip of all: ENJOY your food and the time with your friends!