Here's what I've done all day: Perfect Thanksgiving Dinner Schedule and Recipes For Someone Who Has Never Cooked Anything But Frozen Pizza. (Even YOU could do it if you followed my directions and didn't obsess too much.)

It's long, but good, so feel free to use it--but I get credit.

Menu:

Roast Turkey
Mashed Potatoes &Gravy
Sweet Potato Pie
Stuffing
Peas & Corn
Cranberry Sauce
Rolls

Ingredients:

-1 12-15lb. Turkey (make sure it’s completely thawed out by the time you’re ready to start cooking on Thursday morning. It may still be a little frozen when you buy it, but leave it in the refrigerator for a couple days and it should thaw.)
-1 stick butter
-salt and pepper

-appx 5lbs russet or Yukon gold potatoes
-1 stick butter
-sour cream or cream cheese
-salt and pepper

-if you want to go easy on yourself, buy some instant gravy packets. Otherwise you'll need some flour and some butter to make gravy with turkey juices.

-3 large yams (I know, it sounds counterintuitive, but sweet potato pie is made with yams)
-1 stick butter
-1 large egg
-sugar
-pumpkin pie spice (if you already have a lot of spices on-hand, you can use a combination of nutmeg, ginger, cloves and cinnamon. Otherwise, buy the stuff that’s already packaged as “pumpkin pie spice”
-rolled oats, appx. 1-2 cups (NOT instant oatmeal.)
-brown sugar
-chopped pecans

-1 to 2 lbs. Stuffing mix (you can use Stovetop, but if that’s not available or if you want it to taste better, use the stuff that comes in a bag—it’ll look like cubes of bread and will probably already have some sort of herb/spice mixture with already in it)
-ONE MORE stick of butter
-1 large onion
-3 stalks of celery
-dried thyme
-dried sage
-dried rosemary
-2 cans chicken broth or stock

-frozen peas & corn
-cranberry sauce (it comes in a can! Yay!)
-rolls or bread if desired.

Schedule

930am: First and most importantly, take the turkey out and put it in your roasting pan. Dry the skin and cavity with paper towels. Don’t forget to remove the bag with the gizzards, heart, liver and neck! You can just throw those away. Also, take two sticks of butter out of the fridge and leave them on the counter. Heat the oven to 425F.

Now start chopping onions and celery for the stuffing into ˝” dice. Heat sauté pan (frying pan will work) over medium heat. Add 4 tablespoons butter to the pan, and when that’s melted, add the onions, celery, 1 teaspoon dried thyme, ˝ teaspoon dried sage and ˝ teaspoon dried rosemary. Cook until they become translucent and sloppy-looking, stirring often (this will take about ten minutes). Take pan off heat, set aside while you work on the rest of the stuffing.

Dump the bread cubes into a big bowl, add cooked vegetable/herb mixture, 1 can chicken stock, and salt and pepper. Stir this all together so the mixture is even-looking. If the bread cubes still feel dry and crunchy, add some more chicken stock, maybe ˝ a cup? You don’t want the bread disintegrating, just moistened. Set the stuffing aside to cool while you finish getting the turkey ready.

Now that the turkey is dry and in the pan, season it with salt and pepper all over the outside AND the inside. Loosely fill the neck cavity with stuffing and fold the neck skin under the body of the turkey. If you have metal skewers, you can poke that through to hold the skin in place. Now loosely fill the body cavity with stuffing and tie the drumsticks together with kitchen string. Filling the cavities loosely is important—if it’s packed too tightly, bacterial growth is encouraged, and killing your dinner guests is bad. The rest of the stuffing should go in a shallow buttered baking dish. Cover it and put it in the fridge for now.

1030am: If you put the turkey in much later than that, it won’t be ready for dinner at 4pm. Put the turkey on a rack in the lower third of the oven. You don’t want the top of the turkey to be too close to the burners. Leave the turkey alone for 30 minutes, and while it’s cooking, melt ˝ of one of those sticks of butter I told you to take out of the fridge. At the 30 minute mark, turn the heat down to 325F and pour the melted butter over the top of the turkey, making sure you get some on the drumsticks and wings. This is called basting. For the next three and a half to four hours, all you have to do is baste the turkey with more butter every half hour. Set a timer.

Now that the turkey is in the oven, you can begin the sweet potato pie (actually, it’s sweet potato crisp). Start some water to boil in a medium-sized pot. While that’s heating up, peel the yams and cut them into 1” chunks. When the water has come to a full boil, drop the potato chunks in and let them cook until they’re tender (about 15 minutes). If you’re not sure what tender is, poke them with a fork or sharp knife—there should be no resistance. Drain the potatoes and put them in a large bowl; add 4 tablespoons of butter, stir until it melts.

If you have an electric mixer, you can use it for this next step—otherwise you’ll be fine with a potato masher. Beat or mash the potato-butter mixture until it’s smooth. In a small bowl, beat 1 egg lightly with a fork, just so that the yolk and white are combined. Mix this egg, 6 tablespoons sugar, and 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice into the potato-butter stuff and stir until it’s well mixed. Pour this into an 8x8” baking dish, cover and refrigerate until the turkey is done. You can make the topping when it’s closer to baking time.

11am: Baste the turkey with more butter.

1130am: More basting. Maybe have a glass of wine now. It’s 5 o’clock somewhere.

Noon: Baste baste baste. More wine.

1230pm: Guess what! Time to baste. Play some Scrabble or something.

1pm: By now, the turkey should be coming along (BASTE NOW.), the sweet potatoes should be in the fridge, and you should be feeling like things are under control. If they’re not, just relax—you still have four hours, and all you have left to do is peel the potatoes. You can start that now. As you’re peeling, chop the potatoes into 1” chunks like you did with the sweet potatoes. As you finish cutting them, drop them into a big bowl full of water. This will keep them from getting brown and bruised-looking before you start cooking them. Start boiling water in your biggest pot (you don’t have to have the heat on high, just let it simmer into a boil.) but don’t put the potatoes in the water until I tell you to.

130pm: It’s Basting Time! Do it with vigor.

2pm: I feel so repetitive, but do it again. Butter is your friend. Start setting the table or getting your buffet area ready. Put a pitcher of ice water in the fridge. It sounds silly, but this will make things much easier when it’s time to dish up.

230pm: Baste again, and turn the potato water up. When it’s reached a full, rolling boil, plunk the potatoes in. Keep an eye on them to make sure they aren’t boiling over, but you can pretty much just let them boil away for about 20 minutes.

Appx. 250pm: Check the potatoes to see how close to done they are. Do the same knife/fork test that you did on the sweet potatoes—if you feel any crunchiness, they’re not done yet.

When the potatoes are finished boiling, drain and return them to the same pot. Cut one stick of butter into pieces and toss them in with the potatoes, then leave the lid on for a few minutes to let the butter melt.

3pm: Baste the turkey with a) more butter, if you have any left in the house. I hope you do, because you’re going to need half a stick for the topping on the sweet potatoes. If you’re close to the end of the butter, just use the juices in the turkey pan—this is where a big turkey baster comes in handy. If you don’t have a turkey baster, just use a big spoon. While you have the ovento baste, check the temperature of the turkey by sticking the meat thermometer into the stuffing in the breast cavity. Turkey is best (and safest) when the temperature of the stuffing has reached 180F and the drumsticks have reached 165F. If it gets much higher than that, the breast meat gets dry, and no one likes dry breasts. I’m pretty sure your turkey won’t be ready quite yet, but if it is, no worries. Let’s make some contingency plans now:

1) If your turkey has already reached optimum temperature, take it out of the oven and cover it with a loose tent of aluminum foil. It needs to rest for at least 20 minutes before you cut into it, so this is not a problem.

2) If your turkey still needs to cook, you’re still in good shape. Just make sure to check every 15 minutes, basting along the way.

Either way, now is the time to mash the potatoes. The butter should be good and melty, so add the sour cream or cream cheese. Whichever you use, you’ll want plenty of it—just add some, mash a little, take a taste. Does it taste good and creamy? Don’t add any more. Not creamy enough? You get the picture. Be liberal with salt and pepper, too. When you’re finished mashing them (you can also use an electric mixer for this if you have one), put the lid or cover back on them and leave them on one of the back burners. You don’t need to turn the burner on, the heat from the oven will keep them pretty toasty.

330pm: Now prepare the topping for the sweet potatoes. This is the easiest part. In a medium bowl, combine 1 ˝ cups oats, ˝ cup brown sugar, ˝ cup chopped pecans (these are optional, but they’re really good) and 4 tablespoons of melted butter. Stir all of this stuff together in a medium bowl and sprinkle it across the top of the sweet potato mash-mixture.

Check the turkey again to see where you’re at, temperature-wise. If it’s done, take it out and tent it with foil. If it’s not, pray to the kitchen gods that it finishes soon.

As soon as the turkey has reached optimum temp and has been removed from the oven, return the rack to the middle position and set the oven temperature to 375F. Get the dish of stuffing out of the fridge and drizzle ˝ can of chicken stock over it. Cover it tightly with foil and put in the oven; put the sweet potato pie in next to it. These need to cook for 25 minutes.

After the stuffing and sweet potato pie are in the oven, start making the gravy. You have more options here. If you’ve done the easy route, you’ll have a package of gravy mix and I think all you’ll have to do is add water and stir. If you want the best gravy you’ve ever tasted, here’s the scoop:

1) Remove the turkey from the roasting pan and put it on your serving platter. If you don’t have a serving platter, a giant cutting board will work, too. Remove the stuffing from the neck and breast cavities and put it in a covered serving dish. Cover the turkey again with aluminum foil to keep it warm.

2) Pour all the juices from the pan into a clear container (a pyrex measuring cup works well—you need to be able to see the level of liquid vs. fat when you look at the side. If you don’t have the measuring cup, improvise) and scrape off the browned bits that may be sticking to the pan. The brown bits are what makes it taste EXCELLENT.

3) Let the liquids and solids settle in the container—when you see that they have, skim as much of the fat off the top as you can.

4) Heat a medium saucepan on medium-high heat, add 4 tablespoons of butter. When the butter has melted, whisk in half a cup of flour. You have to whisk REALLY FAST so that the flour doesn’t clump or burn or anything. This is called making a roux, which sounds fancy, but it’s easy and will make you a god among men. When the flour is all mixed in and the roux starts getting darker (you should still be whisking), turn the heat down to medium-low and slowly add the reserved turkey juices. Whisk until you think you can’t whisk any longer. Once you’ve achieved a relatively even consistency, you can relax—you’ll still need to keep stirring occasionally so it doesn’t burn, but the hard part is over.

345pm: Start microwaving the frozen peas and corn. They’ll probably take about 5 minutes each. If you want them extra-tasty, add a tablespoon or two of butter. Check on the mashed potatoes—if they need a little warming, turn the burner on VERY low and leave them covered. Stir them around every couple minutes. If you have rolls or bread, and you want them heated, now is a good time to wrap them up in foil and put them on the bottom rack in the oven to warm. If you have cranberry sauce, now is the time to put it in a dish and get it to the table.

355pm: Check the stuffing and sweet potato pie. The stuffing should be hot all the way through and the sweet potatoes will be bubbly around the edges with a crispy brown top. Start putting food in serving dishes and on the table, and dig in while it’s hot!

Some notes:

-If you cut into the turkey to serve it and pink juices run from it, or the meat feels squishy, have one of your friends do magic tricks or something to distract everyone while you put the turkey back in the oven. Don’t send your friends to the hospital (they spend enough time there, heh.) [ed. note-this was originally written for a med student cooking dinner for his intern-friends. i'm a laugh-a-minute.]

-Enlist people as they arrive to help with things. Remember, while you’re carving the turkey, heating the vegetables, warming the rolls and dishing up the cranberry sauce you’ll still need someone stirring gravy so it doesn’t burn and someone taking the stuffing and sweet potato pie out of the oven.

-If you cook, everyone else does dishes. Have a great Thanksgiving! (and you have an emergency, call me at 206.XXX.XXXX.)

(a cooking emergency. not a medical emergency. YOU are the doctor, I'm merely the cook.)