It's that time of year again! I'm one of those people who look forward to the holidays for the food alone. For passionate home cooks, Thanksgiving especially is our time to shine. But I want all of my readers to feel excited and ready to go this Thanksgiving, even those of you who are still finding your confidence in the kitchen. You already know I've got you covered on the recipes - and if you didn't, it's time to run and grab a copy of The Kitchenista Diaries Holiday Recipe Collection! (Scroll to the bottom of this post for a special promotion on that.) Beyond the recipes, there's still plenty to discuss about how to achieve your holiday cooking goals, whether you're aiming to be better organized this year, execute your recipes more efficiently, or branch out to try new dishes. For the next few weeks, I'll be posting all of that advice as part of my Thanksgiving Prep Guide, to teach you how to do just that. Starting with today's post, we're going to get into all of the many ways you can take advantage of the extra time in the beginning of the month, before things get too crazy!

Sometimes it's hard to believe that only six years ago, my idea of planning for Thanksgiving consisted of jotting down a grocery list the day before. As a lifelong procrastinator, I remained fairly committed to winging my holiday dinners, without much consequence. Then something unexpected happened as I gained experience cooking professionally in other people's homes and at events, where I have no choice but to manage my time more effectively. I learned to value the advantages of getting a head start on prep. My menus benefited from the extra time to research (and even practice) new recipes. My grocery budgets were easier to manage and adhere to when I established them from the beginning, and I didn't have to compromise on ingredients that I'd waited too long to source. As the big day approaches, I feel much more cool, calm and collected than I did in the past - while remaining realistic about the healthy dose of stress that's still sure to follow. Long story short, I managed to get out of my own way.


Last Thanksgiving, despite having the busiest work schedule I'd had in years, I pulled off what I consider to be my best holiday dinner yet. What stood out to me more than nailing my recipes, was how much easier the day went and how much more I'd been able to accomplish by myself. Of course it was still a long day, and exhausted isn't even the word to describe how I felt crossing the finish line. But it's exhilarating to see proof of my progress as a home cook, and Thanksgiving has been an awesome benchmark in that way. This year will be my first professional Thanksgiving gig, more than forty people! Raven and I are traveling up to Detroit to spend the week with my client and his family, who I love dearly and couldn't be more excited to plan their special day. Rest assured I am definitely taking all of my own advice this year to stay organized!

Thanksgiving 2017 at our house!

As I write this post, we're 23 days out from Thanksgiving, or slightly more than three weeks. This is the ideal time to start planning, if you haven't already. Ready to commit to being prepared for the big day this year? Here are some ways you can take advantage of the weeks prior to Thanksgiving to get a head start on prep:


3 to 4 weeks before Thanksgiving (or earlier):

• Set your budget.
• Create the guest list and send invitations or reminders out.
• Order your turkey (and/or other roasts) if you planned to source anything special, like heritage birds. Always check with your butcher/purveyor in case of early deadlines.
• Brainstorm menu ideas, inclusive of any special dietary restrictions to consider for guests.
• Brainstorm tablescapes and decor, if needed.
• If you can, test or practice dishes as needed, perhaps cutting down the recipes to smaller serving sizes. Holiday potlucks may offer opportunities to try out new dishes that you're hoping to add to your menu this year. Roasting a chicken is a great way to experiment with dry brines for the turkey and get your spatchcocking routine down. 

2 to 3 weeks before Thanksgiving:

• Determine the final guest count. If you're hosting a formal (plated) dinner, this needs to be a pretty accurate number. If you're planning on buffet style for a larger group, you'll have much more wiggle room to adjust for a few extra mouths to feed, or cancellations.
• Finalize your menu.
• Settle on a tablescape, if decor is part of your plan.
• Start shopping for cookware, dinnerware and decorative items, and/or borrow these items to make sure you have everything you'll need.

This post is in partnership with KitchenAid.®

It’s probably no secret by now that I love any excuse to whip up some fancy appetizers! Between work and personal life, there’s plenty of opportunities to entertain at home in the summer and the weather gives a great excuse to take meals outdoors. I like to use ingredients in my menus that offer my guests something unexpected or an upgrade from what we all typically eat day to day. The new KitchenAid® Metal Food Grinder attachment for my stand mixer provided me with just the inspiration I needed to transform today’s star ingredient, duck!

Between you and me, I have a habit of buying whole ducks with every intention of learning how to roast one, but then I get a more interesting idea and break the duck down into separate parts. Today was no exception! With a new food grinder to play with, burgers naturally came to mind. That was the idea anyway; the results ended up reminding me more of duck flavored breakfast sausage! Truthfully, I had no idea what to expect on the first round. I’d never worked with ground duck before and most of the recipes I found online were made with the breasts only. I wanted something much fattier without adding pork like some people recommended. Instead, I incorporated the thighs as well as lots of skin and fat. (For this reason, it was much more economical to buy a whole duck instead of separate parts.) This recipe was a guessing game going in, but I think it’s cool to just enjoy the process of figuring out something new in the kitchen. I’ve been doing a ton of recipe development work lately, and I’m finding it to be a breath of fresh air to let my creativity run free. Every now and then I even take breaks from photographing the finished dishes, because the goal most days is just to experiment.


Plus, the KitchenAid® Metal Food Grinder Attachment was incredibly easy to use, which made experimenting more fun. Most of the time for this recipe is in prepping the duck meat, chilling in between steps, and then cooking the patties. The chilling step is key for meat prep and you can pre-chill the attachment to help, which also means you get a clean grind. The actual grinding process took a few minutes and both setup and cleanup was a breeze. Storage is built into the box for all of the parts, which is also a blessing.



Listen, I try a ton of new kitchen appliances throughout the year and some are so complicated to figure out that they steal my joy a little bit! That was not the case at all today, so I can confidently say I’ll be coming up with new ways to incorporate the food grinder into my recipes. Besides meat, it will also grind ingredients like veggies, cheese, and breadcrumbs, which means I can get creative with it and control what goes into my food.

The recipe for the duck sliders I came up with today is below. If you can’t get your hands on duck, or just want to stretch your duck meat a bit, you could incorporate some turkey or chicken thighs into the mix. It’s yours for the making!






Ingredients, to make the duck sausage:

2 lbs fresh duck parts, mix of thighs and breasts
1 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh sage
1 tsp finely chopped fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp cracked black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp crushed red peppers
1/2 cup ice cold water

Ingredients, to assemble the sliders:

This is an update to the scrambled eggs recipe posted to my blog back in 2014. Scrambled eggs are still a staple in this house and one of Raven's frequent requests when she's home for breakfast. For those of y'all who know her personality, when she's ready to eat something, she needed it yesterday! For this reason, I skip all the extra ingredients nowadays.  During times that I gave up dairy I really didn't miss the cream in my eggs, so I save that for special occasions only. Besides, you get plenty of (necessary) fat from the butter. My technique is essentially the same, just without cream, cheese, or herbs added. This is ridiculously easy and doesn't require any kind of prep or measuring.

The same tips still apply from the older version. Major keys for scrambled eggs:

• Don't overwork your eggs when whisking, you're just looking for them to be blended without streaks left. Wait until they're cooked to season with salt.
• Use the best quality eggs and butter that you can, since that's all you'll be tasting. It's worth seeking out farm fresh eggs and European style butter if you'd really like to impress somebody for breakfast!
• Scrambled eggs need lots of fat. There's no getting around that. If you can't have butter, most other healthy fats will do. Coconut oil or duck fat are great options. Avocado oil and olive oil also work, preferably a milder flavor that won't overpower the eggs.
• Control your heat, and be especially mindful when using an electric stove top versus gas. I'll explain more about that below.
• Use a good quality nonstick skillet, one that won't get scraped up or chip over time. I'm a fan of Calphalon's ceramic pans or any of their nonstick hard-anodized pans (affiliate links.) An 8" skillet will work for up to about 8 eggs, or move up to a 10" skillet for larger family sized portions.
• A silicone spatula is the easiest tool to use for cooking the eggs, because it's flexible, non-stick, and will hug the sides of the skillet.

Once the eggs are mostly set, turn off the burner and let the residual heat finish cooking them off gently. If you have an electric stove, you may want to take the skillet off the burner completely. Electric stoves take longer to cool down (and heat up) than gas, so you'd run the risk of the eggs overcooking even though you turned the heat off.


Finish with a few grinds of cracked black pepper. Optionally, fold in a final pat of butter. For people who like to eat a firmer scrambled egg, the extra butter helps to keep things creamy. (I like a softer set sometimes, so if I'm cooking for myself, I take them off the heat and transfer to my plate while they're still slightly wet.)

Cauliflower was not very high on my list of foods I was excited to eat as a kid. Like the fate of most veggies back then, it was either steamed to death or served raw and unseasoned on sad crudité platters. (I also hated celery and ranch dressing, so this was more culinary offenses than I was willing to tolerate all at once.) I don't remember when roasted cauliflower became the new wave, but it changed my perspective and inspired me to incorporate more cauliflower into my menus. Once I learned to appreciate cauliflower for the blank slate that it is, I was more willing to experiment with other ways to cook with it. It's been especially useful as a low-carb alternative to mashed potatoes, pureed for dairy-free sauces, and riced for a grain-free component in salads or stir fries. But my go-to is roasted cauliflower. The crisp tender florets, with their caramelized edges and charred bits, are an easy side dish to make no matter what kind of diet you're on.


I like using my cast iron skillet to roast smaller batches of veggies because it retains heat so well. The key to roasting veggies is dry, high heat, so that they brown faster than they start to soften. A pre-heated heavy duty sheet pan works just as well if you'd like to cook more than one head of cauliflower at a time, as I'll explain in the steps below. If you've got my latest cookbook, The Kitchenista Diaries Volume 1, the process will remind you of the Duck Fat Roasted Broccoli recipe. Feel free to adjust spices and herbs to your tastes; the technique will be the same with any flavor profile! As written, the recipe is vegan. Any type of cooking oil that works well in high heat can be subbed in for the coconut oil.

If you'd like to make this a full meal in the same skillet, stick to proteins that will roast in the same amount of time, or stagger the cooking process. I think this would be really great with shell-on shrimp added at the very end, similar to my Cajun Butter Shrimp & Potatoes recipe!


Speaking of vegan meals, I was excited to be a guest on the Forked Up podcast by Thug Kitchen last week! I've followed Matt and Michelle from my early days on Twitter so it was awesome to finally chat, vent, and laugh about this crazy internet food journey we've all been on. You can check out the episode here, then grab some dope vegan recipes from the Thug Kitchen blog or cookbooks!

Active Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Yield: Serves 2
Special Equipment: Large cast iron skillet, heavy duty sheet pan or other heavy bottomed pan, grater or zester.
Pull off the leaves on the cauliflower head. Using a sharp chef's knife, slice around the bottom of the cauliflower head to remove the stem. Cut the florets off in sections. I try to cut larger florets in half, to create lots of flat surface area that will touch the hot pan.


In a large container or bowl, pour in a couple tablespoons of coconut oil. (If your home is cool you may need to melt the oil first. This isn't a problem for me in the summer!) Stir in the salt, smoked paprika, cumin, and black pepper to make a paste. Use your grater to zest the lemon rind into the bowl as well, then slice the lemon in half and set aside.

Take all that chopped cauliflower and toss with the seasoned oil so that it's evenly coated. Stir in the chopped onions.


Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 450°F. Set your cast iron skillet or heavy duty sheet pan on the middle rack so that it gets smoking hot while the oven preheats.

When the oven is ready, it's safest to use pot holders and pull the skillet out temporarily, setting it on your stove top. Just work quickly so that the pan doesn't cool. Carefully dump out the seasoned veggies into the hot skillet. It should be hot enough that the pan sizzles; this starts the cooking process immediately. Add the halved lemons to the skillet; I started mine cut side up so that all the juices didn't seep out.


Return the skillet to the preheated oven. Roast for 20 minutes, or until the onions have softened and the edges of the cauliflower have started to brown. Remove the skillet from the oven, give the cauliflower a quick stir and then return it back to the oven.


Roast for another 10 minutes, or until the cauliflower has browned and charred to your liking. It should be tender but still have some life left to it, unless your preference is to cook it to a softer texture.


To finish the cauliflower, squeeze the roasted lemon juice over it and stir in the chopped mint. Taste a bite to check for salt; adjust if needed.

Note: If you're prepping cauliflower ahead for meals later in the week, it's best to pull it from the oven when it's just shy of being tender. It won't be as caramelized, but you'll avoid soggy vegetables when reheated.