Spending time with the family and enjoying great food are hallmarks of Thanksgiving time. For the cook, it is too often the time you’re frazzled trying to coordinate cooking the menu so that everything is ready at the same time. Thanks to the latest in technology and innovation, the Thanksgiving holidays can be less stressful for everyone involved.
1. Use The Bon Appétit Manual App
Bon Appetit App
Image: iTunes
The Bon Appétit Manual is very useful free app to help you cook Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. It comes with recipes and complete menus combined with easy-to-follow text instructions. Just like the print magazine, the app is full of scrumptious photos. The app can build a cooking time schedule, so you know what to cook at what time in order to have everything on the table at the same time. It even tells you what utensils you need and has cocktail guides included for your post-cooking drink.
2. Try The Thanksgiving Menu Maker App
Thanksgiving Menu Maker App
Image: iTunes
The free Thanksgiving Menu Maker app includes about 75 recipes and cooking guidelines. It includes hints and tips videos and ideas about what to do with the leftovers. It is free but does have a pop up ad for Fine Cooking magazine.
3. Try The All The Cooks Recipes App
Image: Google Play Store
One of the best apps for Android is the free All The Cooks Recipes Recipes app. It provides over 230,000 original recipes and discuss meal and decor ideas as well.
4. Simplify Cooking With Individual Turkey Mignons
Turkey Mignon
Image: Amazon
Dining solo this year, or looking for something a little different from the usual Thanksgiving bird? These turkey mignons are perfect for solo diners, and other small groups. Each is made of breast meat wrapped in real, non-turkey bacon. They can be cooked on the grill, broiled or pan seared, and they come individually packaged. Prepare as many or as few as needed and keep the rest frozen for up to a year.
5. Cook The Turkey With An Oil-Less Turkey Fryer
Image: Amazon
For turkey-cooking daredevils, deep-frying the bird in a giant vat of peanut oil is a tradition that may die slowly. After all, it’s not really a holiday until someone catches on fire or burns down the garage, right? If you have decided to try a safer option, check out the Char-Broil The Big Easy TRU-Infrared Oil-less Turkey Fryer. It can hold up to a 16-pound turkey and cooks the whole thing in about an hour and a half. The turkey needs to be thawed and should have a nice seasoning rub the night before Thanksgiving. Cleanup is easy: Let the oil-less fryer cool down, and then wipe out the drippings.
6. Play Chicken Invaders 4: Thanksgiving Game
Turkey Space Invaders Game
Image: iTunes
The iTunes description says it all: “The turkeys revolted three years ago. Not coincidentally, that was the same year mankind last had Thanksgiving dinner. We should have seen it coming. It was the logical conclusion of our perennial turkey oppression. Years of slicing, dicing, chopping, and carving in the name of tastiness. Gobble-gobble, indeed.” Chicken Invaders 4: Thanksgiving should keep the kids – and the grownups – amused while the meal cooks. Graphics and funny sound effects included.
Skype For Dummies
Image: Amazon
7. Use Skype To Keep Connected With Loved Ones
It can be nearly impossible to get the entire family together for any holiday. Thankfully, Skype lets the whole gang video chat. Prop a laptop up on the table and dial the relatives. If you have several tablets and laptops available and multiple Skype accounts, spread them around the table!
Digital Photo Frame
Image: Amazon
8. Show Off Photos With A Digital Photo Frames
Another fun activity for the whole family is sharing digital photos with each other. Digital photo frames offer a larger viewing screen than SmartPhones, which can be a big help to some family members. You can also grab great shots of the table arrangement and the meal to share before the bird is reduced to bones. Share your best shots with friends and family around the Web.
LED Turkey
Image: Amazon
9. Avoid Shopping By Getting Great Deals And Buy Online
Not into Black Friday – or Thanksgiving night – shopping frenzies? Camping out in front of the stores in the freezing cold doesn’t appeal to you? Chill out in your jammies and buy your gadgets and door buster LED TV deals and other killer deal online. It may be obvious to say this but you can remove a lot of the pressure to shop for deals around Thanksgiving by simply going on to a large retailer that carries almost everything like Amazon or Walmart or your other favorite online retailer, click on to their deals and just shopping in your jammies from home.
Laptop
Image: Amazon
Surf online for the best deals and steals on your laptop in your comfy pants and laugh at the rest of the world trampling each other trying for the two great deals in the store. Most stores will have their Black Friday deals online early Thanksgiving morning. Some might be time limited, to keep site visitors coming back all day long.
With these cool turkey technologies, you will be prepared for whatever the day throws your way.
Have a great Thankgiving!
First published November 2013 and updated November 2015.
