Lifehack of the Week: “Thanksgiving Hacks You’ll Wonder How You Ever Lived Without”

–BOIL & SHOCK POTATOES.  Avoid the tedium of peeling (with your fingers) by boiling the potatoes until they’re soft and then shocking them in ice water. The skin will practically peel itself off. This works with beets, too, btw.

–HACK A SLOW COOKER AS A WARMER. One of the trickiest things about preparing Thanksgiving dinner is timing out the various foods. So many moving pieces! Not to mention all the pressure to not mess up those highly-anticipated, beloved sides. Cross those mashed potatoes off the list by keeping them toasty in a slow-cooker on the ‘warm’ setting.

–Use a thermos as a gravy warmer to free up space on the stove.

–Grate butter for easy mixing when making biscuits or Thanksgiving pie crusts which causes the end result to be flakier

–USE YOUR COOLER TO WARM. Yes, it’s counter-intuitive, but you can line a cooler with aluminum foil and it’ll keep things heated. Consider it your own little DIY warming plate.

–DITCH THE TUPPERWARE. Store food in plastic baggies (rather than structured containers) to save precious fridge real estate.

–PAPER THE PLACE FOR THE KID’S TABLE.  Don’t even bother with a real tablecloth. Instead use easel paper (aka butcher paper), throw in some crayons, and let the kids occupy themselves for a while (and maybe they’ll even stay at the table longer than 10 minutes?). Pro tip: lay a vinyl tablecloth under the kids’ table to catch spills if all the water cups go down like dominoes.