Inaugural Friendsgiving at Casa on the Lake

Dean and I recently hosted our first Friendsgiving at our home, lovingly dubbed, Casa on the Lake. (you know, because we live in Niagara on the Lake).   

I knew cooking a Thanksgiving meal for eight was going to be a big undertaking, so I made sure to be over prepared. Step one was reading other blogs, watching YouTube videos, and stalking the social media of my favourite creators to understand how they planned and prepped their thanksgiving schedules. I found helpful nuggets in everything I devoured during my research and so I thought sharing my own Friendsgiving plan of attack might be helpful and interesting to others. 

Before I get into the details though, I’ll address the elephant in the room. 

We're not American nor do we live in the US, but we decided to celebrate American Thanksgiving. Why? 

There are a few reasons, but ultimately it came down to us wanting to host our own Thanksgiving. Canadian Thanksgiving is always hosted by my family, which I love, but I wanted to try my own hand at running the show. 

Dean and I also live quite close to the border and spend a lot of time in the US, so it felt natural to us. Besides, who wouldn’t want an extra day to indulge in Thanksgiving food annnnd football? 

The Plan

I stuck mostly to the Thanksgiving classics for the menu. Seafood is of course, my thing, but I feel pretty strongly about where seafood belongs on a Thanksgiving table. For example, it should NEVER replace a turkey. It should, however, act as a complimentary dish. So I strategically included seafood in ways that enhanced the classics.

We served a classic shrimp cocktail as an appetizer for people to snack upon arrival, along with goat cheese wrapped dates drizzled with rosemary hot honey and Elizabeth Van Lierde’s sweet and spicy holiday nuts. The key with Thanksgiving appetizers is to make sure people can’t get full on them and ruin their appetite for the main show.

And trust me, after you’ve dropped a small fortune on a turkey, waited two days for the brine to work its magic, and then doted on it like a newborn once it hit the oven, you do not want people to miss the main show.

While we’re on the topic, let’s talk about the turkey. This was my very first time cooking a turkey completely on my own. I’ll admit, I was nervous. 

I’ve had many dry, sad turkeys in my day and was determined to not let my turkey be another addition to the sad turkey grave. 

I dry brined my turkey and followed this recipe. I want to emphasize, I followed this TO A T. When I pulled the bird out of the oven after only 2.5 hours and the temp read 157 I left it out. Even though the standard rule of thumb is my 14 pound bird should’ve technically been in for longer. 

I let it sit on the counter sans foil, for 45 minutes even though the men were crying that the turkey would get cold (spoiler alert, it didn’t).

When we cut into this thing 45 min after pulling it out of the oven, not only was it still steaming hot, but it was juicy as hell with perfectly crisped skin. After that first carve of the turkey was made, I could finally exhale. And let me tell y’all, this was the best turkey I’ve ever had in my life. 

For the gravy I made this make-ahead gravy the day before Friendsgiving, then added my drippings and a few other fun ingredients to bump up the flavour (mostly soy sauce, miso, and MSG). It did the job perfectly. 

For the sides, I kept the classic stuffing, mashed potatoes, and roasted brussels sprouts.

I actually learned a lot about how to perfect mashed potatoes from some fellow food creators on TikTok. This creator helped me understand the difference between potatoes so I could pick the ones that would give me my desired flavour and consistency, and nearly every creator advocated for using a food mill to mash the potatoes, which is usually what my mom does and after doing it myself, I’ll echo the advice: food mill is the way to go for fluffy mashed potatoes. 

My sausage sage stuffing recipe is one I’ve been using for years and am constantly tweaking. Once I actually write down the final version, I promise I’ll share it. It’s pretty comparable to most classic stuffing recipes using Italian sausage, stale bread, and a ton of sage. Oh, and wine. Wine in stuffing is key for me, I find the acidity is a real nice addition to an otherwise flat dish. 

Of course, we also had my famous Lobster Mac n Cheese on our Thanksgiving table. Mac n Cheese is a pretty common Thanksgiving side, so elevating to a Lobster Mac n Cheese was an easy way to sneak seafood in without throwing people off. 

I also made rolls from scratch, which turned out…just okay in my opinion. This was another first for me and the rolls turned out a bit dry. But honestly, they were relatively easy to make. So I think I’ll try again and make a few tweaks to get a better consistency. 

One other thing that I made to serve with our mains was Wishbone Kitchen’s Thanksgiving Chili Crunch. I love Chinese Chili Crunch and seriously put it on everything. And as Meredith pointed out in her video, Thanksgiving often lacks texture and flavour, which is easily solved with a quick drizzle of this Thanksgiving Chili Crunch. I put mine on everything I ate and even used it in my leftover Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches the next day.

I mostly outsourced dessert to our friends who wanted to pitch in (generally my go-to strategy since I’m not much of a baker). I did make Wishbone Kitchen’s Pumpkin Maple Pie, which turned out fantastic, much to my surprise. But a slight meringue disaster ruined the presentation. Don’t worry, I’ll be getting my redemption and trying this pie again at Christmas. 

The key to Thanksgiving success: PREPARATION 

I knew the only way I’d be able to pull this off was to plan and prep as early as possible. So I meticulously planned a three day prep schedule that gave me enough time to do everything so I wasn’t scrambling on the day of. 

Here’s how the schedule broke down: 

Tuesday

• Went to Wegman’s and did most of the grocery shopping

• Brined the turkey 

• Stripped all the herbs 

• Grated all the cheeses 

• Made the compound butter 

• Made the stock for gravy base

Wednesday

• Set up the tablescape 

• Made the pie crust

• Made the pie filling

• Made the meringue 

• Chopped all veggies 

• Prepped the gravy 

• Prepped the cute seashell table butters 

Thursday Morning (FRIENDSGIVING!) 

• Picked up seafood and other last minute groceries 

• Made dinner rolls 

• Roasted sweet and spicy holiday nuts 

• Prepped goat cheese stuffed dates 

• Prepped sausage sage stuffing 

• Prepped lobster mac n cheese 

Thursday Afternoon (FRIENDSGIVING)

• Made mashed potatoes 

• Cooked the turkey 

• Roasted the brussels sprouts 

• Baked the sausage sage stuffing

• Baked the lobster mac n cheese 

• Finished the gravy 

• Made the Thanksgiving chili crunch 

Pro Tip: Plan Your Oven Schedule!

If you plan nothing else, plan when things are going to go into the oven. Especially if you have a big turkey and/or a small oven. Once the turkey goes in it can be difficult to bake other things, so plan accordingly. 

Stovetop dishes are a great option. I did my mashed potatoes entirely on the stove so I didn’t have to use up more oven space.

Or, for anything that does need to be baked, do everything else for the dish that you can ahead of time, then set aside in a casserole dish. As soon as the turkey comes out of the oven, throw in your items that need to be baked. This is how I did my mac n cheese and my stuffing. The turkey needs to sit for 30-60 minutes before carving anyway, so you have this window at the end to do any final baking before serving. 

Things I Learned (& Some Things I Wish I Knew Sooner)

• Don’t keep meringue in the fridge. I made Wishbone Kitchen’s Pumpkin Maple Pie and the pie itself was FANTASTIC. I am a pumpkin pie hater, mostly because of the texture, but this pie might’ve converted me. However, I made the meringue too early and ended up leaving it in the fridge. My peaks were no longer stiff when I went to top the pie with it, resulting in a little bit of a mess. I’ve now learned, I cannot leave meringue in the fridge. 

• Butter is the key to happiness. I used over a dozen sticks of butter to make this entire meal. It makes me laugh at my younger self who would passionately avoid butter because of all the extra calories. Butter is life. Butter is love. 

• Get an oven timer. Your oven will lie to you. This is the best way to keep it honest and 

• Put details on your invitation. There are two things people always ask me when I invite them over: “what can I bring?” and “what should I wear?” Putting a note on the invitation can be helpful to address the questions before they’re asked so you don’t have to respond to a handful of texts in the middle of your prep. 

• LET YOUR TURKEY REST. I was skeptical about leaving my turkey on the counter uncovered for an hour, but when we cut into that thing it was steaming hot, juicy perfection. Trust me, your turkey will not get cold. 

Shop the details

I compiled a collection of all the kitchen tools I used to prepare Friendsgiving, as well as some of the items I used for serving and on our tablescape. You can shop everything below.