This Thanksgiving was my first without my family and my first out of the U.S. I low-key celebrated Thanksgiving with my boyfriend in Australia this year which meant that not only did I do all the Thanksgiving cooking, but I also had to find a way to make a traditional Thanksgiving menu work for just two people.
Normally Thanksgiving in the past, for my family at least, was massive amounts of food for at least 4-6 people if not more. So when looking for recipes, I wanted to get the same Thanksgiving feeling as previous years and include some of my favorite Thanksgiving dishes, but not make enough food to feed 20+ people and end up wasting food.
The awesome thing about the menu that I made for this Thanksgiving is that it’s definitely customizable, and it’s also perfect for Christmas or any holiday dinner. Although I made this menu for just two of us, you can easily double the recipes for more people or just add a few more items to the menu to make it fit your needs and the number of people you’re feeding.
Decor
Since Thanksgiving is obviously not celebrated in Australia and it’s currently Springtime, there really isn’t Thanksgiving or Fall-like decor items available in the stores. I decided to just set the table nicely with some neutral placements and napkins and added elements of fresh flowers and candles to the table. It wasn’t much, but for just the two of us, I think the table still looked really nice!
The Menu
It being my first Thanksgiving where I was going to be doing all of the cooking, I wanted to cook pretty much everything from scratch. I wanted to make sure I included all of my favorite Thanksgiving classic dishes like turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie and I also included common Thanksgiving items like cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, and gravy. Of course, there were dishes that if I was feeding more people I would have definitely included such as green bean casserole, rolls, mashed potatoes etc. But since it was just two of us, I had to make the decisions to narrow down the menu and I wanted to make sure to include items that we don’t have on a usual basis.
Appetizers
Since Thanksgiving prep can take a lot of work, I made a makeshift “snack board” to hold us both over while I cooked. I definitely recommend this because it’s nice to definitely munch on something while cooking and it was really easy to make. I just gathered items that I already had in the pantry and the fridge and assembled them on my cheese platter. I love platters because they look amazing and you can essentially put anything you want on it! Especially with all the Thanksgiving cooking and food shopping, it’s nice to not have to buy any more food or really spend the time making something as an appetizer which is why I think platter boards are perfect for a pre-Thanksgiving snack!
Recipes
As I always do with my cooking, I find recipes or get inspiration and then tweak the recipe to my liking. However, I found some incredible, easy-to-follow recipes online which you can check out the links below. With these recipes, I just took inspiration from them, some I may have left some ingredients out or added some, depending on my preference. I’m so happy how everything turned out that I definitely recommend all these recipes if you’re looking to make Thanksgiving from scratch but you don’t want super complicated recipes.
Items like the pumpkin pie and turkey I just bought premade. The turkey was a turkey breast roast that I just picked up from Aldi. It was extremely good, simple to cook, and since it was only two of us, it just made more sense to do something like that as opposed to a full turkey. The pumpkin pie was an awesome find at Costco. Traditionally I would have made the pumpkin pie from scratch using puree pumpkin, but in Australia, the only way to get pure pumpkin is to roast a pumpkin and puree it yourself, which seemed like a lot of work so I just decided to picking up the premade one from Costco for $5.99 was the best option!
As I mentioned, not only is this menu perfect for Thanksgiving, but great for any holiday meal. What is your must-have dish for Thanksgiving? Let me know in the comments down below!
