{"id":2981,"date":"2014-11-25T15:43:29","date_gmt":"2014-11-25T21:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/3.146.49.248\/?p=2981"},"modified":"2025-02-24T15:09:26","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T21:09:26","slug":"thanksgiving-life-hacks-to-cut-down-on-kitchen-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelockup.com\/blog\/thanksgiving-life-hacks-to-cut-down-on-kitchen-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Thanksgiving Life Hacks to Cut Down on Kitchen Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4850 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thelockup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/thanksgiving-table-decoration-xs1.jpg\" alt=\"Thanksgiving\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" \/>Ah Thanksgiving\u2026food, family, and the seemingly never-ending food prep. As you know, we at the Lock Up Self Storage are all about making things easier for you; so we would like to give you some time saving Thanksgiving hacks that just might help you enjoy the day rather than be overwhelmed by it. Let\u2019s get to it!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Clean out your coolers.<\/strong><br \/>\nSince coolers are merely insulated boxes, they can keep things cool or warm. If you have two, make one a cooler for all the canned and bottled drinks for your guests. This will save you space in the refrigerator.<br \/>\nMake another cooler a \u201cwarmer\u201d for warm items like side dishes that get finished before the whole meal is ready. You can even heat up a brick, wrap it in a dish towel and place it inside to make it extra toasty.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Chop all your veggies early.<\/strong><br \/>\nDon\u2019t miss out on precious family time because you\u2019re chopping, slicing &amp; dicing. Do that the day before and store the cut veggies in sealed containers.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Set a festive table.<\/strong><br \/>\nDo this the day before too\u2026get the kids in on it so you have one less concern. Bigger kids can hollow out a pumpkin to place flowers in for the centerpiece. Smaller kids can gather pinecones to stick the placeholder name cards in.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Easy mashed potatoes.<\/strong><br \/>\nDon\u2019t break your hand peeling pounds of potatoes. Boil them with the skins on first, then cool them under cold water. Now the skins practically slide right off. Mash them in a slow cooker and you can keep them warm, have them in a handy server <em>and<\/em> leave a burner open for the gravy!<\/li>\n<li>Speaking of <strong>gravy<\/strong>\u2026store your gravy in a thermos to keep it hot until you need it!<\/li>\n<li><strong>Turkey Talk<\/strong><br \/>\nKeep your turkey breast moist and tender by placing a bag of ice on it for a half an hour. This will partially freeze the breast meat, allowing it to cook at the same rate as the dark meat, which will keep the top of the bird from drying out while you finish roasting it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Desert<\/strong><br \/>\nNo Thanksgiving is complete without desert. Here\u2019s a festive idea that you can delegate to the kids. Have them wet the ends of some sugar cones with warm water, then curl the tips up into a little spiral. Let them dry and you\u2019ve got mini Thanksgiving cornucopias! Fill them with ice cream or candy.<br \/>\nAnd if you\u2019re having pie (and who doesn\u2019t have pie, even if they\u2019re stuffed?)\u2026you\u2019ll need whipped cream. If you\u2019re making your own, here\u2019s a hack to make it faster: use two whisks! It\u2019ll cut your whipping time considerably!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We at The Lock Up would like to wish you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n<p>We are certainly thankful for all of you!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cut down on kitchen time and enjoy your Thanksgiving with these helpful life hacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":4850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-how-to","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelockup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelockup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelockup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelockup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelockup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelockup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9020,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelockup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2981\/revisions\/9020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelockup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelockup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelockup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelockup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}