Making it all come out at the same time
 

This will be my first Easter cooking dinner by myself. I am definitely doing a ham green beans, potatoes, carrots, rolls, and probably butternut squash or some other veg. Fortunately someone else will be doing dessert. I also would like to do a small roast, as several people don't like ham.

Normally it has been a joint project between my father and I, but with him passing away I am now on my own. My biggest technical challenge will be, I think, making sure everything comes out to be ready at the same time. Any tips to offer on how to do that?

Precook as much as possible and reheat or use slow cookers to keep warm.

1. Prep everything the day/a few days before--by that I mean do all the chopping and measuring, not the actual cooking. Get everything to the stage where it's ready to get fired. My M.O. is to chop/measure out all the ingredients for each dish, then put each dish's ingredients in ziplocs, plastic containers etc. and throw all of them into separate, labeled supermarket plastic bags in the fridge. Then you can pull out each one on meal day and cook it. Not only does this make you far less exhausted on the day when you have guests, but it's also a good way to avoid mistakes caused by rushing/stress.

2. Go over all your recipes, and working backward from your desired meal time, make a schedule of when each thing needs to get cooked, go into the oven, etc. in order to come out at 6 PM or whatever it is. If you have multiple things going into the same oven, you may need to adjust the cooking temperatures or times, but generally this can be done without problems except for baked goods (like your rolls). Do those first, then set the oven temperature for the ham, roast, etc.

This is what I have done at Thanksgiving for the last 18 years and it works. I cook everything myself--about 8 separate dishes--with four burners and one oven, and it all comes out at the same time.

I am making too much food. But, some people were really looking forward to ham, and some were really looking forward to roast beef. So I am cookingboth.

How do I make this work? 7lb ham, that's 1:45 @325. 4 lb roast - that's 15 minutes at 450, then 1 hour at 325. Can I skip the15 minutes at 450 and just do 1:15 at 325, or should I try pan searing the roast instead?

People are used to eating ham at room temperature. I’d say just make that one first, take it out and then start on the roast.

Pulled it off. Everything got done at exactly the same time. Fortunately my brother was around to help carve the meat while I handled everything else. I timed the roast at 325 for 25min a pound, that turned out to be perfect timing.

Good job!

Good for you!

Good job! It does get easier as you cook holiday dinners more frequently. I've been cooking Thanksgiving dinner for years (skipping a year here and there) and now I have it about down to a science. Although, when we build a house, we will have two kitchens, complete with two stoves and two ovens. :)

Even better, assuming the ham is fully cooked. Don't bother with the baking at all. Just take it out of the fridge to warm up and you're good to go. All baking does is leach out much of the juice anyway, making it dry.