Free resources for hosts and home cooks

The Thanksgiving hosting checklist

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Three weeks out

Pick the date, the time and the guest list, and write down who cannot eat what before anyone plans a dish. Send one link for the whole event. Guests RSVP, claim a dish and add their allergies in the same place. Decide what you are cooking, and leave clear gaps for what guests can bring.

Two weeks out

Look at the dish list and name the gaps out loud. Starters, mains, sides, salads, bread, desserts, drinks. If a course is empty, ask a specific person for a specific dish. Count chairs, plates, serving spoons and fridge space. Borrow what is missing now, not the day before.

One week out

Write the grocery list in one go, from the menu, not from memory in the shop. Check who has not replied and send one reminder through the event, not nine separate texts. Buy the drinks, the ice and everything that keeps.

Three days out

Buy the fresh food. Make anything that freezes or keeps, including sauces and dessert bases. Confirm who is bringing what one last time, while there is still time to fill a gap.

The day before

Set the table. Put serving dishes out with a note for what goes in each one. Make a short timeline for the day itself: what goes in the oven when, and what needs the hob at the same time.

On the day

Cook to the timeline, not to the group chat. Guests can see the plan, so the questions mostly answer themselves. Put one person on drinks and one person on clearing before anyone sits down. It should never all land on the host.

Run your Thanksgiving exactly like this, in one link. Start your event at getladle.com.

Start your event

The Friendsgiving dish gap checklist

Comment GAPS on any of our posts and we send you here.

The problem is never that people bring nothing. The problem is that nobody can see the whole table, so you get six pies and no rolls.

For 12 guests, a table that works looks like this:

• Starters: 2 dishes.
• Mains: 2 dishes, one of them not meat if anyone at the table does not eat meat.
• Sides: 4 dishes, at least one of them green.
• Salads: 2 dishes.
• Bread and rolls: 1 person, named, not assumed.
• Desserts: 2 dishes, not 6.
• Drinks: 2 people, one of them brings ice.

How to keep the gaps filled

Every dish gets claimed in one place, where everyone can see it.

The gaps stay visible. An empty course on the list is the reminder.

Every dish carries a dietary flag, so allergies are known before anyone cooks, not at the table.

One week out, read the list like a guest. If you only see desserts and sides, you do not have dinner yet, you have a party problem to fix while there is still time.

See your whole table, gaps and all, before the day. Start your event at getladle.com.

Start your event

The 5 dinners bank

Comment BANK on any of our posts and we send you here.

You do not need thirty dinner ideas a month. You need a handful of dinners your people actually eat, kept in one bank, made in different ways so nobody notices you are repeating yourself.

The bank that works in our house:

One. Roast chicken.

Night one, roast with potatoes. Night two, the leftovers become soup or wraps, and nothing is wasted.

Two. A traybake.

Sausages or chicken thighs, chopped vegetables, one tray, the oven does the work.

Three. Pasta with a sauce that takes ten minutes.

Tomato, garlic and whatever green thing is in the fridge.

Four. Soup and good bread.

A big pot on Monday is lunch twice and dinner once.

Five. Tacos or wraps.

Set everything out, everyone builds their own, and the one who will not eat the main thing still eats.

How the bank runs

Catch every recipe in ten seconds when it lands, from a message, a photo or a link, and put it in the bank, not in a screenshot.

Every meal has one job. Feed everyone on a busy night, use up what is in the fridge, or cook once and eat twice.

When a dinner works, it stays in the bank. When nobody eats it, it leaves. No guilt either way.

Repeat without apologising. The bank does the remembering, so 5pm never starts from zero.

Keep your bank in one place and plan the week from it. Download GetLadle.

Download GetLadle

The screenshot rescue list: 10 fall recipes everyone saves and nobody cooks, written out

Comment RESCUE on any of our posts and we send you here.

These are the fall recipes that turn up again and again in saved folders and most saved lists this season, and they still do not get cooked, because a save is not a recipe. Here they are with the ingredients written out, so they can actually be cooked. Save them properly in GetLadle and this is the last time you go hunting for them.

1. Pot roast over mashed potatoes

1 beef chuck roast, about 3 pounds. 1 onion, sliced. 4 carrots, cut in chunks. 4 cloves garlic. 2 cups beef stock. 2 tablespoons tomato paste. 1 teaspoon thyme. Potatoes, butter and milk for the mash. Brown the meat, add everything else, cook low and slow until it falls apart, about 3 hours. Serve over mash.

2. Chicken gnocchi soup

1 pound chicken breast or thighs. 1 onion, 2 carrots and 2 sticks of celery, diced. 3 cloves garlic. 4 cups chicken stock. 1 pack potato gnocchi, about 1 pound. 1 cup cream. 2 handfuls spinach. Cook the chicken in the stock, shred it, soften the vegetables, add gnocchi until it floats, then cream and spinach at the end.

3. Dumpling lasagna

1 pack wonton wrappers. 1 pound ground pork. 2 spring onions, chopped. 1 tablespoon grated ginger. 2 tablespoons soy sauce. 1 teaspoon sesame oil. Chilli crisp to serve. Mix the pork, spring onion, ginger, soy and sesame oil. Layer filling and wrappers in a dish like a lasagna, steam or bake until the pork is cooked through, about 20 minutes. Chilli crisp on top.

4. Crispy rice salad

2 cups cooked rice, cooled. 1 tablespoon chilli crisp. 1 tablespoon soy sauce. 1 cucumber, diced. 2 spring onions. A handful of chopped peanuts or cashews. Lime juice. Bake the rice with the chilli crisp and soy at 400F until crisp at the edges, about 20 minutes. Toss with the rest while warm.

5. Rotisserie chicken rice

1 rotisserie chicken, shredded. 2 cups rice. 3 cups chicken stock. 1 cup frozen peas. 2 cloves garlic. 1 lemon. Cook the rice in the stock with the garlic, stir the chicken and peas through at the end, rest 10 minutes, lemon over the top.

6. Cheese stuffed sweet potato

2 large sweet potatoes. 1 ball mozzarella or a cup of grated mild white cheese. Salt, pepper, butter. Bake the potatoes until completely soft, about 1 hour at 400F. Split, butter, stuff with the cheese, back in the oven until it melts, about 5 minutes. Two ingredients are doing the work here and it still counts as dinner with a salad beside it.

7. Tomato soup with grilled cheese

2 tins chopped tomatoes. 1 onion. 3 cloves garlic. 1 cup stock. Half a cup of cream. Bread, butter and strong cheddar for the sandwiches. Soften the onion and garlic, add tomatoes and stock, simmer 20 minutes, blend, add cream. Grilled cheese on the side, for dipping, not optional.

8. Pumpkin muffins

1 and three quarter cups flour. 1 cup sugar. 1 teaspoon baking soda. 2 teaspoons pumpkin spice or cinnamon with a pinch of nutmeg. 1 tin pumpkin puree, about 1 and a half cups. 2 eggs. Half a cup of oil or melted butter. Mix dry, mix wet, combine, bake at 350F for about 20 minutes.

9. Breakfast burritos, made to freeze

8 large tortillas. 8 eggs, scrambled soft. 1 pound breakfast sausage or bacon, cooked. 2 cups grated cheese. 1 pepper and 1 onion, diced and cooked. Fill, roll tight, wrap, freeze. Reheat from frozen in a hot oven or air fryer, about 15 minutes.

10. Honey BBQ chicken and potatoes

1 and a half pounds chicken thighs. 1 and a half pounds potatoes, cubed small. Half a cup BBQ sauce. 2 tablespoons honey. 1 teaspoon smoked paprika. 2 cloves garlic, grated. Toss everything on one tray, roast at 425F until the potatoes are crisp and the chicken is cooked, about 35 minutes.

Save these properly, once, in one bank with the grocery list built for you. Download GetLadle.

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