Last year, I hosted Thanksgiving at my house. My mom had recently been released from the hospital, so I wanted to make something that was celebratory, but appropriate for my small family. I decided to do traditional favorites with a Spanish twist, because as much as I love the classics, recreating relatives’ perfect dishes comes with a lot of pressure.

The menu I served looked like this:

• A cheese platter (Marcona almonds, Spanish cheeses, grapes, crackers and olives)
• Sweet potato soup accented with cream and toasted pepitas
• Roast turkey breast with a romseco sauce
• Manchego mashed potatoes
• Chorizo spiked cream corn
• Dessert

It was really delicious. I thought, “Lane, now you have Thanksgiving recipes for the blog next year. You’re so on it.” And of course, when I went to find the recipes and game plan for the day, they were nowhere to be found. Also, the pictures I took were really bad, so instead, I included the few good ones I had here, in this post, because I love looking at photos of Ellie and marveling at how little she was.

So, much to Keegan’s delight, I am recreating a lot of these, just for you. We had a full turkey breast on Thursday night, because food bloggers are nuts. Trust me. Although I am full-blown crazy, it may be bordering on genius, because this meal was one of the best I’ve ever made. Ever. And, that is saying a lot.

Here’s how you can pull it together:

Game Plan:
1 week before
Make the sweet potato soup and pop it in the freezer.

5 days before
Make the romesco sauce and freeze it.

2 days before
Get the ingredients for the cheese platter.

1 day before
Thaw the soup and romesco.

The day of
3 hours before your guests arrive, start on the turkey
1 hour before, assemble the cheese platter, start the corn and pull the romesco sauce out of the fridge
30 minutes before, heat the soup
15 minutes before, start on the mashed potatoes (these will cook while they’re arriving, but that’s okay.)