Thanksgiving Dinner Hacks and Tricks to Make Cooking a Breeze

— -- Making Thanksgiving dinner can be stressful, but it doesn’t have to be.

Sherry Rujikarn, associate food editor of the Good Housekeeping Institute, appeared on “Good Morning America” today to share her tips and tricks to help you make your Thanksgiving meal preparation a breeze.

Scenarios and Solutions
No rack? No problem. Use carrots and celery sticks as a makeshift rack on which to cook your turkey. We found this in our archives while researching tips for our 130th anniversary issue.
Need to save time? Peel potatoes for mashed potatoes or apples for apple pie hours ahead of time and leave them in a mixture of lemon and water in a salad spinner. When it’s time to boil the potatoes or make the apple filling, just pull up on the inner basket and they drain themselves.
Doing double-duty: Use kitchen shears for more than cutting butcher’s twine. Use them to trim green beans, snip herbs and trim fat off of the turkey. No food processor to make pie dough? Grate frozen butter into flour instead.
No apple corer? Use a melon baller to core apples for pie.
Forgot to chill the wine? Put a handful of salt in a bucket of water and ice to chill wine in a fraction of the time. The salt lowers the freezing point of ice water so it draws more heat out of the wine, thus chilling it faster.
Extra Tips
Use your microwave to make cranberry sauce. It’s easy and fast. And you can use the leftover sauce in day-after-Thanksgiving cocktails.
Use pie cutters to make a festive -- but really easy -- decorated top crust for your pies.
Make your gravy days ahead of time by making turkey wings. Just save some of the drippings from the wings for later use with your cooked turkey.