Spring Cleaning: Organizing Your Time

Organizing Your Time for the Spring Cleaning Menu

The Spring Cleaning menu, while relatively simple, requires a bit of extra work the day before, so organize the finer details of your event four, three, and two days beforehand. The day before, you will prepare the filling for the lemon pie as well as the actual crab cakes. Forewarned is forearmed.

Four days before, after you’ve written your list and bought your groceries, get started with some light prep work. If the mangoes are not quite ripe yet, place them in a brown paper bag and leave them out on the counter in a draft-free spot. This will encourage the ripening process of most any fruit.

Now, if you’re feeling particularly organized and energetic, why not prepare the pie dough? Just follow the recipe, wrap it in plastic, and leave it in the fridge until the day before.

Three days before, prepare the Jalapeño mayonnaise.

Two days before, the mangoes should be ripe, so prepare the salsa. Now that’s really it until the day/night before.

The day before, begin with what you might consider the most difficult task in this menu, which for most people is the lemon pie. But it really is not a terrible chore and the result is so entirely worth the worry! Take a deep breath and have fun baking. If you’re really crunched for time, a splurge at the bakery might be in order…

The crab cakes are next and refreshingly simple to execute. If your energy is waning, you can put off preparing the salad until the day of. The croutons take less than 30 minutes to prepare so it’s really your call.

The day of can be spent fertilizing the lawn, turning the soil in the flowerbeds, or sorting through the stacks of catalogs that have been arriving in the mail since Christmas! This menu requires very little “minutes before serving” labor, other than tossing the salad and sautéing the crab cakes. Have a great day and enjoy the applause you’ve earned for the gorgeous meal!