I found out last week that Brian’s sister will be joining us for Thanksgiving. That means it will be my first chance to make a Thanksgiving dinner! I’m excited and a little nervous, since cooking isn’t one of my strengths. The thought of making a turkey by myself is pretty intimidating!

Even if you’re not making a full Thanksgiving dinner by yourself, chances are that you’re supposed to contribute something to the family celebration. And even beyond Thanksgiving, last week Caitlin talked about entertaining on a budget and suggested asking people to bring food, so at some time or another you might be asked to contribute to a meal. How do you decide what to bring?

1. First, if you can, find out if there are any allergies. If one of your cousins is severely allergic to peanuts, you probably shouldn’t bring peanut butter brittle. If you know your aunt is avoiding gluten, look for a gluten free recipe that everyone will enjoy. You can’t always find out about allergies, but making an effort will go a long way in making your gathering more enjoyable.

Note: since writing this post, I stumbled across this blog post, “Allergen-Free Dishes for Thanksgiving,” on Life…Your Way and I just had to share!

2. Second, don’t get to crazy. You don’t have to cater to everyone’s preferences, but when bringing food, try to stick with something most people will like. I recommend staying away from exotic ingredients and unique combinations. If you know there will be kids present, keep in mind that most children are sensitive to texture, bitter tasting foods, and foods that look strange and unfamiliar to them.

So how do find crowd pleasers? Here are a few of my favorite places to find recipes.

• Google. If you just Google “chicken recipes,” you’ll get thousands of results. But to save time, you can fine tune your search, while staying in Google.

After your initial search, select the “Recipes” option along the left side. Then you’ll have options to filter by the ingredients you have on hand, the cooking time, and even the calories.

• AllRecipes.com.  I love all recipes, because you can set up a free account, and then save recipes to your “recipe box” to use later! There’s also a handy menu planning tool, and menus to browse for inspiration. The recipes also have ratings and comments with suggestions and feedback.

I think the turkey prepping video will come in handy!

• Food blogs. Chances are you already follow a few! Browse their archives for recipes that were hits with their own families. Delish.com made this “Best of the Food Blogs” list, and Babble.com put together this alphabetical list of the 50 Best Mom Food Bloggers where you’re sure to find inspiration, or you could try the food blog search to find more.

What are your favorite places to find recipes? Got a crowd pleaser to share? Leave a comment and fill us in!

P.S: Tomorrow if all goes well we will have our first linky! Grab the button code on the right and get your post ready! We’re looking forward to reading it!

I’m linking up with WFMW today.