Dinner plan: menu and cooking timeline
The menu with how and when each dish is made, and a cooking timeline worked back from your serving time, sorted by the clock, with oven clashes flagged.
For a first pass, the cooking timeline is essential for a dinner you cook: every dish with a start time, and the oven never needed at two temperatures at once. That is the Start here result of A dinner party. The menu sheet is optional but makes the timeline easier: it holds each dish's temperature, minutes and allergens in one place.
Menu
One row per dish, with how and when it is made. The oven column and temperature are what the timeline checks.
Cooking timeline
One row per step. Minutes before serving is the number to set; the clock time follows from your serving time in setup. The clock view under this sheet sorts the steps and flags two oven steps at different temperatures in the same window.
Your timeline by the clock
How to use these sheets
- Minutes before serving is the number to set. Write each step as minutes before the food goes on the table. The clock view turns them into times from your serving time in setup.
- Oven steps need a temperature and a duration. That is what the clash check reads. A side reheated at 350°F while the main roasts at 425°F shows up as a clash.
- Days-ahead steps too. Shopping two days ahead is 2,880 minutes; the night before is 1,440. They sort to the top.
The example menu is Marcus Bell's dinner for six (fictional), from A dinner party: chicken thighs and potatoes on two pans at 425°F for 45 minutes, a white bean and greens gratin baked on Friday and reheated at 350°F while the chicken rests, so the two oven windows meet at 7:05 without overlapping, and a bought tart whose bakery was asked about tree nuts. His recipe times are his own assumptions; FSIS gives the safe internal temperatures, not recipe times.
The timeline arranges the times you enter; it does not test them. Cooking times come from your recipes and a food thermometer, and safe temperatures from FSIS (Food safety at a glance). The planner checks the oven only; it cannot see a crowded stovetop or a small refrigerator.