7 cooking hacks to save your Thanksgiving from disaster

Even the most confident Thanksgiving cooks make mistakes.

There's always one dish that doesn't come out as good as last year, as bolder family members may remind you. Indeed, the pressure to cook the perfect holiday meal is heavy, especially if it's your first time.

A former private chef and graduate of Paris' Le Cordon Bleu, Elana Karp knows this pressure well.

She's cooked more Thanksgiving dinners than she can remember. And in the test kitchen she manages for Plated, a popular subscription meal service, Karp writes and perfects 11 recipes every week. Identifying cooking shortcuts and hacks is her specialty.

We visited her kitchen to learn solutions to seven problems cooks commonly face on Thanksgiving.