Happy Thanksgiving Cupcake Toppers
image by AForestFrolic via Flickr Creative Commons
It was a lot of work, but Thanksgiving dinner turned out wonderfully. Here’s a breakdown of what we thought of each recipe.

Turkey with Gravy: Loved the gravy. I didn’t quite follow the recipe exactly, but it still turned out great.

Creamy Delicious Mashed Potatoes: I still haven’t decided how I feel about these, and hubby didn’t like them. I think we’re stuck on our traditional mashed potatoes, and the cream cheese flavor was much stronger than I expected.

Homemade Cranberry Sauce: I didn’t end up liking this either, but I think it was because I used orange juice instead of cranberry juice. Hubby loved it. I’ll try this again next year with cranberry juice.

Mom’s Green Bean Casserole and Mom’s Stuffing: Perfect. Yum.

Skillet Cornbread: Ok, I can’t figure out why I never can make cornbread that we like. We’re big fans of the cornbread at Boston Market, and theirs is so much sweeter than any recipe I’ve tried. I think if we weren’t so picky, this would have been good.

Bread Machine Buttery Rolls turned into Buttered Rosemary Rolls: A-ma-zing. So, so, so good. I will be using this pair of recipes again. I love that I can make rolls without having to do any work – the bread machine does it all for me. I should note, though, that my machine needed 2 hours for the dough setting, which was longer than I expected.

The Pie That’ll Make You Cry (Pecan Pie): I didn’t cry, but this was pretty good. I’ve never actually had pecan pie before, so now I’ll probably be spoiled. It did need an extra 20 minutes to get the pie firm enough to remove from the oven. (The pie crust recipe referenced in here, Sylvia’s Perfect Pie Crust, was in fact perfect, and is a keeper.)

Pumpkin Pie: Better than I expected. When this came out of the oven (30 minutes after the recipe stated – my pumpkin pies always take forever), it did not look like pumpkin pie. The top looked like a crumbly apple pie topping! I was very afraid to try it, but it actually tastes like traditional pumpkin pie. Impressive.

“Healthified” Apple Crisp: Delicious. Will definitely be making this again.

I baked the two pies, rolls, cornbread, and green bean casserole, and cooked the cranberry sauce on Wednesday, and left the mashed potatoes, stuffing, apple crisp for Thursday morning. Now we have enough leftovers to feed an army. I think next year I’ll cut some of the recipes in half!