Some of the stuff we made for the holiday.

[leene_chan]

These are Twice-Baked Potatoes with Broccoli, Sharp Cheddar and Scallions. They turned out pretty well, but next time I think I'll cook the scallions before adding them to the filling. Raw onions of any kind give me heartburn. I thought they were quite good. I wonder how much of a crowd-pleaser they were, though. There are a lot of babies out there who don't like to eat their veggies!

And here are the Red Velvet Cupcakes. They look like humble cupcakes but they were very popular. The cream cheese frosting in particular was excellent. Homemade frosting is the best because you can use unsalted butter, tee hee....Because of the cream cheese frosting, these had to be stored in the refrigerator. The recipe said you could just take them out and eat them but I found that if I didn't let the cupcake sit at room temperature for at least 10 minutes the cake had a dry texture. But they were lovely...

We also were responsible for Slow-Roasted Turkey Breast (we did two breasts instead of a whole bird and slow-roasted them at 275) and Rutabaga with Bacon, Apples and Sage. The turkey took a little longer than we expected but it turned out moist and delicious. I usually hate turkey because it's so dry! The rutabaga (more commonly known as the big yellow turnips) was also good. My sister-in-law took seconds, which really surprised me. I thought she didn't like vegetables.

So all my mother had to do was make sausage stuffing (didn't eat it) and mashed potatoes (didn't eat them either). I wasn't trying to be rude. My stomach only has a limited capacity! Everyone else loves sausage stuffing, and I thought I'd leave it for someone else. Also, she said the mashed potatoes turned out lousy. I wonder what went wrong...

The Spiced Cranberry Sauce was also good. I think me and Kristen were the only ones who ate it.