Leftover candy cane idea...

I had a bunch of candy canes from something, so I decided to make mini candy cane cupcakes.  This is a really easy, cute dessert.  Just make mini vanilla cupcakes, frost them, then roll them in crushed candy canes.  You don't even have to worry about the frosting looking good because the candy canes cover it.  Enjoy!

Thanksgiving recap...

We spent today cleaning up and recovering from Thanksgiving... It went really well this year.  Things got started on Wednesday afternoon when our families arrived.  I'd sent out a schedule the week before using Paperless Post so everybody knew the plan for the weekend.

My plan to make everything ahead worked out great this year.  I'd made the Wednesday lasagna and Thursday breakfast pumpkin rolls (a big hit) ahead and put them in the freezer, and did the same for just about everything on the Thanksgiving menu too.  This was our Turkey Day menu:

Nick was in charge of the turkey and the wine.  We have cooked the Turkey on our gas grill for the last two years.  The turkey is good and it also gives me oven space to heat everything up, so the make ahead plan is workable. I made the soup and the cheese puffs two weekends before (put in ziplocs in the freezer).  The pesto dip is just pesto cubes I made over the summer (and put in the freezer) mixed with a block of cream cheese.  I made the sweet potatoes the weekend before and put them in the freezer, and the mashed potatoes the day before.  On Wednesday morning, I made the pies and the stuffing.  By the time everyone arrived on Wednesday afternoon, everything was about done.  The green bean recipe is so easy that all I had to do on Thursday was throw it in a pan and make sure everything else was in the oven.  Definitely the easiest Thanksgiving ever!

Make ahead mashed potatoes?

In my pursuit of easy thanksgiving recipes, I came across Martha's recipe for Luxurious Mashed Potatoes.
Apparently, you can make them a day ahead of time and just heat them up in the oven. Sounds good to me!  It was a big hassle last year to have to mash them right before dinner, so I think I will make a test batch this weekend...