Thanksgiving Day Baking Marathon

On Thursday, my family decided to have our big Thanksgiving meal for dinner instead of at lunchtime, so that we would not have to wake up early and begin rushing through our preparations.

I did want us to have a special breakfast however, and after seeing this recipe for Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart bread, I simply had to try it.

(Click the link above for the recipe and step by step instructions.)


Since I had my table all floured up and my rolling pin out, I thought that I should go ahead and use up the rest of the pizza dough that had been sitting in the fridge since Tuesday night.  I had decided that I wanted to make homemade pizza pockets for the freezer, and so I searched and found this post (I already had my dough and homemade pizza sauce, so this was just a visual aid on how to shape and assemble them).

We rolled of the dough in small circles. 

Spread sauce, cheese, and pepperoni on them, then folded and sealed.

Baking. 

To freeze. 

We actually got finished with these just a little before lunch time, so we partook of some for lunch that day, and then I wrapped the rest up and bagged them for the freezer.  I actually just reheated a couple for my lunch, and they are still delicious after being frozen.  The edges were a little chewy, as microwave bread tends to get, but no chewier than a Hot Pocket, and quite a bit tastier.  I went a little light on the filling this time, so next time I'll try to stuff them more.

After we had our lunch, it was time to begin our dinner preparations.  The first thing I did (since the table was already messy and whatnot) was make the bread.  I think no feast is complete without freshly made bread, and I had seen this post on MoneySavingMom about make ahead butterhorn rolls.  They looked delectable, and you know I'm a sucker for anything that I can't make once and stash some away in the freezer, so I decided to give it a go.

Here they are all rolled up and laid out on baking sheets (there are two more trays behind me as well).  I just noticed when I uploaded this that you can actually see my husband in the background vaccuming off our table with his Black and Decker hand vac.  Yep.  That's how we roll around here. ;)

Lots of rolls (not all of them)

 We left one tray out to continue rising and baked it with dinner.  The rest went into the freezer on the trays.  When they were frozen, I bagged them and returned them to the freezer.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving feast with just our little family.  We had turkey, stuffing, homemade turkey gravy and cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes (from the freezer!~saved a little time there.), macaroni and cheese, carrots, broccoli, rolls, and iced tea!

Now, it's on to the leftovers.  I have been/will be working diligently to turn my turkey leftovers into things that do not really resemble turkey leftovers.  I've already made Turkey and Stuffing Casserole, and today I'll be making some Turkey Pot Pies, and Turkey Soup, and Turkey Taco Quiche (Recipe coming).  All of these will feed us a meal, and then put more into the freezer.

Check out this post I did last April, when I made a turkey and turned it into 26 meals!