No Crust Cranberry Pie

Holiday Recipe Review and Tips

As promised, I did make all of the recipes under the Holiday Recipe Collection tab for Thanksgiving or the day after. It was really fun to try some new dishes and a couple of them may well become established holiday favorites.

1. Whole Grain Bread Dressing.  This is the recipe makeover that I was more apprehensive to try out on my family.  We all love bread dressing made with white bread.  It’s what my mom, grandmother, sister and I have all made over
   the years.  Two of my daughters said the whole grain dressing was the best part of the meal. I used whole wheat bread that I purchased at the grocery store bakery. The only changes I made to the recipe were I reduced the amount of onion to one but added a stalk of celery.  This recipe gets an ’A’.
2.  Maple-Roasted Sweet Potatoes.  The sweet potatoes were good but I think that I like plain baked sweet potatoes the best.  I enjoy the flavor of sweet potatoes enough that I don’t need to add maple syrup or lemon juice.  But, for a holiday, rather than serving plain baked, these looked pretty in the dish and were very good.  I would give this recipe a ‘B’.
3. 

   Whole-Wheat Orzo Salad

   Whole-Wheat Orzo Salad.  This was excellent.  Instead of using red wine vinegar I used balsamic and I added a couple of tablespoons of green salad olives and a dash of garlic salt to give it a little more flavor.  I made this the day after Thanksgiving for a family get-together and my brother-in-law absolutely loved it.  This recipe also gets an ‘A’.

4. Pumpkin Angel Food Cake.  I followed the recipe to the letter.  There’s not much that can be changed on this one.  When my family and I tried it on Thanksgiving we weren’t crazy about it.  I refrigerated it and tried it the next day chilled with a dab of lite Cool Whip.  It was really good the second day; the texture and pumpkin flavor were so much better. I would definitely make this recipe again because it is such a light, low-calorie dessert.  I’ll just remember to make it a day ahead and let it sit in the fridge overnight.  Grade on Day One – ‘B-’.  Grade on Day Two – ‘A’.
5. No-Crust Cranberry Pie.  I’ll save the best for last.  I have no doubt this will be a standing recipe at holiday meal.  The texture and flavor were both perfect.  I realized that I had not included nutritional information when I posted the recipe, but have now added it.  This recipe gets at ‘A+’.