Les gourmandises: Thanksgiving meal

Hubby and I spent our first Thanksgiving together out here in Cali. He had to work all week (and Thanksgiving night 8p - 8a the next day!), so I decided to stay here to spend it with him. I was sad not to go home, but actually kind of excited about trying to cook my own Thanksgiving meal.

Some backstory -- up until this summer, I did not "cook". Ever. I made trail mix (still my favorite recipe) and that's it. But then the wedding happened and all of a sudden I had a kitchen full of cooking tools! So I did what anyone with time on their hands and a new husband would do (oh those glorious days of summer post-wedding, pre-back-to-work) and tried to learn how to cook something. A few months and many you-tube/googling of "how to ____" later and I feel like I'm actually pretty decent! I stay away from any complicated or time consuming recipes (more on that later) and usually turn out good meals.

So now for Thanksgiving. Everything I tried was a new recipe I found online, and I have to say it was all delicious. I had prepared myself for at least one dish not turning out well, but everything turned out great! We had two friends over and feasted. Recipes below... ALL EASY AND FAST*!!

Our menu (with links to recipes):

Sweet potato casserole - this is really sweet so I halved the sugar in the recipe.
Green bean casserole - just the classic
Bread and celery stuffing
Gravy
Cranberry sauce - canned
Strawberry tart
Turkey - kept it simple and roasted the 12 lb turkey for ~4 hours at 325. Put an Apple inside (thanks Mrs. Bagwell!) and rubbed salt/butter on the skin before putting it in the oven. Covered with tin foil for the first 2.5 hours and then basted about every half hour with turkey drippings. Took it out of the oven when the turkey thermometer hit ~170.

* Except for the tart's pastry cream, which took 3 tries :)