This year we did something we hadn’t done in a loooong time, have a traditional Thanksgiving. This year, we chose to purchase our traditional Thanksgiving through Cracker Barrel. The options were the serves 6, and the serves 10. The serves 6 comes with:
- Turkey n’ Dressing
- Sampling of Sugar Cured Ham
- Turkey Gravy
- Cranberry Relish
- Choice of 3 Sides (each serves 6)
- and Choice of Bread
The serves 10 comes with:
- Roasted Turkey Breast
- Cornbread Dressing
- Gravy
- Cranberry Relish
- Choice of 3 Sides (each serves 10)
- Sweet Yeast Rolls
- Pumpkin Pie
- Pecan Pie
The side choices are:
- Cornbread dressing
- Macaroni and cheese
- Sweet potato casserole
- Green beans
- Mashed potatoes
- Baby Carrots
- Whole corn
We chose the serves 10 for 2 reasons. One, the serves 6 came hot. The serves 10 came ready to cook. I wanted our meal to be freshly cooked, not precooked. The other reason is because we don’t eat pork, so it was useless to get the one with the ham. Also, the serves 6 just comes with “turkey and dressing”, whereas the serves 10 comes with an actual breast.
I placed the order the weekend before online, and we went to pick it up Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving. It came in a big box, especially made for it. It barely all fit in the fridge! Here’s the box with the two pies in it.
Here’s the instruction manual that tells you how to do everything.
Here’s all the food. Our sides were stuffing, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, and the apples. Note the small bag of individual butter servings. The turkey is in the patterned bag, bottom right.
It also came with a complimentary set of salt and pepper shakers that look like little acorns. Cute, but we don’t need any more salt and pepper shakers.
I was not impressed with the way the sweet potato casserole looked with the topping all globbed in the center like that, but the topping did seem dispersed after cooking and serving.
The instructions were great, and here’s why. All the food cooks at the same temperature. So if you’re oven is big enough, you can fit it all in there without having to wait on anything. The turkey took the longest, so I put it in, waited the certain amount of time, stuck in a side, waited, added a side, etc. The lids come off, and the sides stay in the pan they came in-convenient! Save the lids for putting the food up later. The mashed potatoes required a separate dish, as their instructions were using the microwave. The stuffing had to be mixed with provided chicken broth. It was runny, but cooked to a nice consistency. The turkey took longer to cook than expected, but things happen like that all the time. Here’s the turkey.
Here’s the turkey after 4 people got served. Now remember, this is supposed to serve 10. It could very well serve 10, but I’m sure most homes are going to eat more than their “allotted servings”. Keep that in mind if you decide to order this.
Here was my plate. As you can see, it’s plenty to eat, but not a ridiculous amount-you know the amount most people eat around this time of year 😉
Now for the important part, the flavor. (based off of all four people) The turkey was moist and tasty. It had obviously been seasoned. It was not a breast like a Butterball. It looked like it had been messed with somehow. The yeast rolls were like cornbread biscuits. They weren’t bad, they just weren’t yeast rolls. Not at all. The stuffing was some of the best stuffing I’ve had. The apples were good; the mashed potatoes were good (neither the best I’ve ever had, but certainly nothing to complain about). I don’t personally like cranberry relish. I want my cranberry sauce to look like it just came out of a can and got sliced, not some gourmet looking froofroo to make a bunch of used-to-be yuppies (now middle aged) feel special. However, this relish was good. And then…. stay away from the sweet potato casserole. Trust me. Don’t go there. Just don’t. It tasted like someone added a jar of lemon juice to it. NOT good. It tasted nothing like sweet potatoes, and no, that doesn’t mean that if you don’t like sweet potatoes you’ll like this. You won’t. The pecan pie was decent, again, not the best, but nothing to complain about. The pumpkin pie was very good (or so I’m told. I can’t bring myself to eat pumpkin pie).
All in all a good meal. I hope our review has been helpful 🙂