The "Feast"

I finally had my full-on Thanksgiving dinner Sunday night - only 3 days late. I have to say that it turned out pretty darn well considering the fact that I usually sit and watch TV on Thanksgiving morning while Mom and Josh slave away in the kitchen. Or for the past 2 years, I've been running the Turkey Trot in Dallas and showing up in Arlington just in time to eat. I don't know if it was really good or not (it received favorable reviews, but people are friendly over here and I'm not sure I know anyone well enough yet for them to be brutally honest with me), but it pretty much tasted like home.

I actually only made 4 dishes (including the turkey), but what are seemingly simple recipes become somewhat more complicated when you throw in the metric system and an unfamiliar kitchen.

First and foremost, there was the turkey. I found a 3.2kg (~7lbs) bird at Auchan (the "Super Wal-Mart" of Luxembourg). I decided that if I was going to do this, I was going to try to do it right so I went through the trouble of preparing a brine and soaking the turkey overnight. Except for the fact that I bought pureed vegetable soup instead of broth, this was a fairly simple process (my hostess had some bouillon cubes for me to use). I was bit nervous about the cooking process as I had no meat thermometer to know when the meat was officially "done." I didn't want to cook it too long and completely dry it out, but I also didn't want to repeat the great turkey debacle of 2005. That being the tailgate fried turkey that was completely burned on the outside with 2-3 inches of questionably editable cooked meat and lots of obviously undercooked meat. So I cooked the bird to the upper end of the scale for a turkey its size and hoped for the best. Not sure if it was the brine, the assortment of things I stuffed into the cavity, the white wine in the roasting pan, or some combination of the three, but the turkey was a tasty treat.

I forgot to get an after photo, but here he is prior to and in the oven. Unfortunately, in addition to having no rack for the roasting pan, I also had no string or skewers to hold the little guy together. Oh well.

My only two side items were a sweet potato souffle and green bean casserole. Again, these are relatively simple dishes, but some things can't be purchased here (or at least I can't find some things). One of those is French's Fried Onions, so I was left to the task of making my own. I thought I saw something a one point in my searching about baking these, but when I couldn't find that recipe again and decided the oven was taking too long, they ended up being half baked and half pan fried. They weren't quite like the original, but good enough.

Here are the dishes in the preparation phase and in the oven (didn't get a shot with the fried onions on the casserole).

As we sat down, I thought it probably would have been nice to throw a salad together and maybe have some bread as well. Maybe next time. Here is the table - my kitchen hostess and I were joined by one of my co-workers and his wife.

The above was all well and good, but as many people know, the place where I really excel is with dessert. I decided to go with pecan pie rather than pumpkin because, well, I like it better (and I've never actually made a pumpkin pie). And anything that has bourbon (or in this case Jack Daniels) and chocolate in the recipe has to be good. As much chocolate as they have around here, I was not able to find any chocolate chips, so my pie included a lovingly hand-cut chocolate bar. And as tempted as I was to add a little extra Jack to the mix, I have learned that lesson before with the Drunken Pie of 2003 (at yet another Thanksgiving tailgate). I made the pie on Saturday night and I have to say it was the hardest thing to prepare since it had more ingredients than anything else and it was my first foray into the world of grams and milliliters. It was tough not to taste-test while it was still warm out of the oven, but it did not disappoint on Sunday.

Here it is, and yes, that is a springform pan. There were no pie plates in the house and this was the best option available.