Thanksgiving

My friends and I decided we really wanted to make a true Thanksgiving for ourselves here in Denmark.  Originally, it was just going to be a small dinner for the five of us.  We thought it would be fun to cook a big dinner for the Danes in our building, but we knew it would require a lot of money and time to pull off.  Well, apparently some of the American students who lived here before us had made Thanksgiving for the Danes.  When they started asking if we would be doing the same we didn't feel like we could say no.  So, we put sign-up sheets on our doors and figured that we would get maybe 20 Danes to join us... almost 50 people signed up!!!!

Thanksgiving Eve...

In order to save time, we made pies the night before.  We made pumpkin, peanut butter oreo and coconut cream (mine).  Erin's mom was nice enough to send us pumpkin pie filling and a box of pie crust.  In the picture above, I am rolling out the pie crusts.  The boxed crust turned out okay, but couldn't even compare to Gramis'.

Note:  You must be wondering how 3 pie could possibly feed 50 people... well they didn't.  First, cut them into teeny tiny slices for people to try bites of them.  Second, we made a chocolate cake and brownies to supplement our dessert selection.

Thanksgiving day...

We all had class on Thanksgiving day (a travesty, I know), but we began cooking around one o'clock in the afternoon. (We didn't serve food until 9:15 at night)  In order to put us in the holiday mood I turned on some Christmas music and opened a bottle of wine.  Any good cook will tell you that music and wine is essential in pulling off a successful meal.  Above, I am demonstrating my ability to multi-task by drinking wine and slicing garlic.

My friend Whitney's mom is a cook, so she was our head chef.  For the most part, we were her minions and we did what we were told in the kitchen.  Most of the recipes were from Whitney, but Erin made the sweet potatoes.  I helped her peel them (above) and they tasted pretty good, but they were NOT my mother's sweet potatoes!!!!  (she put balsamic dressing in them and mashed them to death...weirdo!)

In order to feed our whole party we cooked 4 turkeys.  Whitney was brave enough to tackle the cleaning and preparation of all four.  I give her major credit because there was no neat bag inside the turkey for its innards... I gather this was no fun task.  When it came to cooking and basting she assigned us each a bird to care for.  The one I am pictured with above is mine.  I dutifully basted my citrus-orange turkey every half-hour.

Our spread included turkey, corn bread stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, corn, cranberry sauce (the can-shaped kind), rolls, cornbread, pies, brownies and cake.

I think the Danes were really pretty impressed with what we made for them.  They all seemed to like the food and many asked for recipes.

What I missed from Thanksgiving at home:

-leftovers

-pie for breakfast the next morning

-Mom's sweet potatoes

-Grandma's pie crust

-Jake's camp fire turkey

-board games with the cousins

-Macy's Thanksgiving day parade

-All of you