A (kinda) tiny thanksgiving

Most of the years I have been in Greifswald (and not away for Thanksgiving), Mrs. T has hosted the traditional “American” Thanksgiving dinner. It is a lot of work, and this year, not only would she be out of town, there was just no time or energy to do it.

So I decided that we should host it this year — until we found out that all the Americans in our circle would be out of town Thanksgiving weekend.

So, no to the huge thanksgiving meal with full turkey and trimmings. But M and I decided to do a little Thanksgiving meal for ourselves.

  

We opted for Saturday after, as there was no way could we do it on a Thursday during a busy work week. It was also first Advent weekend, so we were celebrating that too! I cooked all Saturday morning since we didn’t have a chance to get groceries until Friday evening.

On the menu were: roast baby turkey with gravy, stuffing, green beans and garlic, mashed potatoes (of course), celery salad and this lovely preisel-berry sauce (a good substitute for cranberry sauce) M picked up at the grocery. I didn’t have time (or energy) to do a pie, but M-mom sent over a huge Advent care package for us, and it included christmas cookies and cake! We had those for dessert.

  

Below, I very briefly describe the cooking process. Actually, the recipe for stuffing and celery salad I got from NPR here — I roughly followed the recipes and both turned out super tasty.

Turkey

We were able to find a baby turkey, which is a great option for a small thanksgiving (for 2 adults and a toddler).

I didn’t want to overcook or dry it out, so into a salt/sugar brine it went overnight. Then I steamed it for just about 30minutes in apple juice. I hope this tenderized the meat and did lots of the cooking for  me. The rest of the juice at the bottom (with delicious turkey juices) went into the stuffing.

I stuffed the turkey full of a wedged apple and rubbed butter all over the top. It went over a layer of onions (cause I don’t have a wire rack) and into the oven for another hour at 170 degrees C.

The gravy turned out very well. While the bird rested in a serving dish (and stuffing baked), I put the roasting pan with juices (not much at the bottom) on medium heat and deglazed with some red wine. To that, I added some chicken broth and the turkey giblets. This was left for a few minutes to thicken up. At the same time, I made a simple roux over medium-low heat with butter and flour. The mixture from the roasting dish was strained into the roux, and the whole thing kept going on medium-low heat until it was thickened.

Turkey still turned out drier than I wanted — these baby birds have even less fat than the full sized ones. Next time, I would experiment a bit differently to roast it. Although it was still tasty — especially along with gravy.

Stuffing

The stuffing was the most involved dish of all. I also had to modify the recipe based on what we have here. First, I chopped and oven toasted two baguettes.

Then I rendered and browned some sausages and chicken wings over medium heat. I ended up using only one of the sausages in the stuffing, reserving the others to eat later in the week. Once the meat was browned, it was moved into a bowl and to the pan was added finely chopped onions, celery and carrots. I also added in a bit of dried rosemary, thyme and sage.

  

Once the veggies started to soften, I added the pan juice from the turkey steaming, which was about 1.5 cups. I let it reduce just a bit, and then all of the veggie/pan juices were added to a mixing bowl with the bread. I also finely chopped one of the cooked sausages and tossed that in. I mixed two eggs, the juices left over from the chicken wings and sausage that were resting, toasted chopped walnuts, dried cranberries and about a cup of chicken broth. All of that was also poured into the bread and tossed to mix evenly.

   

The stuffing was placed into buttered baking dishes with the chicken wings on top. Foil was placed over the pan to cover everything, and the stuffing was baked covered at 190 degrees C for about an hour. Then I removed the wings to be used in other dishes.

Turned out very well — juicy and yummy! This was Little M’s favorite dish.

Celery salad

I pretty much followed the recipe (except for the amounts of ingredients, I tasted and mixed until it tasted the way I wanted). Celery was sliced and tossed with toasted/chopped walnuts and dried cranberries. Salad dressing was the juice of one lemon plus a dash of olive oil, a bit of maple syrup and a little bit of Thomy mustard. Parmesan cheese was grated over the top at the end.

Green beans & mashed potatoes

Mashed potatoes were simple — boiled peeled potatoes for 30+ minutes, and then mashed with hot milk and melted butter. Green beans were stir-fried on high heat with a dash of veggie oil and smashed/chopped garlic. Salt and pepper to taste at the end.