Thanksgiving!

THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!  This holiday, if you know me, is one of my favorites.  I LOVE the food and the family and the chip dip, and everything.  Being in South Africa was NOT going to deter me from having my Thanksgiving.  Jess was completely with me here and we set out to make this American holiday a South African one.  We took off work, on the excuse that we had to bake the muffins for the HCT (we did this too).  Danny called us early in the morning and said she had found a turkey and asked if we wanted it.  We had searched, but to this point had not found a turkey so were going to good chickens.  We hadn't bought them yet so we said Definitely Yes!

She brought over a huge turkey and a littler one.  We spent a few hours thawing them out In warm water in our sink while Jess started the muffins.  There were few hiccups during the cooking - the only real problem was that the large turkey could only fit on a cookie sheet so the juice started to spill over the side eventually.  This resulted in smoke and all that, so I had to spoon out juice into my gravy pot every 1/2 hour or less.  No worries.

Menu:

Turkey! - came out soooo well.  Crispy, juicy - No idea how I did this my first try

Mashed Potatoes

Gravy

Sweet potatoes and Apples - Sweet potatoes are NOT yams SA

Green Bean Casserole

Macaroni and Cheese Casserole

Stuffing - made with boerevors rather than other sausage = special SA stuffing

Cranberry jelly

Caramelized onions and green beans

Apple Pie

Sweet Potato Pie

Chocolate Roll

BEST PART: It wasn't just out house, but Danny and Evilo came as well as our guy friends.  Warren, Shayne, Silky, Brett, Soper, and Greg were all there.  Some of them got really into it - Shayne had never eaten a turkey and Soper showed up with an American flag and an American flag mug.  It was a very nice Thanksgiving.