Because Jason is vegan, because the kids don't eat "Thanksgiving food", because we are 5,000 miles away from home and family, because there's no Macy's parade, no Charlie Brown special, no American football (gasp!), because it was just a regular ol' Thursday in Germany, because, because, because . . . I did not anticipate doing anything "special". Other than my usual silly festiveness:
Popcorn drumsticks for the boys' afternoon snack at school:
And a "Turkey Sandwich" for the kids for breakfast made from a bakery croissant, spread with Nutella, bitten off pretzel legs, raisin eyes, and apple slices for feathers. (Autumn got bananas).
Sure, we eat as a family every day. We are thankful every day. But, Thanksgiving was also Jason's favorite holiday back home. So I started to feel bad. Yes, he had to go to work and the kids had school and the boys even had tae kwon do, but I decided I'd whip up a Vegetarian Thanksgiving side-dish feast.
After German class (like I said, it's a regular ol' Thursday), I picked up Autumn from Kita and we headed to the grocery store for some ingredients. I even got "Princess beans" for my green bean casserole:
Did that make my princess any more likely to eat it? Or even try it? Um, no.
But she helped in other ways:
(Those were before we discovered our fall tablecloth and napkins we brought from home which you'll see later.)
She danced around to the music I had playing and spun around on the kitchen floor while wearing an apron. I asked her at one point to open the drawer with the trash can for me (my hands were full of potato peels) and she said, "Well then I won't be able to do my dance recital anymore." Priorities.
I made stuffing from scratch! I should probably call it "dressing" as I don't stuff anything but my face. ;)
There's my bread drying out all day. I didn't have "poultry seasoning" and I didn't have 3 of the spices to whip up my own, so at the grocery store I found 2 of the 3 but had a hard time finding "sage". When translated I'm not sure if it gave me the word for the spice or if it was more like "advice" kind of sage. But then I saw "poultry seasoning". So, since that was only one jar vs. 2 jars and one missing one, I went with the pre-made "poultry seasoning" but duh, I'm in Germany, so it had quite a lot of curry in the mix. Oh well. It put a unique twist on the dish.
I made green bean casserole but, as we don't usually do processed foods like canned cream of mushroom soup or Durkee's French Fried Onions (not that they'd have that here, anyway) I had to do that from scratch. With soy milk. I French fried up some of my own onions, even. For real. I put them on my half of the casserole. And noticed that a Hidden Mickey was left behind on my cutting board:
A Danke-sgiving miracle. :)
To go with the stuffing and green bean casserole, I made glazed carrots, sweet potatoes (just cubed and boiled since any sort of "casserole"/soufflé was very non-vegan), and mashed potatoes with soy milk (blech) and garlic. Autumn and I bought rolls from the store. No one in the family really "must have" cranberry sauce, but I did see fresh cranberries in my local market, no problem.
Then, I made pie.
Definitely not vegan but Jason said he'd eat a little if I made it. I hate pumpkin so I went with chocolate pecan. You can't easily get "corn syrup" here (like, at all) but no worries as I had switched to using maple syrup in pecan pies once we stopped eating so much processed foods. I made my own whole wheat crust (with butter and milk!) and filled it up with other non-processed ingredients other than a little bit of brown sugar. But, I don't have a pie plate here. Or a round pan of any kind. Plus, a full sized pie? For just me and J who is vegan most days of the year?
I went with a half recipe in my loaf pan:
Ha ha! But it turned out great! Even two of the kids tried and liked it (and they never like pie!).
Anyway, Jason picked up the boys from tae kwon do for me so I could cook (usually on Thursdays we eat out / get delivery) and we sat down to dinner:
You can see white and red wines there and then some Robby Bubble Party Getränk for die Kinder. And also, yogurt and quark as, like I said, the kids don't like "Thanksgiving food" although they all had a bite of everything on their plates to try.
We, of course, did our "What We're Thankful for...." bit that everyone in America was doing and, while were eating, we called a couple family members on Face Time to "eat" with us.
Before bed, the kids remembered that we needed to let Santa know we've moved. That way he'd know where to send our Elf on the Shelf. So Easton shot off a quick email to the big guy:
And sure enough, Wizby was back this morning!
But we sure missed being with any family yesterday. My family back home had a smaller than usual gathering:
And they even had my kind of fun recreating old pictures:
Totally jealous. We hope all of our American friends and family had a blessed Thanksgiving! We're thankful for all of you!
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