Thanksgiving Break

This week has been such a great break from our crazy lives here. It has been so great to have James home during the day, and even though we couldn't celebrate Thanksgiving with family, we got to spend Thanksgiving with our friend Matt who came to visit and also with some new friends here in our building.

We have such good memories of making our Thanksgiving and Christmas meals in Bulgaria that we decided we had to do it again even though our neighbors had already invited us over for a Thanksgiving meal. I tried to keep the meal fairly simple since we would be having another one later in the day, but it's really hard to cut things out, so it ended up being more than I had planned. I will say, though, that getting together a traditional Thanksgiving meal felt so simple here compared to overseas, where it was difficult to find the right ingredients.

This year I decided to try out a brine, and I think it worked really well. The turkey turned out very juicy and flavorful. This brine is a mixture of saltwater, brown sugar and fresh sage, rosemary and thyme. It's a good thing that we had just bought a plastic tub for Jesse's bath toys, because I found out at the last minute that our turkey wouldn't fit in our largest pot. This plastic tub was the perfect size for the turkey and our fridge. Here is our turkey taking his overnight bath.

Making cranberry relish:

James made the pumpkin pie:

Enjoying the fruits of our labor (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, cranberry relish and pumpkin pie):

Four hours later we went up to our neighbors' apartment and joined them and two other families for a 100% Kosher Thanksgiving meal. I wish I had pictures of this, but I forgot to take them. It was a delicious and elaborate meal, and they were so gracious to host all of us and prepare this excellent meal. I am so thankful for good friends to spend Thanksgiving with!