Japanksgiving!

I have never cooked a turkey before. Somehow, every year I manage to get out of it. In the past several years we have ordered turduckens from the Cajun Grocer, which arrive in the mail, deboned, seasoned, and stuffed, so all you have to do is throw them in the oven for 3 hours. That doesn't count! Otherwise I've always been at my mom's or at someone else's house where I wasn't in charge of the turkey.

I've also never made stuffing. I sort of hate stuffing and don't understand its purpose. I assume it was first created when people had to do something with their leftover stale bread and the parts of the turkey no one wanted to eat? But nowadays if you google "stuffing", you get more than 50 varieties to choose from. Just varieties! The individual recipes are endless!

So this year we are far, far away from home where the Cajun Grocer doesn't ship. Fortunately, we were really lucky and were invited to our new friends' house for Thanksgiving, so I was able to have the Thanksgiving I am used to and love - the one where I don't have the pressure of the turkey! They fried a turkey, which was aaaawwwweesome!

 
They also made macaroni & cheese, green bean casserole, a ham, cheesecake, the works! I was only in charge of the sweet potato casserole and the pecan pie. Those, I can handle. Except for the tiny part where I forgot that I live in a foreign country and that the commissary is somewhat lacking, even on the best of days... Here is a list of what the commissary was out of the Sunday before Thanksgiving:

butter
brown sugar
karo syrup
sweet potatoes
pie crusts (I don't make my own - I use those roll-put ones in the refrigerated section)

Butter?! This is not good, people. I tried to get butter at our local Japanese store - no dice. All of the options there were salted (a no-no in baking, apparently). They did have the brown sugar, so that was good. Karo syrup - yeah, right. The sweet potatoes I ended up finding at Costco, but they were the Japanese sweet potatoes - a different texture, and also sort of yellow, rather than orange.

Pie crusts, I resigned myself to making my own, if only I could find the damn BUTTER! I went back to the commissary on Tuesday of that week. I asked a man who looked like he was in charge if there might possibly be any butter in the back? He went to the back and was gone for what seemed like 20 years. He came back with one small brown box filled with about 10 lonely pounds of unsalted butter! I took 4 immediately. Karo syrup was still a no-go, so that I had to do without.

Back to the kitchen, where my oven is the size of a shoe box: between the toaster oven and the tiny oven I managed to make the pie and casserole. The pie had no karo in it, and the crust was crumbly, but it was edible. The casserole was actually pretty good! Different texture, but the taste of those Japanese sweet potatoes was not bad at all. And most importantly, it was a great day, one that reminded me that no matter how far from home I am, good people can make a holiday great. We were very thankful to have new friends that day.

 
However! We also had a visitor coming for the weekend and another Thanksgiving to get ready for! Adam's cousin, who lives in Japan, was scheduled to arrive on Friday and stay for the weekend, and I thought it would be great if we could have Thanksgiving while she was here. She has lived in Japan for 4 years and hasn't had a proper Thanksgiving the entire time she has been here. This meant, of course, that I was going to have to cook a turkey. NOOOOOO!

I decided to face this head on and look up recipes on Food Network. (Sorry, Ross!) I found one that seemed relatively straight-forward. I was going to have to brine it, but I've heard about brining for the last several years and figured I could handle it. Except.... Hmmm, where to store the brining turkey since the refrigerator is about half the size of regular refrigerators and is now crammed with butter, among other things? I ended up going with the cooler on the balcony, hoping that it would be cold enough outside to keep the turkey from rising above the dreaded 40 degrees.

Next up, apparently I have to remove the "gizzards" from the inside of the turkey? This was revealed to me during a skype conversation with my parents while the brining was going on. Not what I expected, but what the hell? Did that with a plastic bag tied around my hand/arm. Then I did the toaster oven / tiny oven dance for apple pie, pecan pie, and the sweet potato casserole. That worked out ok. Then, finally I had to try to shove the turkey into the tiny oven. It fit, barely!

And finally I attempt the stuffing. I decided to go with the sausage and leek variety. I had no idea what I was doing; just winging it with stale bread and a lot of sausage. That went into the tiny oven after the turkey came out. Green beans sauteed in a pan and voila, turkey day, Japan style, part 2, is served.

Not so bad considering all the road blocks involved! And entertaining all around!

Thanks for being guinea pigs, Adam and Kayla! (Please note the look of fear on Adam's face.)