A Russian Thanksgiving

As many American families gathered for Thanksgiving Dinner, our Russian Thanksgiving dinner was coming to a close (don't forget the 9-10 hour time difference).

Our Thanksgiving Dinner was a very memorable one.  This Thanksgiving was my first time preparing all foods solo and I had to go about the preparations with what is available in Russia.  I enjoy cooking and I enjoy making things from scratch, but I would have loved to have a few American conveniences (French's Onions and my mother's multiple ovens come to mind).  As much as I enjoy cooking, there is one food I hate to cook and until this Thanksgiving, I had never attempted.  A whole (entire?) bird.  In this case, it was a chicken (a turkey would not have fit in our oven, plus I didn't want to have a massive amount of leftovers).

After much deliberation at the store, I chose my chicken.  I did a fair amount of Internet research, finding various recipes for our Thanksgiving side dishes.  I ventured to multiple stores collecting ingredients.  I was set for Thanksgiving Dinner preparation.  I developed a "schedule" for the oven.  You may giggle at this, but with only one oven and Fischer Price size too, it is crucial to plan ahead.  I began my preparations after Ryan left for work Thursday morning (about 8:00 a.m.), took a 2 hour break about 10 a.m. for my daily trip to the gym and returned to the kitchen, working until dinner was served at 7:00 p.m.  I will not try and sugar coat this next sentence; making a Thanksgiving Dinner is TIME CONSUMING!!  The time issue may have been a result of working alone or making everything from scratch (most likely a mix of both).

Our Thanksgiving menu:

chicken
roasted vegetables
stuffing
green bean casserole
cornbread
cranberry sauce (cheat on my part, I brought a can back from the States this summer)
pumpkin pie

Sweet Potatoes were sadly missed.  I could not find them anywhere.

Guests included two men (one gentleman is from the U.K.) from Ryan's team.  Both of the guys were bachelors (wives were traveling) for Thanksgiving.  The dinner received excellent reviews and thankfully the guys ate a lot.  I did not want a ton of leftovers.

Food waiting for the dinner table.

I wanted to show the cramped oven.  Chicken with vegetables on bottom and stuffing on top.

Mini pumpkin pies.  I spiked the pie with Amaretto.  The white is a sugared almond crumble. 

Green Bean Casserole.  I would have loved to have French's Onions but this caramelized onion breadcrumb topping was a decent substitute.  I was pretty excited I made the homemade cream of mushroom soup. 

Mini cornbread muffins.

Out of the oven, stuffing and chicken.  Thank you Mom for sending me back with Reynolds Oven Bags.  

I wanted to take a picture with all the guys around the table, but they thought it was more appropriate for me to be in the picture. 

Check this one off the list.  Russian Thanksgiving was a delicious success.