The Turkey (breast) is In

Just in case you think I've been exaggerating about the size of my oven, I thought I'd share a photo of my Thanksgiving meal preparation.

The hunk of meat is a 7.25 pound turkey breast.  It is in a 10x13 roasting pan.  I had to lower the shelf to the very bottom in order to get it to fit in with the thermometer.

My plan is to get the casseroles ready to go in when the turkey comes out.  I'm using my flattest casserole dishes in hopes that I can get two in the oven at the same time.

Despite a great longing for my Virginia kitchen and general whininess, I am truly thankful for wonderful family and friends, their health and mine, the blessing of all my basic necessities being met, and all the wants, desires and luxuries I take for granted on a daily basis.  

When all is said and done, today my family and I will gather around a table in a house that is heated and dry, we will eat to excess and not have to worry about tomorrow.  There are too many places in the world where that is not true.  For these blessings and many others I am thankful.

A Thanksgiving Like No Other

I know Thanksgiving is an American holiday.  I am aware that not everyone celebrates it and that here in Belgium it would look different.

The commissary has been very helpful.  They have stocked turkey, stuffing mixes, cranberries, canned pumpkin, frozen mince meat pie, french fried onions, oyster crackers, cream of mushroom soup and more.  All the basic ingredients of American's typical Thanksgiving meals have been available.

But the day is going to feel "off."  The kids have school.  In a nod to the Americans, the school will close two hours early tomorrow.  I have French class.  Kyra has practice for the musical she is in.  I'll be spending a good amount of tomorrow driving back and forth.  Somewhere in there I need to figure out how cooking a big meal in a small kitchen works.

We'll have Thanksgiving.  We'll eat familiar foods. We will be and are thankful.  We'll stuff ourselves, roll to bed and then get up early for work and school on Friday.

It will be Thanksgiving.  It just won't be quite the same.

I hope you all have a lovely day filled with friends, family and much for which to be grateful.

Kitchen

I am now taking suggestions for blog topics - this is one of my mom's requests.  Truthfully, I considered it a while back, but memories of my kitchen in Virginia were still too fresh.  Now they are more of a fond memory.

 This is my kitchen in Belgium.  One photo the entire kitchen.  On the right, the tall blue cupboard is the refrigerator.  The stove and oven should be pretty obvious.  The sink and dishwasher are on the left.

If I stand in the middle of the kitchen and stretch out my arms, I can almost touch both counter tops.

The bits of yellow on the far counter are mousetraps.  We don't have mice, we have a dog.  After the pyrex eating incident we have had to resort to this deterrent.

I've provided a close up of my stove top.  It is electric and has four burners.  Four pots do fit on its surface.  It gets a bit crowded to have more than two at a time, as the burners sit very close together and the pots touch.

The oven is another feature of this kitchen.  The width of the oven interior is just shy of 17 inches.  My cookie sheets and baking stone do not fit inside (well they do fit, if inserted diagonally).  Theoretically a 15 inch pan would fit, but by the time the sides slope up from the bottom and you add handles, well the result is too wide for the oven.

There is no way to make a Thanksgiving meal in this oven.  One would have to choose between turkey or casseroles (2 max).  The good news is that the school barely observes Thanksgiving (no school Thursday afternoon) so, we probably won't make it a major celebration.

To make the kitchen a bit more workable, I added a few things - a step stool so I could reach high cupboards and some storage from IKEA.  The bit of additional surface space and more drawers come in handy.

One more complaint and then I'll tell you the good thing about this kitchen.  Complaint - no garbage disposal.  I'll let you figure out what a hassle that is without describing it.

The good thing - by Belgian standards this kitchen is large.

I'm taking requests for future blog topics - let me know what you are interested in...