Yummy Double Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving twice.  Once last Thursday, and once last Saturday.  On Thursday, we had the three intern trainees from our company come over to celebrate with us over a Thanksgiving dinner.  It was fun to see them try and enjoy new foods that they had never had before.  We didn't have turkey for Thursday's dinner, as we were only able to get our hands on one turkey this year, and we needed it for Saturday.  Thursday was also a bit of a dry run for us for the dishes we would need to prepare (again) for Saturday.  For Bethany, that meant brining a chicken.  And for me, that meant making fresh baked rolls.

We got through our entire Thursday evening, and I realized that I only took a picture of the spread on the table, but completely forgot to take pictures of us with the interns.  Oops.

Thursday night's hits included the chicken, the cranberry sauce, the sticky rice, and the rolls.  Our guests thought the mashed potatoes were a little bit strange.  Oh well, more leftovers for us!

Having mastered the art of brining a bird and cooking it in a small toaster over (that barely fits a 9x13), Bethany took on the much more complicated task of doing an overnight apple cider brine for a 15-pound turkey and then cooking it in a larger toaster oven.  This would be for a Thanksgiving potluck dinner gathering we would be attending on Saturday evening.  My task was to improve on the rolls which I had made on Thursday.

We borrowed the larger toaster oven on Friday, and had the turkey all ready in the evening for an overnight brine.  But we still weren't sure where we would find a pot large enough to brine the turkey.  Fortunately, a friend here recommended that we use the vegetable drawer from our refrigerator - that's  what they had just done the day before after reading the suggestion online.  What a great idea!  So that is what we did.

And then came Saturday - what was going to be a long day.  Oh yes, we also woke up once on Friday about 1:00 AM in order to turn the turkey over once in the brine.  Then, on Saturday... we woke up at about 6:30 AM to prep the turkey for the oven.  That was because we also signed up to run a 5K at 8:30 AM.  So the turkey went in the oven for about 45 minutes.  And then we turned the oven off, got Meliya dressed for a cold morning outside, and participated in a 5K with other foreigners here.

When we got back at 10:00 AM, the next 5 hours was spent roasting the turkey while taking it out to baste every 30 minutes.  Bethany and I started to get pretty efficient at cooperative basting - the bird was out of the oven for maybe 3 minutes, and then back in it went.

In the meantime, I re-made the rolls from Thursday, but this time made them smaller, since they were for a potluck that would have a lot of food.  I used the Cloverleaf Roll recipe from the Joy of Cooking.  they turned out well.

The turkey was a success.  Cooked just right.  Flavorful.  Moist.  Tender.  This was Bethany's second turkey ever, and she did a great job.

And today, we used the leftover bones to make a yummy pot of rice porridge, as do most Chinese (American) households post-Thanksgiving.

Some friends have mentioned that all they ever see for pictures here on our blog are pictures of Meliya or pictures of food.  What do Alvin and Bethany look like these days?  Here's a picture shot of us on the cold morning of the 5K...