Traditional Akhtar Family Thanksgiving

2012 will go down in our family's history as the first year I have made a traditional Thanksgiving meal completely from scratch!  It is quite an exciting feeling as a wife and mom.  But, when you are away from home and you want that 'home-y' feeling, then it's time to put on the apron and get to cookin'!

Almost all of the recipes I found online, and amazingly enough all of them turned out good.  So if you are looking for recipes that have been tried and proven to work, here are most of the recipes.




Dinner Rolls

Creamed Corn *best scratch recipe*

Healthy Pumpkin Pie
                                   
Regular Pumpkin Pie (pictured)

**Did NOT use canned pumpkin! Find out more here.**

Green beans..
haven't quite figured these out yet...but I did find a great cream of chicken/mushroom recipe

Stove Top Stuffing 
*tasted just like the box ;-)

Garlic Mashed potatoes
(this is my own recipe that I can share later)

Sweet Potato Biscuits

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

The only item I have yet to tackle is the Turkey!  Here in Thailand they range from $25-$85, so it was just more economical to have a roasted chicken.  Also, our fridge freezer is a little bigger than small so it just didn't make sense to try to "fit" it in there.



After giving thanks as a family and eating well together, we delivered a couple of plates of our traditional American food to our neighbors!  

It is such a fun and exciting feeling 
creating family memories from scratch.

My Pumpkin Epiphany!

Yes it is the Fall season, but it has been hard for me to remember that here in Thailand because we are just finishing the "rainy" season.  Being from the Seattle area, when the rainy season ends it is Spring/Summer weather...so my brain feels off balance.  There have even been days lately when I actually don't know what month of year it is!  Feels a little like I am going crazy...hoping that I'm not.

Hearing others talk about fall cooking and making pumpkin muffins & seeing all the fun fall recipes pop up on Pinterest has encouraged me to make some fall foods (hoping this will help my brain re-balance).  When I thought about what ingredients I would need, obviously pumpkin came to mind, and my immediate thought was, "where can I get a can of pumpkin here?"   

After remembering that I had seen pumpkins at the local market here and my experience making baby food puree for all 3 of my girls, the thought came...can't I make pumpkin puree like we buy in a can for cooking?

Aha!  That's when it came...my Pumpkin Epiphany!  We buy pumpkins to carve and use as decorations AND THEN when it's time to bake we buy a CAN of pumpkin...okay, here goes...

WE CAN USE AN ACTUAL PUMPKIN! 

(The "we" in this post is used to describe me and my fellow American audience)

So I challenge my fellow Americans to use a real pumpkin to make a recipe, I did and it was fantastic!

1. Cut the pumpkin in 1/2, and cut off the stem part.

2. Remove the seeds and other slimy bits you can pull with your fingers. (I'm planning to bake the seeds too).

3. Cut the pumpkin into pieces to bake, they can be any size piece.  Mine were on the small to medium side.

4. Bake or steam your pumpkin until it is soft enough for your fork to slide through.  **I used my Tuperware steamer in the microwave because of the heat here in Thailand, and did not want my oven on for that long.**

5. Cut the pumpkin peal off and & throw it away, put the soft pumpkin part into a food processor or blender with just enough water to puree.  (If you have made baby food home made this is very similar).  

6. The finished product should be a nice texture of pumpkin puree!  I would also recommend Cooking From Scratch site for more detailed helpful hints.  She drains her pumpkin, which I did not & it still worked very well.  

**When using the pumpkin puree in a recipe, I did add pumpkin pie spice to the puree.**

Hope this encourages us all & please post a comment if you try it for the 1st time or you have been making your own puree before!