Canadian Thanksgiving

       
          So, I realize that Canadian Thanksgiving was over a week ago. My blogging activity has been somewhat less than regular, but I'm finally sitting down to write about the feast that I, with the help of A (the resident Canadian), prepared for my host family. Since a friend and I are going to Paris this weekend, I figured I'd better get this post written before I write another one filled with ravings about French pastries, cheese, and wine!

          Since I love cooking and I knew that my friend A was a bit depressed about not being home for one of the biggest family holidays of the year (and we had nothing better to do on a lazy, rainy Sunday than eat, of course!), I figured we'd celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving in style: stuffing our faces until it was hard to move. I learned a few things about Canadian Thanksgiving in the process: A. It's basically celebrated the same way as good ole American Thanksgiving; B. It's celebrated the second Monday in October, before Halloween (weird...); C. It serves as a day to remember all that we are thankful for, common to the holiday season across the world.

          This was not the first time I had cooked Thanksgiving dinner for a bunch of people. During my semester abroad in Australia, one of my German friends approached me with the proposition "hey Ava, you're American and you can cook, would you make a few of us a real American Thanksgiving dinner?" to which I replied "sure! Just get together a list of people who want to join in and let me know how many I'll be cooking for!" Well, 'a few' turned into twenty six of my closest international friends. I didn't mind, though that day of cooking was a bit stressful, since I also had to pack up ALL of my things from the whole semester to move out of my apartment that same day. I did, however, with the borrowed use of two other apartments' ovens, manage to prepare a grand feast that everyone thoroughly enjoyed and get everything in my room successfully packed.

          On to this year's Canadian Thanksgiving in the Netherlands. And before I talk about the cooking, let me just tell you, going to the grocery store on the bakfiets in the torrential rain (because, of course, there had to be a monsoon outside, appropriate for Canadian Thanksgiving) is not fun. But it was totally worth it. 

          We decided not to make everything that might be present at a Canadian Thanksgiving, but we did make plenty. First, we chose to bake a chicken instead of a turkey for a few good reasons: we could not find a turkey, turkeys are expensive, they take too long to cook, and there were only 7 of us, so a chicken was plenty big enough. The fixings and side dishes included: homemade stuffing, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, brown gravy, croissants, brussel sprouts, and a from-scratch pumpkin pie for dessert. We even found some cranberry sauce at the Albert Heijn! 

          For the stuffing, we used this Betty Crocker recipe, though I did add about two cups of chicken broth because it was a bit too dry and some garlic powder, as I am wont to do, to the recipe. When it was done cooking on the stovetop, we stuffed the chicken full and then spread the rest in a casserole dish to bake on its own. 

          The chicken I simply coated with olive oil and seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, and onion powder. After being seasoned and stuffed, it was ready to go in the oven! It baked for 15 minutes at 425°F/218°C, then I reduced the temperature of the oven to 375°F/190°C and let it back for about an hour longer. I covered the stuffing in the casserole dish with aluminum foil and placed it in the oven, covered, for 30 minutes at 325°F/162°C, then another 15 minutes uncovered. 

          For the sweet potato casserole (all American, but I couldn't resist), I used my daddy's recipe. I cooked the sweet potatoes in the microwave first, until they were tender. Then, I peeled them to mix up the casserole; however, I was in for a surprise when I removed the peels, which I already thought were strange because they were a purpley color. The insides were white! Definitely not the bright orange I was expecting! 

          But, since they smelled and tasted just like regular old sweet potatoes, it all turned out just fine! I mixed the sweet potatoes up with about 1 stick of butter, brown sugar to taste, and three eggs. The brown sugar in the Netherlands is something else that's a bit different. It's very dark brown, so it colors foods pretty heavily, but it tastes closer to white sugar than to the American brown sugar I'm used to. It served its purpose just fine here, though. I spread the mixture in a baking dish and baked it at 325°F/162°C (with the stuffing), for about 45 minutes, then topped it with some pecans and baked it at around 425°F/218°C for about 10 minutes. Finally, right before we were ready to set the table, I topped the casserole with marshmallows and put it on to broil until the marshmallows were roasted golden brown. The marshmallows here, however, are also a bit different. They taste more like peeps than like normal s'more-type marshmallows and, for some reason, they deflated almost immediately after the casserole was removed from the oven, but, once again, it all tasted fine! 

          For the mashed potatoes, I followed my usual parmesan-garlic mashed potato recipe. A peeled and washed the potatoes for me, then I boiled them until they were tender. After they were done, I mashed them up with a few tablespoons of butter, about 3 tablespoons of sour cream, a splash of milk, approximately 1/2 cup of shredded parmesan cheese, and salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste. To go with them (and with everything else as it so wonderfully does), I prepared brown gravy from a package of Southeastern Mills Brown Gravy Mix that my mama sent me in my wonderfully colossal care package. 

          A cooked the brussel sprouts (something she has every Thanksgiving, I'm told, though I don't know why... Bleh! ;) and they turned out great! (for brussel sprouts...) She boiled them  and then tossed them with plenty of butter, salt, and pepper. 

          The croissants came in a can and were easy to bake up right before everyone was ready to eat! A lovely accompaniment to any meal! 

          Last, but not least: the from-scratch, from 2 real pumpkins (only because you can't find canned pumpkin here), pumpkin pie. We basically followed this recipe, but I used pumpkin pie spice (another wonderful gift in the care package from my lovely mama), instead of all the other spices, heavy cream instead of evaporated milk (it's not Thanksgiving if everything's not incredibly fattening...), and brown sugar instead of white. For the pie crust, I crushed up a package of speculaas (Dutch Christmas ginger-bread type cookie), and mixed it with about 1/2 cup of melted butter. I then pressed the mixture into the bottom and sides of a tart dish and filled it with the pie filling. And, obviously, we bought whipped cream to go on top! 

          All in all, everything turned out fabulously and we were stuffed as full as the Thanksgiving chicken once we were done! I had a great time cooking for and celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving for the first time and can't wait till the fourth Thursday in November when it's time to celebrate American Thanksgiving! We'll definitely be having another feast then! Absolutely nothing wrong with celebrating two Thanksgivings in one year, in my opinion! 

Lekker!!!