Thanksgiving with a Tiny Oven

First, watch this video.

Who doesn’t have a battle ax, chainsaw and bazooka in their kitchen!?

Ok, now watch this one.

Maybe you don’t care for the Muppets…I think they are hilaaaarious. 

Fortunately, I did not have to skewer my own turkey or deal with talking pumpkins this Thanksgiving.  Also, having been in Japan for over a year now, I was able to approach Thanksgiving preparations with much more confidence. 

If you want to prepare a turkey for Thanksgiving and you live in Japan, this is what I recommend:

Step 1: They do sell turkeys at Costco, but unless you have a big enough oven this option is out of the question.  We ordered a tiny 5 lb turkey from a website called “The Meat Guy.”  It’s great. Order about a week in advance.  The website even allows you to choose a specified day and time of delivery.  

The turkey-sitting in an 8x8in pan.

Step 2: Make sure your turkey is thawed out completely 12-24 hours before you want to roast it. 

Step 3: Brine it!  I followed this recipe (I also added an apple, as you can see) for brining our little turkey.  Brining makes a huge difference in the juiciness of the turkey.  We let ours brine for about 16 hours before roasting.

The turkey brining away.  We had to put it into a backing bag and then into our crisper-it was the only way it would fit into our fridge!

Step 4: Stuff and roast.

Stuffed with wild rice cranberry dressing. Yum!

A perfect fit for our tiny oven!

Step 5: Eat!

This is what the rest of our holiday meal looked like:

Kabocha squash with butter and brown sugar.

Mashed potatoes-because you have to!

A made-up wild rice, cranberry shittake stuffing.  Delish!

Sorry, my gravy is out of focus.  If you make gravy, for mercy's sake, make this one!

Pumpkin-one of the best desserts (or, let's be awesome, breakfasts too!) ever.

 Our holiday was delightful in every way.  Flowing with apple cider, champagne, and white wine.  Bountiful, delicious food.

So very much for which to be thankful!