The Narrowed Lens: Thanksgiving from Scratch (and Stove Top stuffing): How Americans do T-day in Africa

Before this year my main contribution to Thanksgiving dinner was making the topping for mom's sweet potato casserole. I also did an apple crisp in its entirety one year, but other than that I had zero experience. Unless, of course, you count watching my grandmother pick "Tom the turkey" clean or make a neck-and-gizzard gravy, or throw together a homemade oyster stuffing.

But nobody really counts that. It only matters if you get your own hands dirty.

So it will come as no surprise when I tell you that I watched Thanksgiving approach with mixed feelings. We celebrated the Saturday before Thanksgiving, as that is when our other American friends from Lesotho were in town visiting. Abby and I had planned out the menu and just hoped it would all come together. We'd both lived through our fair share of T-days, and how hard could it be? We can read recipes and know how to cook, right?

Right! It turns out that wouldn't be our problem, the cooking I mean. The interesting part would be gathering the proper ingredients, things that are so commonplace back home but are either nonexistent or really hard to track down in Africa. Creativity and ingenuity would be key.

And then there was the issue of space. My oven only measures 18 inches across, 14 inches tall, and about 15 1/2 inches deep. Let me put that in perspective: how big is a 9x13 casserole dish? That's what I thought.

The question became, how are we going to make a complete Thanksgiving dinner when we're working with a miniature, one rack oven? Todd came to the rescue on this one. He suggested making the turkey in the crockpot! Brilliant :)

The turkey was the most stressful part of the entire meal for me. I'd certainly never made an entire turkey before, and until the moment we unwrapped it and placed in the crockpot the night before the big day, I had no idea if it would actually fit. It was just about 8 pounds and that, come to find out, happens to be the perfect size for my crockpot. Turkey score!

It took several hours in a rather warm kitchen, finagling casseroles like a Tetris game in the oven, and praying the turkey would be done on time (and just generally "done,") but in the end we had our feast!

Oh, and not everything on our table was homemade...we had Stove Top stuffing imported from home and it was fabulous :) That goes on the list of things-not-properly-found-in-Africa. Both Abby and I have tried a brand of stuffing mix here, but it's just not the same.

Here's the day in review...

The first thing Abby did was fry up some onion strips for the green bean casserole, because we're pretty sure French's in the can doesn't exist here. Thanks to some help from the Pioneer Woman, they turned out great! I don't do GBC, so I sprinkled some on top of my stuffing.

Thanksgiving day action shot: chopping pecans for the sweet potato casserole!

Everything we had to fit in the oven simultaneously: apple-cranberry crisp, sweet potato casserole and green bean casserole.

I'm so pleased with how my turkey turned out! It was so moist and flavorful and done in 4.5 hours on low! (uh, my crockpot is on the hot side) I Told Todd I couldn't understand why more people don't do crockpot turkeys, but then I realized it's probably because most families need something bigger than an 8-pounder :)

The chefs! Not pictured: Todd, who mashed the potatoes. The menu consisted of:
-Turkey
-Apple-cranberry crisp
-Sweet potato casserole
-Green bean casserole
-Mashed potatoes
-Stuffing
-Turkey gravy we made from our turkey drippings
-Pecan pie

Here's what my plate looked like! I couldn't believe I didn't have to fight anyone for a leg, but I was surrounded by white meat snobs ;) Really though, the white meat was some of the best I've ever tasted!