Happy Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving in the US. There is no such holiday here in Sweden, and I miss it. I like the idea of giving thanks and spending a day reflecting on what we are thankful for. After all, we really have so much to be thankful for.

Since today is not a holiday here, I celebrated Thanksgiving last Saturday with our Danish friends from San Diego at their house in Denmark (less than two hours away). Our friends are going through some tough times now and did not have time to prepare a special meal, so I did the shopping and whatever I could do ahead of time. I didn't have all that much time either, and since we were only 4 adults and 2 kids, I kept it relatively simple.

The menu:
a special Swedish smoked sausage
stuffed mushrooms
broccoli casserole (my mom's recipe with artichoke hearts--I substituted cauliflower for some of the broccoli)
stuffing with mushrooms and celery (also my mom's recipe)
herb-roasted turkey breast (recipe from Rachael Ray)
gravy
lingonberry jam (instead of cranberry jelly which we couldn't get here)
baked yams and potatoes
sour-cream apple pie
pecan pie

The turkey breast turned out really well; even my husband liked it, and he usually hates turkey. I cheated and used frozen pie crust, and that was a big mistake. Unlike the stuff I used to get in the US, this was hard, didn't taste good, and it was almost impossible to use since the roll stuck together when it thawed. It didn't matter so much though since we were all so stuffed by the time we got to dessert.

To make the day extra special, there was snow for the "kids" to play in. Snow is pretty uncommon where they live since it's on the coast. We had a few inches here, but there was pretty much none in Malmo and Copenhagen. Luckily, they had just enough for a little sledding.