With Thanksgiving being a huge tradition, I’ve surprisingly never had the opportunity to cook it! I have always been invited to the house of friends or family, and never actually prepared a turkey.

This year, since I’ve moved abroad, I wanted to be able to remind myself a little bit of home. Unfortunately, my fiancé is abroad for work, so there wasn’t an opportunity to share the holiday with him, so I decided to make my own “test Thanksgiving” to see if I could knock it out of the park before maybe inviting over some friends next year! From start to finish, I managed to cook Thanksgiving dinner in just under 2 hours. (Note: this does exclude some veggie chopping the night before, marinading overnight, and the cornbread I baked the day before. I also built a rough time table in advance so that I could get it all done!)

Curious to see how my first-time Thanksgiving cooking fared? Keep reading.

The menu included:

  • Turkey breast with homemade gravy,
  • Roasted sweet potato purée with cinnamon and nutmeg;
  • Maple-glazed brussels sprouts, carrots, and shallots with sea salt;
  • Garlic mashed potatoes with sour cream, topped with chives;
  • Homemade sweet cornbread;
  • Whole lingonberry jam (purchased.)

As you can see, the turkey came out moist and delicious. I used a 1.5kg (3.3lb) bone-in turkey breast that I managed to find in the frozen section of my grocery. While turkey is available in Norway, it is not as commonplace as in the US and the options tend to be very limited, at least near me. Unfortunately for me, it was already marinaded. Fortunately for me, I purchased it with enough time to doctor the marinade and let it sit overnight, brushed with olive oil, minced garlic, smoked paprika, salt, pepper, and a little bit of tarragon.

My secret weapon for getting this all done was my Instant Pot.

Going roughly from this recipe from Jo Cooks, I made the turkey breast in the Instant Pot. After searing my turkey, I was ready to start multitasking like a maniac.

While my turkey was getting up to pressure and cooking, I had already preheated the oven and tossed in my one ginormous sweet potato (after stabbing it with a fork a million times,) as well as seasoned my veggies and throwing them in just after.

With the oven and pressure cooker going, I took my small, golden potatoes and peeled them, slathered them in minced garlic, got some chicken stock ready, and prepared my already-done sides.

With the veggies finishing a little bit too soon, I took them out and let them rest on a trivet until I could finish them off just before serving.

Shortly after, my turkey was finished with its natural release and it was time to pop it into the oven to get a lovely golden and crisp skin. While that was going, I poured the drippings into a sauce pan, poured a portion of chicken stock into the Instant Pot, and set my potatoes on the steamer trivet.

The sweet potato was finally finished roasting, so I took it out and removed the skin. Tossing it in a bowl with a splash of chicken stock, I threw in some cinnamon, nutmeg, and just a dash of sea salt. With my immersion blender, I pureed it for just a few seconds until it was creamy, rich, savory, sweet, and smooth– no butter needed for this roasted fella.

With the gravy going on the stovetop, I thickened it with some flour and let it simmer down. The veggies went back in to finish cooking for a few minutes while I carved the turkey, and I began plating while finishing up my garlicky mashed potatoes after hand-mashing them with some low fat sour cream, light margarine, sea salt, and chives.

Writing it all out seems like a lot and it really was very hectic and crazy. Hard to imagine I got it all done in 2 hours, and I did! For my first thanksgiving, it was delicious. I was so proud with how much I had managed to get done!

What holidays do you miss after moving away from your family or home? How do you try to replicate them?