Lazy Sunday Casserole

I made this casserole for dinner last night and it was really delicious and better yet, super easy! I found it through pinterest and was not disappointed. Here is a link to the recipe: Lazy Sunday Casserole and a picture of the finished product.

Picture by Kayotic Kitchen

Hope you enjoy it!

Our first Thanksgiving

I will save you the details of how hard it was to find all the ingedients and move straight to the main event.

The Turkey: We managed to find a 12 pound turkey in a nearby city and thankfully it fit in our oven...it is very small in case you were wondering. It was a true eye opener for me having to clean it out and seperate the skin from the meat to season (I read that on the internet since I had no idea how to cook a turkey). I rubbed herb butter in between and added some salt to the skin to make it crispy. Please let me know if there is a better way to do this. 

"Oh help me please, my hand is in a turkey!"

After hours of cooking and a near drop of the turkey, it was finished. We let it rest and then Stephen got to carving.

The first Spanjer turkey...."can you tell I have been in that sweat box of a kitchen for a awhile?"

I decided to make all the traditional dishes (at least traditional to my family), and am pretty pleased with the outcome.

We had sweet potato casserole....this was probably my least favorite dish, but not too bad. The topping lacked a little sweetness, but it was one of our friend's favorite dishes. I guess I tend to have a sweet tooth.

I made the traditional southern dish, Green Bean Casserole and it turned out great. We unfortunately don't have the fried onion things to put on top, but Ritz crackers were not a bad substitute.

The stuffing was not too bad either, bread, cornbread, veggies...you get the idea.

Since you cannot buy the cranberry sauce over here I had to make it from scratch. It was actually incredibly easy and turned out way better than the can version. The recipe I used called for fresh cranberries, orange juice, and brown sugar. It was one of my favorites from the meal.

Traditional mashed potatoes...not much to say about them.

 And the ever fattening, yet delicious, deviled eggs!

We had four friends over and ate until we could not fit another bite.

 Well there you have it, an American Thanksgiving in Germany. Hope you all had a nice holiday as well!

Green Eggs and I'm Hammered!

If you know Stephen very well, you are aware that he has friends from everywhere in every city and places he has never even lived....really it is truly a gift to be so like-able. So today you can meet one of his favorite people John McArthur, or as we call him Max! 

Max, a professional concert pianist, doctor, published author, professor, landscape architect, and all together renaissance man is one of Stephen's best friends. You may wonder how a farm boy from New York got to know a brilliant Jamaican pianist, it is not an everyday occurrence. Well in between Max playing concerts in China, France, Spain, South Korea....etc, etc, he was a professor at Stephen's alma mature, Nyack College. I am still not clear on how Stephen, the baseball playing history major came to meet the music professor, but needless to say he did and there are many a story to be told about escaping night security by jumping into poor Max's window at 1 am. I will let you ask Stephen details about that one. 

So now to the reason for this post. Max....or in author terms, John G. McArthur got a cookbook published....did I mention he is an amazing cook?! When Rob Piscatelli went home a while back he was fortunate enough to pick us up a copy. The cookbook (which is dedicated to Stephen...he smiled for an hour when he saw that) is a guide for beginners and could really be read as a comedy with all the creative titles and instructions. For example if you pick up a copy you will see "Piscatelli's Lopsided Meatballs" and many other hilarious titles including one with Stephen's name in it!

Okay, now to the point. In honor of Max getting his cookbook published we decided we should make some of the recipes. Stephen's recipe was too hard to find the ingredients in Germany so we settled for a few of his breakfast items: "Kosher French Toast? Oi!" and "Slap Me, These Eggs are Sliggin' Cheddar!" We decided that Stephen was in charge of the eggs and I would take the french toast challenge. We gathered the ingredients as close to the recipe as possible (why Germany doesn't have cheddar cheese is beyond me...but that is another post) and got to cookin'!

Ingredients, sans Cheddar!

Stephen insisted we play Bob Marley in honor of Max while we cooked.

Excuse the outfit...it was early! War Eagle!!

Finished product with a side of bacon...we are so healthy!

It was delicious, thanks Max!

So there you have it, the tale of two hungry Americans in Germany without cheddar that still made some pretty good eggs with help from the one and only Max McArthur! And if you want to check out his music here is a link to his myspace page: John McArthur. Check it out!