We stayed home all week and it was glorious! We did lots of cleaning, catching up on school work, and sleeping!
Friday night, we had a long overdue “retirement” party for one of my co-workers. The Christmas Hut only opened last weekend, and we were able to get a reservation already, so we were really happy about that, despite being so sad about our leaving colleague.
Saturday, we started to put up our Christmas decorations and caught up on things around the house. Saturday night, we tried out a new restaurant in Böblingen called Big Billionaires to celebrate Beth’s birthday.
Since we are going to be on a trip next week, we decided to have our own Thanksgiving at our house this weekend. Last year, our travel plans were cancelled so me and the kids ate macaroni and Matt golfed. We had so much fomo seeing everyone’s Thanksgiving posts on social media. We decided we wanted to do a little more this year, so we planned a menu of foods we love and cooked on Sunday.
We were all questionable about doing a turkey since none of us really love it. After a lot of back and forth, we decided to go the traditional route. We got ambitious and picked a Gordon Ramsey recipe that took over an hour to prep. We made a “butter paste” mixture that had to be rubbed under, and on top of the skin. Then, we stuffed the turkey with an onion, garlic cloves, and a ton of spices. The cook time for our 9.5 pound turkey was almost 3 hours. We checked the turkey at about the 90 minute mark and were shocked it was done. I guess the small oven with the circulation fan in the back makes a huge difference. The end product was so good though, we all thought it was the best turkey we have ever had.
For side dishes, we chose mashed potatoes, broccoli cheddar pasta, broccoli cheddar casserole, deviled eggs, and cheddar bay biscuits. Matt even made a gravy from the turkey drippings.
None of us are great, or even good in the kitchen, so I honestly can’t believe how good all of the food turned out!
For dessert, Matt chose a strawberry cheesecake, Brooklyn chose a pumpkin pie, and Ryan and I had funfetti cupcakes.
In between the cooking action, we put up and decorated the Christmas Tree and watched Christmas movies.
Matt and I finished the day with some Glühwein and amaretto. It was the perfect hygge Thanksgiving day.
I think I ate about 10,000 calories over the course of the weekend, I will definitely be making up for it on the Peloton this week. Wednesday, we head out on a road trip to visit as many Christmas markets as possible.
Gilcrests Abroad 