I didn’t think Thanksgiving food in India was going to be possible in Goa. We don’t get Campbell’s Soup. How can I make green bean casserole? Not a chance I’d ever find Stove Top stuffing. No one sells turkeys unless you order ahead of time (we’ve already ordered one for Christmas). But the biggest obstacle of all: we don’t have an oven. So yeah, I didn’t think it would happen. I wasn’t even going to try. But give Ben an impossible task, and he gets wickedly determined.

We Ben cooked it all in a toaster oven.

I didn’t even go to the market with him because I told him, “It can’t be done! Just forget it.” He came back with a huge box of random things and started to work in the kitchen. Keep in mind he’s British. Not only has he never had a Thanksgiving dinner, but he hadn’t heard of green bean casserole and creamed corn, and thought the cheese on the broccoli should be white! We can’t even use the water here for cooking or cleaning veg, we use either bottled or filtered.

The Menu I usually have compared to how Ben made them:

Turkey- Ok, it was a chicken. What could we really do? It came with feet and insides… all that gross stuff.

Mashed Potatoes- Ben took some liberties and added cheese. Not exactly typical but still good. He grilled the skins and made a yummy topping.

Gravy- You know, the usual way with all the stuff left in the chicken pan after it was cooked.

Stove Top Stuffing- toasted bread and bought all the herbs, easy peasy! Tasted just like the boxed kind that I love.

Green Bean Casserole with French’s Fried Onions- This one was tricky. He made homemade mushroom soup, and made the crispy fried onions (double deep fried ;))

Creamed Corn with breadcrumbs- we found a can of creamed corn at the store from New Zealand! This made my day.

Broccoli with Velveeta- This sounds weird but Rachael Ray said use Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup (good thing we’d just made a copycat version of that) and add milk, cheese, etc. It was the best cheese sauce! YUM.

Rolls- we’d planned to make them homemade, because we never find good soft bread at the market, but we actually got lucky this time.

In the end, it was DELICIOUS and considering we didn’t have any of the processed foods from home to use (the only way I know how to cook), I was shocked it could be so yummy! We spent the day watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix… ok that’s a lie. That’s what I did. Ben cooked. I watched TV and wrote an article for this here blog. It takes longer than you’d think! Friends from Bombay came over to stuff their faces along with us. This is late, but HAPPY THANKSGIVING American friends! I’ve learned now that Ben is a good cook and I’m going to give him a list of things I love and see what else he can come up with! muahaha! and the best thing about Thanksgiving in India- a housekeeper to do dishes. Ridiculous, I know.

Even Huck got a special Turkey Day Treat. After watching Ben cook our meal for 6 hours, he stared at his Pedigree packaged gooey chicken, like “This has to be a joke…right?”

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