Celebrating holidays far from family is never easy, but it can be particularly challenging when you’re living overseas and trying to celebrate a distinctly American holiday. Most military service members get holidays off (if they’re not deployed), but actually flying home to the U.S. for every holiday is unrealistic and expensive. So, that means friends usually spend holidays together.
In Bahrain, we had Thanksgiving with some of our closest friends — while many others went to the free holiday meal on base — and then we invited all our friends and co-workers (including Chris, above, who I was friends with in high school!) to our house for a Friday Friendsgiving brunch. Since most of us had already eaten most of the traditional Thanksgiving foods on Thursday, I wanted to mix things up a bit for our Friendsgiving gathering — while still keeping with the general flavors and theme of the holiday.
Because I’m a control freak, I made most of the food and drinks for the party. But I did let a few friends bring some things, too!
Only one, not-so-minor snafu: I set my oven on fire when I was making the pecan bars! The recipe is written for the bars to be baked in a cookie sheet instead of a baking dish, and I had made Ina’s brownies (also made in a cookie sheet) before with no issues, so I thought this would be fine. Instead, filling started spilling over the edges of the pan pretty quickly after I started baking them, and by the time they were getting close to done, there was so much sugar on the bottom of the oven that it caught on fire and set off our smoke alarm! Luckily for us, our kitchen had a back door to the outside, and another door to shut it off from the rest of the house, so our whole house didn’t fill with smoke.
I also was able to just turn off the gas and the power to the oven, then throw a bunch of salt on the flames to get them to die down. Then I shut the oven and left the pecan bars in there for a while longer (it was still hot inside the oven, obviously). But I had to stop using the oven for the night! Thank goodness our amazing housekeeper, Lata, came the next morning and helped me clean out the oven so I could use it again before the party!
Anyway, here is what I made:
Friendsgiving brunch menu
Roasted turkey breast (I don’t have a recipe for this – I just bought two frozen turkey breasts, thawed them, put a little olive oil in a baking dish, then plopped the turkey breast down in there. I poured another glug of olive oil on top, squeezed half a lemon over it, threw in some fresh rosemary, and then baked it at 350ish until it was done)
Asparagus quiche (I used my grandmother’s recipe, but this one looks similar)
Breakfast slab pie (with potatoes and spinach inside)
Pecan bars (please do not set your oven and/or kitchen on fire when making these!)
Pumpkin cinnamon rolls (note: I used regular cream cheese icing)
Sweet potatoes (someone else brought these, but here’s my recipe for the best-ever Thanksgiving sweet potatoes.)
Poinsettias and mimosas
Bloody Marys (I think we may have just used a mix for this, but this is a good recipe if you need one!)
Not feeling this menu? Don’t worry, I have other options — for Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving!
Biscuits
Beer biscuits
Buttermilk biscuits
Maple-bacon biscuits
Sweet potato biscuits
Cocktails
Cranberry-orange margaritas
Apple cider sangria
Apple bourbon fizz
Pumpkin pie bourbon smash
Thanksgiving party punch
Cranberry
Cranberry applesauce
Cranberry sauce
Cranberry upside-down cake
Pecans
Mini pecan pies
Pecan praline cake
Pumpkin
Pumpkin cupcakes
Pumpkin mochi cake
Pumpkin coconut bars
Pumpkin scones (so good, especially with the maple glaze!)
Sweet potatoes
Sweet potato tacos
Purple sweet potato pie bars
Sweet potato-pecan pie
Vegetables
Brussels sprouts, apple and pomegranate salad
Brussels sprouts with orange-butter sauce
Kale and carmelized onion stuffing
Kale-radicchio salad (I’m obsessed with this salad)
Green chile corn pudding
Mashed potatoes
Salad with squash, pomegranate and goat cheese
Roasted cauliflower with pumpkin seeds, brown butter and lime
And, in case you were wondering, THIS is the best pumpkin pie (though this recipe makes too much for one deep-dish pie shell, which is annoying), THIS is the best pecan pie, and THIS is my favorite apple pie.
What are y’all making for Thanksgiving? Do you celebrate Friendsgiving?