How to do Thanksgiving substitutions

Cooking is one of my favorite things in Musoma. There is rarely a straight-forward recipe. Sometimes you have to plan months ahead to ensure that you have the ingredients for a particular dish. Sometimes the ingredient is simply unavailable so you have to come up with a substitution that works. Either way, I enjoy the challenge of making special dishes for various events. Thanksgiving was therefore a chance for some fun cooking and 'make-it-work' moments.

Pumpkin pie: One key step is ensuring that you have pumpkin. Pumpkins do in fact go out of season here. I used one pumpkin that a friend had saved from the previous month in case there were no pumpkins at the market. There happened to be pumpkins available though so we got a second pumpkin to ensure that we made enough pie.

Mr. Pumpkin on the left wasn't so sure about Ms. Pumpkin when they first met, but ultimately they worked together to make a delicious pumpkin pie.

Pecans that I randomly received in October were saved specially for the topping of the pie.

You can't necessarily tell from the picture above, but we don't have a pie pan, so a pyrex casserole dish was substituted and we ended up with a deep-deep-dish pumpkin pie.

Yep, that is how deep - at least the filling is the best part.

In lieu of a smoker, my friends cooked the turkey in an outdoor pizza oven and it turned out beautifully, not to mention deliciously.

Sweet potatoes here are chalky and white, so carrots were substituted. Its amazing, but it really doesn't harm the end result. We kept referring to the dish as having been sweet potatoes, that is how effective the carrots' deception was.
Green bean casserole takes more work because even the onion topping is made completely from scratch.
The "cranberry sauce" was made from boiled craisins with cabbage to fill it out and wine for color.

The final substitution was that instead of sharing the meal with my birth family, I shared it with my missionary family.

No substitutions were accepted when it came to being thankful, eating delicious food and enjoying each others' company. It was such a wonderful day and I am truly grateful for all the blessings that God has given me.

(I even got to skype with my birth family while they ate their thanksgiving meal!)