Please help a British guy celebrate Thanksgiving with his American girlfriend.

• Please help a British guy celebrate Thanksgiving with his American girlfriend. My girlfriend of a few months is American but based here in Britain, and she's disappointed to be missing Thanksgiving tomorrow. We're both off work tomorrow, so I was thinking of surprising her by doing something. My questions are: - Is this appropriate? It'll probably just be us, but I'm aware Thanksgiving is normally a big family get-together. - What should I do? I understand a Christmas-style meal, with roast turkey and all the trimmings, is traditional. Are there any other options? (For starters, I'm not a very good cook - I usually use hobs and have barely ever used an oven...) - She's Christian, I'm not religious. Is there anything I should beware of here? Thanks for your help!

• Answer:

  Pumpkin pie is doable here, but somewhat tricky. She WILL be impressed. Especially since you can't use a good 'ole can of Libbys pumpkin puree. These instructions assume you don't know anything about pie-making: Since today is Wednesday, here's what you do (buy the ingredients today and roast the squashes this afternoon, so you'll be ready tomorrow...or you can do it all today!): Today, go buy a butternut squash and 1 of those squat, deep orange squashes (I do not know what they're called, but they look like small pumpkins with pointy tops and are not acorn squashes, but if acorn squash is all you can find, don't worry and use that). Also buy, a 2 or 3 pack of throw-away aluminium pie dishes...try to find a deep one with sloped edges (not the tart pans, which are shallow and have right-angle sides. If that's all you can find, that's ok too). Spices: ginger, nutmeg, cinammon 1 box/bag brown sugar 1 can evaporated milk 1 box of shortcrust (it's a long and skinny light blue box in the freezer section...the light green box is philo dough and you do not want that. If they do not have that, you may have to opt for the chunk of shortcrust in the square gold package...it's fine, but you'll have to defrost it and roll it out). 1 can/tub whipped cream or French vanilla ice cream - for serving with pie. 3 eggs olive oil sea salt If you are making the whole pie in one go, take out one pastry crust from the box, poke a hole in the plastic bag and set it on the counter to defrost. It will never defrost in the box. Preheat the oven to 200ºC. With large, fun knife, remove stickers from squashes and chop 'em into giant chunks. Scoop out the inner mess with a large spoon and throw that junk away. Find a large pyrex (glass) baking dish (or a metal/teflon one works too). If all else fails you can use the roasting tray in the oven. Lining that with foil maikes cleanup easier. Place the squash chunks face-down (skin-up) in the baking dish. drizzle olive oil and salt onto the skins. Fill dish with ~1/2 of water. Bake for about 30 minutes. Check to see that the tops are browning and a fork slides through the skins and into soft, mushable squash. Take out, let cool. (squash stays hot as a mutha, so don't get impatient to start scraping and mashing here!) When cool, grab a big spoon and scoop the squash flesh into a large bowl. Throw skins away. Mash up the squash with a potato masher or fork. If you can, pour the whole mess into a fine-mesh (small-holed) strainer, place the strainer over the bowl and let sit for 1/2 hour. This will get rid of excess water and that'll make for firmer pie. If you want to put everything away and finish tomorrow, now would be a good time. Ok, is your pastry shell defrosting? Grab a pie dish (the tinfoil one you bought) and put some olive oil in it (about a tablespoon)...just enough to take a paper towel and rub it all around the inside and along the edges. Large bowl...put ~250g of the squash puree in it. Add 1 tsp cinnamon, and 1/2 tsp each of nutmeg and ginger. Stir. Add 3/4 cup brown sugar. LAST TASTING POINT BEFORE BAKING! Add 2 of the 3 eggs you bought (crack them in a separate bowl and then add, so you're not chasing shell bits in your pie mix!). Set bowl aside...you'll need it in a minute. Stir pumpkin stuff. Then slowly add in 150g of evaporated milk, in portions. You may not need all 150g, you just want it to get creamy. Crack the last egg in that bowl you set aside. Stir it well with a fork. Roll out pie shell. If it is cracking, it is not defrosted. Set it on a plate and throw it in the micro for 10 secs, tops. Press it into the greased aluminium pie shell. The crust will want to shrink into the center, so you need to press it into the edges and have it hang over the top edges just a wee bit. Use a knife to cut any excess off and enjoy the dough. Take a fork and press the tongs into the top of the dough around the edge, so that you have a nice striped look and the crust won't want to slide down the edge. PLACE THE PIE SHELL NEAR THE OVEN. Now pour the mix in it. Take a brush or fork or paper towel and put some of that whipped egg mess on the exposed dough edges. Place pie in oven. It will need to bake for about 30 minutes. Take your other aluminium pie pan and cut a large hole in the center. About 10-15 minutes into baking your pie, you will need to place this pan upsidedown on top of your baking pie. This prevents your pie edges from burning like a house on fire. Take pie out of oven when it doesn't jiggle anymore and a butterknife in the center comes out relatively clean. Let pie sit for an hour. Your first pumpkin pie may be mushy. That's ok. It will be delicious, however.