Happy Thanksgiving. I do have a lot to be thankful for this year. First and foremost is Alanna and Logan. I can’t remember sometimes what my life like was before them. I can’t imagine how I made it through one single day without them. I am thankful for my family and friends around the world. Most of you are far away, but close still in my heart. I am thankful for my health. My prostate issues have taken a hiatus since I’ve been in the UAE. I can tell they’re still there, but I’ve had no bad flare ups in awhile. Knock on wood!
We ARE having a big family Thanksgiving dinner over here. We’re having dinner with our extended family of friends. There’s going to be a lot of people! I’m bringing my dish – the HBN Potato Casserole. For the unenlightened – thats the Honorable Benjamin Nelson’s Potato Casserole. I’ve been making it for about 6 years now. Like most guys, I used to just show up at family dinners on holidays with nothing but a smile, eat up, and watch football. One year before Thanksgiving while in Myrtle Beach, I decided to try and participate in the cooking process. I googled “Potato Casserole” and got a recipe from Benjamin Nelson – a senator from Nebraska. Turns out the dish is easy to make, taste great and everyone likes it. So now I make it every year for holiday dinners, etc. Here’s the recipe if you’re interested…
HBN Potato Casserole
Ingredients
2 pounds frozen hash brown potatoes
1/2 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/2 cup cream of potato soup OR cream of chicken soup
1 pint sour cream with chives
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
1/2 cup celery, chopped
Toppings
2 cups crushed potato chips
1/2 cup melted butter
Defrost potatoes. Combine melted butter, salt, pepper, soup and sour cream. Mix hash browns with onion, celery and cheese. Mix in soup mixture. Pour into a greased 9 x 12-inch casserole dish.
For Topping: Mix butter and chips. Sprinkle on top of casserole. Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees. This dish can be frozen and heated before serving. Serves 16.
We had a hectic day yesterday. Getting mine and Logan’s residence visa is a pain. I’m sure its a pain for foreigners in any country though. You have to do all kinds of rigamarole here though. You have to go back and forth to different places, paying fees everywhere you go, get things translated in arabic, get a health check up, etc. To top it off, Alanna’s contract says they were going to handle it for us. Well we’ve had to do everything AND pay for most of it. They said they would remburse for some stuff. I won’t hold my breath. Well we were lazy and didn’t get things done on time, so yesterday that wanted us to pay some crazy late fees. Its all just annoyingly stupid.
Logan is doing great, as always. He’s eating baby food every day now. You know, the stuff that looks like vomit in a jar. He seems to like it though. What a mess. I’ll spoon feed it to him and he’ll immediately stick his fingers in his mouth, get some baby food and then smear it on stuff. At this point, its kind of cute so I deal with it. He’s also taking naps in his crib. In fact, he’s napping in his crib right now so please keep it down.
Alanna’s big break is next week, so we’re heading to Dubai. Not sure exactly what we’re gonna do, but we’ll figure it out. She also gets a two week break at the end of January. We thought about a cruise, but its just hard to do with a baby. We may be going to Rome for a week though. So that we’ll be a blast! It wasn’t built in a day you know.
MagicJack – if you don’t have it, get one. MagicJack is this neat little device that plugs into your usb port. Once your register it, you can have a free US number. You pick the area code, and even the whole number if you pay like $10 or something. With MagicJack, you can make FREE local and long distance calls. You can use the mic in your computer or plug a phone into it. It REALLY helps over here in the middle east. I have a “charlotte number”, and can call everyone in the states from it for free. They can also call me (if I have it running on my computer at the time), or they can always leave a free voicemail. The whole thing cost $20 or so. You can pick it up at CVS, RiteAid,etc. Great deal, saves a ton of phone charge money.
OK, enjoy your holiday!
Pics…
