The American holiday is usually a working day in Japan, and this year was no exception. Fortunately, the next day was Labor Thanksgiving Day here, so I just moved the day to Friday.

This is the loaf of bread I put in the bread machine early on the morning of the day after Thanksgivng. I haven’t been brave enough to go 100% whole wheat (I’m working with an unfamiliar brand of WW flour) yet. The loaf in the photo above is 75% WW; the other 25% is plain ol’ bread flour. Anyway, this post has taken me longer to put together than I wanted it to, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Speaking of cookies..

We baked these after the bread was done. Many of them went out to neighbors and/or friends, but that’s what cookies are for: bringing joy to those who eat them.

After all the baking was taken care of, I started on the chicken (a turkey is way too much food for us). I shoved a sizable chunk of butter in strategic places on and under the skin and added salt, pepper, and rosemary.

It went in the oven for 20 minutes. Then I flipped it over and spread chunks of carrots, onions, celery, and potatoes all around the bird. I cooked it another 20 minutes and flipped it over again. After about 10 minutes, I started to keep my eye on it. It needed another 20 minutes, for a full hour of cooking.

I kept the neck and the bits I cut off from the chicken before roasting it. All of that and all of the bones and bits of meat went into a big pot. I added carrots, onions, and celery and covered it all with water. I turned up the heat until it just was getting ready to boil. Then I turned the heat all the way down. I let it simmer for two and half hours (I should have let it go another 30 minutes or so, but it was getting late) and scooped off the fat from time to time.

I let it cool off and strained it into a big bowl. This went into four plastic containers. The soup stock has been a source of some great soup and a nice risotto in the past few weeks. I can’t wait for the next excuse to roast a chicken…