Turkey Day 2008

So, I'm responsible for the turkey, cornbread, gravy and pies for dinner at a friends house today. It's my first turkey.

Last night: get turkey into brine:
- bought a brine kit from Crate and Barrel, because it had spicy goodies in with the salt. dunno if that makes a difference.
- washing the bird: I realized once I had that sucker unwrapped in the sick I have no effing clue what I'm doing. I washed it some, pulled some yellow gunk off, pulled out a few feather buds. eh, hope it's good enough.
- bird in the brine in the cooler, surrounded by ice, and totally covered in the brine.

Today: what the freak was I thinking:
- woke up at 9 (dinner at 2) got the cavity packet prepared: onions, carrots, celery, spices.
- got the veggies into the bottom of the pan, and washed off the bird.
- rubbed olive oil and herbs all over, and it was icky. most of it rubbed off whenever I turned it over.
- trussing the sonofabitch: I couldnotforthelifeofme get those motherf'ing wings to fold onto its back. And then all my goodies were falling out of the cavity.
- 10:15 finally got the f'ing thing trussed, I guess, and in the oven. This is only supposed to take a couple hours, since there's no stuffing, so we'll see.

- 10:30 starting the gravy. Giblets are gross.

-11:00 first rotation of the bird. It actually went better than I thought.

-11:20 second flip, no incidents

-11:40 last flip, burned my arm on the pan. dammit!


8:00pm, after dinner:
-Turkey came out really well. I cooked it for 2:15, and the pop-up did not pop, but the juices were clear and the real thermometer read over 170F. My cornbread was delicious as always.
-gravy from the turkey didn't actually come up to much volume, and I added not very much flour so it wasn't very thick. I used all* the drippings, and then didn't add any salt. I though it tasted pretty good, if thin.
-The meal consisted of: turkey, ham, scalloped corn, corn bread, sweat potato casserole, mashed potato, baked bread, stuffing with sweet sausage (yum!), pumpkin pies, apple pie. There may have been one or two more items, but I don't remember. I do know I didn't see and cranberry sauce.

whew! I'm tired. Time for a third piece of pie and some TV.

Happy Thanksgiving!


*no I didn't, apparently. I found another half a cup of drippings in the freezer that had been separating, and I forgot all about it!