Mr. Turkey

We are 10 days away from mass chaos invading our home. I, for one, CANNOT wait! My loving husband on the other hand? Well, I am pretty sure he is in his own version of panic mode. No, he doesn't really have any huge responsibility other than to live with me while I turn into a whirling dervish of cleaning and cooking. Which, to give him credit, can be very stressful. That and my family is crazy. And we do keg stands on Thanksgiving. Ok, so I am kidding about the keg stands, but we can be pretty intense to many "outsiders."

I have been feeling pretty confident about hosting the big day now that my dining room table has been delivered and my carpets are being cleaned this week. The one thing that has me a little nervous is the star of the show, Mr. Turkey. I have never really cooked one. And, as a friendly reminder, I am the girl who could not make BBQ chicken in the crock pot or successfully make a brownie mix out of a box less than two years ago. I am not really sure what happened, but I think I have come a long way!

Anyhow, back to my bird. I decided I needed to do a trial run before next week. I bought a small turkey over the weekend and attempted to thaw him in the fridge for a couple of days. I opted not to brine him because well, that just seems like a lot of work and I definitely do not have a tub big enough to soak him.

After recording and watching every Thanksgiving special on Food Network, I came up with my own recipe-- a variation/combination of few recipes that looked good. Yesterday I decided I better give it a try.

The first hour of preparation was a little intense. I was covered in turkey juice that kept spilling out of 47 different openings on the turkey. He and I got into a little fight because it seemed he had thawed completely with the exception of one of his legs, which I did not have time to mess with. And those giblet bags they stuff back into him? Yeah, I gagged twice trying to throw those things away. Somewhere, my dad is rolling his eyes because he LOVES giblet gravy, but Dad, this Thanksgiving? No giblet gravy. Unless you want to help clean up the chum on the kitchen floor that will ensue if I have to make it. Ahem. On to more pleasant things.

So after stuffing and smothering and trussing him, I threw him in the over, washed my hands compulsively and promptly had to change my shirt because of the poultry juice that was all over me.

Fast forward a few more hours and the house smelled delicious. When the timer went off, I opened the oven and pulled out Mr. Turkey and was like a giddy little schoolgirl when I saw him:

Success!! And yes, I took a picture of my first turkey. Not sure if this is frame worthy, but I figured it was blog worthy. And the even better news? He tasted pretty darn good. And the even better, better news? I somehow figured out how to make homemade mashed potatoes and pan gravy too.

Let's hope I can have a repeat performance next week. Should be interesting.