For the second year in a row, Bob’s firm offered their employees the choice of a Butterball turkey or Hank’s cheesecake. Last year, we received a cheesecake but this year, we wanted the turkey. And I knew exactly when I was going to cook the bird: Christmas Eve. I know that may sound strange to most of you since Thanksgiving was just a month ago but we, unfortunately, did not have the pleasure of turkey and that needed to be rectified.
This was my first foray into cooking a turkey. Yes, I know, I do enjoy cooking, but I never really had to opportunity to tackle a turkey. I thought it would be an adventure and I was not disappointed.
After thawing the carcass out for four days in the fridge, we lugged it over to my mom’s house. There was no way in hell I was going to stick my hand in it’s cavity and neither was my sister, so the honor went to Bob. His mission: to find the giblets and the neck. It took a few minutes for him to yank out the neck and looked so proud as he held it up. Now, on to coating the outside with the herb butter. That was NOT a pleasant experience for me. You are greasing up a ginormous dead bird. There was quite a bit of squealing from me as I massaged it. We then stuffed it full of vegetables and into the oven it went.
About five minutes into cooking, Bob read the instructions and it said something about a plastic bag of giblets. Panicked, he pulled it out, took out the stuffing and checked the cavity with a flashlight. My sister and I reassured him that he got it because we both saw him throw away a plastic bag. So, we stuffed it again and threw it back in the oven for 3.5 hours.
4 hours later, the oven revealed a golden colored, roasted turkey. It looked and smelled wonderful. A success! I had the perfect platter for it (a Christmas gift from my sister) and Bob began to carve it. It was his first experience in carving a turkey and I’ll say, A for effort. It wasn’t pretty, but it got done. While cutting, though, he noticed something a bit odd that was sticking out the neck cavity. With a confused look on his face, he tugged on it and out came the plastic bag of giblets! Awesome! Apparently Bob did not know that there were two cavities to a turkey and my sister and I saw him throw away the plastic bag that the bird came in and assumed it was the giblets. Thankfully, no harm no foul and we had a wonderful meal.
I hope your Christmas was as exciting as ours was! Don’t worry, next year, we’ll try and set fire to the oven.
You guys did a good job! Freddie and I have had Thanksgiving at our home for his family for several years now. We are very experienced, however, this was the 1st year we set the oven on fire!! I sold my nice turkey roasting pan when we moved to Hawaii, so we made do with a small roasting dish that a 16 ounce bird fit, but we did not account for all the juices! The turkey turned out great, however, we spilled a ton of the juices in the bottom of the oven when removing the turkey. Lesson learned: Use a big roasting pan when cooking a big turkey!