Yes, it's just a fucking turkey. The breast will be dry if the rest is cooked through. That's why you make pan gravy and serve cranberry sauce.

So don't bother burning your self with basting or flipping it from one side to the other, just butter it up, spice it up, and shove it in.

The best part of it are the sandwiches and hash afterward, anyway.

Oil and spice the bird as normal and tent the entire bird with bacon for the first 2 hours. Pull the bacon which should be mostly good to go-some bits may be burned-and save for other uses (like on a turkey leftover sandwich) and take the bird to 5-10 degrees below desired temp. Pull the bird and tent for 20 minutes or until internal temp hits the mark then remove foil and let bird rest 15 minutes before slicing. Bet'cha that's much better...

I've had great success buttering up the bird and wrapping the breast (at least) in culinary gauze. The gauze holds the butter and seasonings in place.

Turkey breast will never have juices running out of it and down one's chin, it's supposed to be a dry meat. I prefer going with the flow and making a really good pan gravy, something I can do easily. Since I had to fight to keep any leftovers for hash and sandwiches, I suppose I've done something right.

we don't flip or baste, either.

She's doing something wrong.

I love turkey, and I used to fix it every other month or so while my boys were growing up. Living alone, I don't get it very often, but I've decided I am going to fix one this Thanksgiving, even if just for me.

She does have the right idea about not making a big deal out of it, and a little wine makes the day much better. It is pretty obvious to me that the turkey she supposedly pulls out of the oven is either a fake turkey or certainly finished baking some hours before.

But definitely, just put the turkey in the oven.

Too early for me, for sure, as invited to new in-laws of my daughter. I will volunteer 'something,' but don't know what.

As to sweets pots, my husband used to make a casserole w sweets + oj + butter + pepper. Pretty good.



FARGO!!!

my dad's gf brought a sweet pot casserole one year and i set the marshmallows on fire when i popped it under the broiler

but never set them on fire.

Husband's wasn't as much a casserole, baked, as a side of mashed with stuff in it. made on oven top. I forgot, included sauteed (in butter) onions.

I often have just a sweet for dinner, and would prefer it to the other tgvg sides (except good 'stuffing,' of course!)

bake it up, little bit of butter, salt and brown sugar

I have never been really all that enthused about the sugar and marshmallow thing for the sweet potatoes, and was pleasantly surprised when she did this out first turkey day.

Boil the sweet potatoes whole, skin on, until done. Soft but not mushy. Then let cool for a bit, until they can be handled. Then pull the skin off, leaving the potato whole. Slice 3/8 to 1/2 inch thick lengthwise. The saute in butter until a crispy crust just forms. Serve hot. Simple, sweet, delicious, and unusual.

Leave the marshmelons for the cocoa!!!!!


On the other hand, i discovered sweet potato pie at a college event decades ago, and have benn a fan since.

may try sweets that way.

I've had sweet potato pie only once or twice, and when it's good, it's very good. I prefer it to pumpkin pie (about which my Dad said: ALL the pie is PUNK in here!!!)

Don't bother chopping up and cooking squashes. Just get enough large cans of pumpkin at Costco. NOT pumpkin pie filling, just plain ol' punkin. The pie filling is sweetened-- it won't kill you to use it, but you want to season the stuff yourself. I throw in garbanzos and black beans. Maybe some red beans. Sage, parsley, cinnamon, adobo, curry powder and anything else you feel like. And chicken stock to thin it out.

15 minutes to make this stuff and they'll love it.

If you have the time...

Take a large Hubbard squash and halve it. Clean the seeds out and fill the cavities with broccoli or whatever other veggie you have on hand, and cover the filling with cheese slices or some kind of sauce. Canned cream of mushroom soup works. Bake it until the squash is cooked. Prep isn't too hard but it might take up to an hour to cook.

Either one of these looks like a lot more work than it is.

but that's a bit too adventurous for my dad. he's a bit set in his ways.

both yeast and non yeast rolls will take near 2 hrs and do you have a double oven? That is a lot of things in a regular oven. YMMV.
I love the Butterball hotline West Wing too.

i'm going to practice it between now and then. if i can't get it down, we'll just do crescent rolls.

That may sound like a silly question, but a lot of us in the South don't. In fact, we don't even call it 'stuffing,' we call it 'dressing.' My mom cooks hers in a big oval tin pan that is separate from the meat. Often, we don't even have turkey; we have ham.

She makes it with several cakes of cornbread and shredded chicken and lots of chicken broth to keep it moist. She puts onions and celery and and a few other vegetables in there, along with her salt and black pepper. I don't know what other spices she puts in there, but I know she leaves out the sage.

She would kill me if I put the whole recipe on the internet; so I won't, but that's the gist of it and it is to die for. You might not have the time to make it this year, but maybe another time you will. You might even have time to cook it for Christmas, although we don't have it for Christmas. We live on the Gulf Coast and we have seafood for Christmas. Google "southern dressing" and you'll probably come up with plenty of full recipes if you want to make some.

;

and I've never gotten food poisoning from it and it's never been dried out if it's in a pan.

Even if it is, that's also what gravy is good for.

and stale biscuits, chicken or turkey broth for the moisture, and poultry seasoning for the spices. I grow sage and have been adding that, leeks, cumin and tumeric and have even added leftover grits. I always make it in a separate pan from the turkey. Mom cooked it inside & outside the bird, but she always made an extra pan of it for those of us who liked it better than the turkey.

The turkey carcass is the best part. Just cook it until the bones crumble easily, then you can pulverize those for the dogs and have the broth for soup.

i just whip up the pre-made stuff while dad is carving the turkey. i made the dressing from scratch for a few years until dad asked me to get his mom's recipe, which turned out to be the pepperidge farms stuff.....he and the husband are the only ones who eat it and that's what they like, so no skin off my nose. one less thing for me to mess with.

It absorbs turkey juices and makes it wonderful. For my money, stuffing or dressing fixed outside the bird is dry and flavorless.

the turkey breast is overcooked and dry.

If not, then the stuffing never got hot enough.

It's the same thing with 'beer can chicken'. The beer does nothing to keep the chicken 'moist'. The beer, or any other liquid used, does not get hot enough to do anything to the chicken. Water will start to simmer at 180°, by that time, the chicken is overcooked.

Cook your stuffing/dressing outside of the turkey. The turkey will cook faster. If you want turkey fat in your dressing, use a turkey baster.

My husband and I make the most succulent juicy beer can chickens remarkably seasoned inside and out. When cooking with gas, the key is to heat your grill to 500 degrees plus, put the chickens in and close the lid. Never ever open the lid. Let the chickens cook for 10 minutes at 500 + then turn down the heat to medium high. Never ever open the lid. Let cook for another 30 minutes. Never ever open the lid.

At the 40 minute mark, open the lid and rotate if needed. Cook for another 30 minutes on medium high without ever opening the lid. At this point, take an internal temperature. 9 out of 10 times, it will be done and ready to rest for 10 minutes. If not, the chicken will be done in 5-10 minutes.

If cooking on coal, bank blazing hot coals with fresh coals on top to keep the fire hot on each side of the chickens and cook them off direct heat with all bottom vents open on quarter and top vents a half and never ever open the grill for 30 minutes. Open and rotate a half turn and cook for another 20 minutes. Open and rotate another half turn and cook for 20 minutes.

To successfully make great beer can chicken, you need a dedicated grill for the chickens.

I still don't think the beer has any affect that keeps the chicken moist. Try doing a chicken on a full beer and anther next to ot on an empty beer can and I doubt there will be any difference.

I cook the stuffing inside the bird, don't have an overcooked breast nor an undercooked drumstick. And while I never use a thermometer -- gasp! -- I can tell you that the stuffing is very hot when I take it out of the bird.

For some reason I just don't get it's become popular to claim that undercooked stuffing inside a bird is deadly, but I've never noticed stories of thousands of people flocking to emergency rooms Thanksgiving evening or the day after, desperately ill from the supposedly deadly stuffing.

About twenty years ago I bought a good, heavy duty roasting pan. The reason I bought it was that by the time I went shopping for one of the disposable aluminum ones, they were all gone at the four or five stores I went to. So I went to one of the big box stores that sell such things and spent seventy bucks on this pan, which included a rack, equally heavy duty. Because the metal retains heat in a way that aluminum doesn't, my turkeys cook faster, with both breast and drumsticks properly done, as well as the stuffing.

Maybe the problem is that almost everyone is cooking their turkeys in those aluminum pans these days. Various things do cook differently in different containers. I have a chile-chicken-rice recipe that will not cook properly in aluminum, but does so beautifully in a pyrex or glass baking dish.

shallow, casserole is because we like the stuffing to get crispy. Also, I usually butterfly the turkey so it cooks faster.

exposed gets nice and crispy, while the inside part stays moist. I happen to love that combination.

from Ina Garten - http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/roast-turkey-and-gravy-with-onions-and-sage.html. I also brine it the day before cooking using Ted Allen's brine mix - http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Deconstructed-Holiday-Turkey-with-Sage-Gravy-236317

By removing the breast when it has reached temp, it remains moist and delish and I throw the thighs/drumsticks back in to finish cooking. You also have the added benefit of being able to use the carcass the day before to make a wonderful stock.

It is really peaceful to have to only make the sides on the day and the turkey comes out fantastic - much easier to carve when it has cooled. I do cover the platter to be reheated in the oven even though Ina says not to do that, then take the cover off half-way through re-heating.

i bet it does make the actual day a lot less stressful.

separating the legs and thighs from the breast and removing the backbone. That way, I can cook the sections in separate roasting pans and remove the cook remove the breast section from the oven first. The turkey cooks a little bit longer than half the time of cooking a full bird.

I also remove the thigh bones and stuff them with either stuffing or a vegetable and herb paste.

Another tip: I cut off the ends of the legs. While roasting the meat shrinks back and exposes a bit of the leg tendons. When the leg and thighs come out of the oven, I remove the tendons with needle nose pliers.

Other than the masked potatoes, salad, and gravy, I prepare turkey stock (I buy and roast a separate leg and thigh for this) and cook all the other side dishes ahead of time.

and being able to pull out the tendons! Have never seen that done before, but am definitely going to give it a try. I bet your turkey is delicious!

And yes! It is amazing how many tendons are in there. The turkey turns out great with nice moist breast meat and people love the thigh meat medallions.

about the turkey legs and tendons - it was like magic and so easy to cut nice slices off the drumsticks!

but hold the oysters and chestnuts. Bought some chestnuts on the streets of Paris near Notre Dame and they were just as bad as in USofA.

Or as we PA Dutch call it, filling. I follow grandma's basic recipe for a bread/potato filling--sautéed onions, celery and cubed potatoes, mixed with plain bread cubes, milk, eggs and butter and cooked separately from the turkey (no food poisoning here). DH and I dislike sage and all of the Stove Top and other package stuffing mixes are loaded with it.

with eggs, cream, butter, and some turkey stock. And lots of mushrooms, caramelized onions, and a mirepoix of aromatics.

It's a huge pot luck. The hosts will provide the turkeys and everyone else will bring something.

Not sure what I will bring, but I think just a great big bowl of very traditional stuffing and then probably take the fondue pot for hot gravy (from a can or packet or something).

Should be lots of fun. Last year we went to a local restaurant, but they just didn't get it. Sort of how the US just doesn't get cinco de mayo.

I will cook just a turkey breast. I will make some focaccia for dressing. Mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, the focaccia dressing and glazed carrots.

The writer Calvin Trillin says that instead of turkey, which he dislikes, the national dish on Thanksgiving should be spaghetti carbonara. I see nothing wrong with that idea, except that my wife doesn't particularly like spaghetti carbonara. (But I love her anyway.)

Dessert will NOT be pumpkin pie, since pumpkin pie is a sign that Satan is working to bring the world to perdition. Garrison Keillor said, "Pumpkin pie is the epitome of mediocrity. The best pumpkin pie you've ever had isn't that much different than the worst pumpkin pie you've ever had." Admittedly, I have had some pumpkin pie that was completely inedible, but I basically agree with him. Pumpkin pie is no more than a delivery vehicle for nutmeg and cinnamon. I once tried using butternut squash in a pumpkin pie recipe. It tasted just as nasty as if I had used pumpkin.

I've just decided to make butterscotch pots de crème for dessert, something my family loves. I will post the recipe, which I got from In My Kitchen by Ted Allen (Note: This recipe serves 8, but since there will be only three of us, I shall cut the recipe in half. It works just as well):

3 cups heavy cream
3 (2-inch) strips lemon zest
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and scraped
¾ teaspoon table salt
½ teaspoon ground cardamom
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons Scotch whisky
6 large egg yolks

Preheat the oven to 300°F.

Put the heavy cream, lemon zest, vanilla bean and seeds, and cardamom in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring just to a boil, remove pan from the heat, and set aside to steep.

In another saucepan, heat the butter and brown sugar over medium heat until the mixture starts to bubble. Stir in the Scotch, and cook until the whisky has evaporated, about 1 minute.

Put the egg yolks in a mixing bowl and add a little bit of the butter and brown sugar mixture, whisking to temper the yolks. Add more, bit by bit, and whisk until it has all been incorporated. Strain the cream mixture into the bowl and whisk to combine.

Put 8 (4-ounce) ramekins in a large roasting pan, leaving space between them. Fill the ramekins all the way up with the cream mixture. Pour hot tap water into the roasting pan to come halfway up the ramekins. Cover with foil and place in the oven. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove the foil, and bake until they are just set, about 35 minutes.

Carefully remove the pots de crème from the oven -- watch for sloshing, as that water is obviously very hot -- and let them cool in the roasting pan for at least 40 minutes. When the pots de crème are cool, wrap each one in plastic wrap and chill until ready to serve. You can make these the previous day and they keep very well in the fridge overnight.

You can make some chantilly cream (whipped cream with a bit of sugar and vanilla) to put on top of each serving.

As given yearly by Susan Stamberg. I have made it. Once.

2 cups whole raw cranberries, washed
1 small onion
3/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons horseradish from a jar ("red is a bit milder than white&quot

Grind the raw berries and onion together. ("I use an old-fashioned meat grinder," says Stamberg. "I'm sure there's a setting on the food processor that will give you a chunky grind — not a puree.&quot

Add everything else and mix. Put in a plastic container and freeze.

Early Thanksgiving morning, move it from freezer to refrigerator compartment to thaw. ("It should still have some little icy slivers left.&quot

The relish will be thick, creamy, and shocking pink. ("OK, Pepto Bismol pink. It has a tangy taste that cuts through and perks up the turkey and gravy. Its also good on next-day turkey sandwiches, and with roast beef.&quot

Makes 1 1/2 pints.

As I said, I made it once. Unfortunately, the only thing any one of us could taste was the horseradish. My youngest son said that it was cranberry relish for people who don't like cranberries.

I will once again be too late to buy a turkey outside my normal (which always turns out good, even if it IS frozen).

I'll do a maple brine and smoke an 18 or so pounder in my Weber, but for sides, I'm conjuring up…

I'll try a new potato stuffing recipe this time
Cranberry sauce (just put that in that killer stuff in the freezer -recipe below)
I'll try a different sweet potato recipe this time
I'll try a new new green bean casserole this time

I'll also have green tomato italian relish, nuts and pie

Cranberry relish recipe:

2 - 12 oz bags of fresh cranberries
2 cups of sugar, a little honey
4 Tbsp Champaign vinegar
2/3 cup of dijon mustard

Rinse and pick through the cranberries and drain well. Put them in a 4 qt pot with the sugar and vinegar, heat moderate to high and stir often until cranberries start cracking, continue to heat until a full rolling boil. Turn off and add the mustard and sweeten a bit more with honey. Put in blender and churn until it's a thick paste.
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I usually make a fruited stuffing and don't make the more traditional green beans. This year I'll be cooking for extended family, including grandson, and this is why the green beans. However, the green bean recipe, based on the video I saw was going to be SO much better than the traditional "casserole".

Pie? uh… I already made some pumpkin pies the other week, so I'll get a good apple pie that I don't have to make myself.

Love this time of year for cooking, don't you?

Artichoke-Parmesan Sourdough Dressing
Source: Sunset Magazine, November 1998, pp 132-134

1 loaf (1 pound) sourdough bread, cut into 1/2- inch cubes
1 pound mushrooms, rinsed
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
2 onions (about 3/4 pound total), peeled and chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 cups fat-skimmed chicken broth
2 jars (6 ounce each) marinated artichoke hearts, drained
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 1/2 teaspoons poultry seasoning
1 1/2 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary leaves or
3/4 teaspoon crumbled dried rosemary
salt
pepper
1 large egg


Spread bread cubes in a single layer in 2 pans, each 10 by 15 inches. Bake in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven until toasted golden brown, about 25 minutes. Turn cubes over with a wide spatula occasionally. After 15 minutes, switch pan positions.

Trim and discard discolored mushroom stem ends. Slice mushrooms.

In a 10 to 12 inch frying pan over high heat, combine butter, mushrooms, onions, celery and garlic. Stir often until vegetables are lightly browned, about 15 minutes. Pour into a large bowl. Add a little broth to pan and stir to scrape browned bits free. Add to bowl.

Pour 2 cups broth into bowl and add toasted bread, artichoke hearts, cheese, poultry seasoning, and rosemary; mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste. Make a well in dressing, add egg, beat with a fork to blend, then mix egg with dressing.

Spoon into a shallow 3-quart (9 by 13 inch) casserole. For moist dressing, cover with foil; for crusty dressing, do not cover. Bake in a 325 to 350 degrees Fahrenheit oven (use temperature turkey requires) until hot (at least 150 degrees Fahrenheit in center) or lightly browned, about 50 minutes.

Yield: 10 cups

And bake it on top if the stuffing.

Cubed.
Moistened with walnut oil
A generous splash of OJ
Grated ginger
Toasted walnuts
Salt and pepper
Topped with thin sliced green crisp apples dabbed with softened butter.

Sometimes I add a scant sprinkle of brown sugar on top but only if I've stirred in some bitter greens.

I'll cook it a tad undone a day or two ahead of time and refrigerate, bring out early on gravy day, bring to room temperature, then warm it up while the turkey is settling.