Real-time Thanksgiving… Almost

I brined my turkey overnight and got up at 1:30am to turn it over (have to make sure everything is brined evenly!), then got up at 6:00am to start cooking the feast.  I took the turkey out of the brine and patted it dry, then seasoned the cavity with salt, pepper and dried thyme, and stuffed it with 1 stalk of celery, 1 carrot, and one Granny Smith apple, all halved — take note:  there’s no STUFFING in there!  Stuffing is dangerous and dries out your turkey.  Just. Don’t. Do. It.  With a nice coat of canola oil for browning, the turkey went into the oven (on a rack in the roaster pan with 1/2 inch of water in the bottom) at 500°F for 30 minutes.  Don’t forget the water in the pan; if you forget it, you’ll end up with smoke and sizzling and smoke detectors going off.

With the turkey in the oven I got my stock going for gravy.  One pot of boiling water; two stalks of celery, two carrots, one onion, all halved, went in the pot with the turkey neck, salt, pepper and thyme.  Right around 7:00am, I dialed the oven back to 325°F and cleaned up the kitchen — everything that touched raw turkey got disinfected.  I want a memorable Thanksgivng, but not because everyone ended up in the emergency room the next day.  LOL

So now it’s 7:32am and here I sit at my blog with a cup of coffee.  The turkey is roasting and the stock pot is boiling.  So much left to do in only a few hours.

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