Thanksgiving - The Good, the Bird and the Ugly

[ArnieM]

Big day.  Both daughters coming over with an SO and a SIL.  My SIL's parents were over from the UK for their first Thanksgiving in the country.

I got a fresh, natural 15 pound turkey Monday afternoon.  I made 3 gallons of brine Wednesday morning (a recent recipe from CRG).  I chilled down the brine.  I opened the turkey packaging late Wednesday and it stunk to the heavens.  The cats ran away and wifey almost barfed.  I rinsed it and put it into a couple of plastic bags and brought it back to the store.  They gave me a full refund.

On to the next one - almost 14 pounds but a different brand.  It was 'enhanced'.  There went my brine down the drain.

My daughters brought lots of stuff and did most of the prep work and cooking.  My job was the turkey in the BE and gravy.  I put an aluminum pie plate in the bottom of TBE to catch juices for the gravy.  The turkey (a little oil, S&P and Soileaus)  was done right on time as I've come to expect from TBE.  I love the machine.

The turkey came in to rest while TBE cooled down some.  Extracting the pie plate of juice was a bit tricky but worked OK until I got to the stove.  It collapsed a bit and I got turkey 'juice' on my bare feet and the floor.

In the end, everything came out good.  #2 daughter made two pies; pecan and apple-cranberry with a crumble top.  I really should have taken a pic of the pecan pie, a real work of art.  All of the cats, including my new outdoor stray got some turkey.

So, what started out kinda poorly worked out well.  Happy Thanksgiving to all.  :D

[classicrockgriller]

That's a Bummer on getting a bad bird that close to go time.

Glad everything came together and you guys had a good Family Thanksgiving.

[BuyLowSellHigh]

Good recovery after a rough start Arnie.  But in the end having everyone together for a good time must've felt good.

Happy holiday!

[deb415611]

Arnie,

that stinks on the bird nothing worse than opening up a nasty piece of meat

next year -- order one from Ct Fresh Food Express http://www.ctffe.com/our-farms.htm  - I got mine from Ekonk Turkey Farm - this was the second year that I had one from Ekonk and they were the two best turkeys I have ever done.  Pricey but awesome.  They delivered it to me on Wednesday with veggies, milk, cream, eggnog, cider, veggies & fruit. 

Glad it all worked out in the end.

Deb

[FLBentRider]

I had a bad bird in the same manner a couple of years ago.

If I hadn't planned on putting it in a brine, I would not have opened it until Thursday, that would have been really bad.

It's good to hear it turned out all right.