How to Roast Your Turkey

The family watched "How to Train Your Dragon" this past weekend so I thought it was an appropriate title. Do ya'll ever do something silly (like name a turkey roasting post after a movie?) and you just laugh and laugh at yourself?  Me?  Guilty. A. Lot. 

So the day before Thanksgiving I found a recipe online for some things to put in your bird's belly to make it heavenly.  Well since it was the day before T-Day and we had already done our shopping I had to use what I had. Which meant improvising.  A. Lot.  Yep, this recipe looks nothing like the original.  Hubby was impressed.  Did I mention that it's hard to impress him with a good turkey?  Yep.  It is.

This is the recipe that I came up with Thanksgiving MORNING!!  Eeeekk!


Clean the bird, pluck pin feathers, yada yada...all the boring stuff.
(Oh, don't forget to take out the bag with gizzards...it's really gross if you don't and it makes really good gravy so I hear.)

Chunk up (by chunk I mean chunk...nothing precise.  Not diced, not cubed...those are too small.  Not quartered either...those are too big.  Somewhere just right. (Did I remind you of a favorite bedtime story? Hmm..) ... where was I?  Anywho...chunk up an onion, a carrot, an apple.  Yes, an apple.  Really!  Throw those in a big bowl and sprinkle on some rosemary ("some" meaning about a teaspoon (I used the store bought...not fresh at all.  If you use fresh (fresh meaning home grown and dried -- I realize it's winter) use a lot less...like 1/2) then drizzle about 1/4 cup-ish lemon juice (I used the bottled kind.  Hey, I was working with what I had, remember?)   Place those in the cavity of Mr. (or Mrs.) Birdy.

For the outside of the bird melt some butter ...eh, 1/2 stick-ish? sprinkle on 1/4 tsp. sage, 1/8 tsp. thyme, and 1/4 tsp. rosemary (again...store shelf kind).  Rub that on the outside of the bird.  Roast however the package tells you.  They are pretty close when they say however many minutes for however many pounds.  Make sure you baste a few times at least.  I also roast mine breast side down.  Very juicy white meat that way.  I know it's not too pretty to look at but taste buds always trump our vision at our house so we do it that way. *wink*

Well that's about it.  I know...I'm either really early for next Thanksgiving or kinda late in sharing this advice with you, but I have been known to roast a Turkey for Christmas and I thought if anyone else was as odd eccentric like me they would want to know what I discovered.

Gobble Gobble!