Last Thanksgiving, turkeys were on sale in the grocery stores. Since I thought I would soon be making a turkey, I purchased a nice Butterball. I’m somewhat known for making a turkey dinner for friends/family. However, the grocery stores will also give you a store-brand turkey if you are buying enough. Fine, we can use it later. However, Thanksgiving was a busy time and I was out of town for a big part of it; same for Christmas. We have a chest freezer, so it wasn’t a big deal.
Then a couple of months ago we were at Aldi where they had a criminally cheap price for Butterball turkeys.
In other words, we have three frozen turkeys in our freezer. We need to do something about this.
The last time I tried to cook a turkey in our home, it did not go well. I blame our oven here; I think it has gotten damaged and doesn’t go to the temperature it should. The fan doesn’t seem to do anything. It has given me trust issues with gas appliances.
So, we looked into doing another turkey dinner somewhere else. The in-laws are out of town, and they have a provably good oven. However, they live far from anyone else. (And I think my cousin-in-law is squatting there, smoking things that stink up the place.) We then got the brilliant idea to contact some friends that live in the centre of town and see if we can borrow their oven to cook a turkey for them. They seemed quite agreeable to the idea.
We loaded up the car with half of our kitchen and headed out there on Saturday. Unfortunately we saw there were some very good deal at Costco, which is on the way, so we did a surgical strike on that place to grab some good deals; with a turkey in the car the entire time. It seemed to work out.
I spent the rest of the day cooking. The others went out for lunch and then for a bike ride. But that turkey needs basting every twenty minutes, and I’m not going to let people down. And the turkey came out beautifully. Golden brown, and juicy.
I got the best compliment: “The white meat is so juicy that it doesn’t need gravy, but that gravy tastes so good I have to put it on.”
The only problem was that we didn’t leave until close to midnight. And by the time we got home, unloaded everything, and finished carving up the turkey, it was two in the morning.
Sunday was practically a write-off. We slept in. I would get up, do a minor chore (like eating), then take a nap. Repeat throughout the day. I was still tired by the time bedtime rolled around.