Tuesday Night Turkey

Thanksgiving has passed, but that doesn't mean turkey can't still be on the menu!

I found a great deal on a whole turkey and thought I might as well try my hand at cooking it. With no holiday pressure and only a tiny investment, there was nothing keeping me from giving it a go (that and the fact that I have Papa John's on speed dial).

I set it to defrost in time for Tuesday's dinner and in the last minute tentatively invited friends Stephanie and Wes to join the feast (or potential famine).

Surprisingly my "old faithful" Joy of Cooking book didn't really give me enough info on how to tackle this roasted turkey, so I went to google and found a really helpful recipe with pictures.

So I gave it a go with my little turkey:

Looking at recipes and pictures of raw turkey is nothing like actually handling yourself. Not only did I have to man handle the little guy, but I was freaking out about salmonella and must have washed my hands 100 times!

I had visited my grandpa that morning and shared with him my concern about roasting a turkey for the first time and he said, "oh, it's just a turkey, it's not hard." But I couldn't tell if there wasn't a smirk in his voice. Like there's a code about turkeys and how hard they are to bake, some secret snipe-hunting joke among Thanksgiving chefs.

Three hours later, though, I pulled out my turkey:

And to my surprise, everyone agreed it was delicious!

I didn't want my December 7th guests to think I was serving them a late Thanksgiving feast, so I carefully chose my sides:

Simple baked broccoli with only roasted red pepper, salt and thyme for flavor, shredded sweet potatoes with red onion and cajun spices and stuffing (you can't serve turkey without stuffing, right?).

With empty plates and full bellies I think it's safe to say my experiment was a success!