I got a 9 lb bird, which was just right. The 4 of us ate some that night. We (just me and the gf for leftovers) had some more last night, and used up the rest of the sides. There's still a lot of turkey left, which I will split between soup and sandwiches. (I boiled the carcass after dinner Sunday night for stock.)
I didn't brine it, but I did put the apple/onion/herbs aromatics in the cavity. I wanted to follow Alton's [30 min at 500 then turn it down to 350 until done] instructions, but everyone else there thought it was crazy and I didn't want to be single-handedly responsible for incinerating the bird, so we just followed the instructions on the package. (We compromised by starting the oven at 500 and turning it down to the temp on the package once it went in.) We didn't baste, but we did rub it down with canola oil before it went in the oven. I did use a digital probe thermometer, and the tin foil triangle over the breast. It was tender and juicy, especially the white meat (even more so than the dark meat, oddly). Having a smaller bird may have helped.
Thanks to watching the episode of Good Eats that morning online, I was able to easily and neatly carve the bird with my razor sharp non-electric carving knife.
We wound up using a jar of gravy, out of laziness- by that point we'd made all the pies and sides and prepared the turkey and were pretty sick of the whole thing.
Everyone else liked the stuffing, but I definitely prefer my family's recipe with the sausage. The pumpkin pie was great, and not too difficult to make (joy of cooking recipe). The sweet potato casserole was great (baked mashed yams, crushed pineapple and egg mixed up and topped with grapenuts and butter, then baked, probably some brown sugar in there somewhere too- I didn't make it and can't find it on google).
It was all pretty stressful though, with all the preparing and cooking and timing and cleaning and boarding of relatives. I don't know how anyone does this for 12+ people, or at least why anyone would want to.
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I got a 9 lb bird, which was just right. The 4 of us ate some that night. We (just me and the gf for leftovers) had some more last night, and used up the rest of the sides. There's still a lot of turkey left, which I will split between soup and sandwiches. (I boiled the carcass after dinner Sunday night for stock.)
I didn't brine it, but I did put the apple/onion/herbs aromatics in the cavity. I wanted to follow Alton's [30 min at 500 then turn it down to 350 until done] instructions, but everyone else there thought it was crazy and I didn't want to be single-handedly responsible for incinerating the bird, so we just followed the instructions on the package. (We compromised by starting the oven at 500 and turning it down to the temp on the package once it went in.) We didn't baste, but we did rub it down with canola oil before it went in the oven. I did use a digital probe thermometer, and the tin foil triangle over the breast. It was tender and juicy, especially the white meat (even more so than the dark meat, oddly). Having a smaller bird may have helped.
Thanks to watching the episode of Good Eats that morning online, I was able to easily and neatly carve the bird with my razor sharp non-electric carving knife.
We wound up using a jar of gravy, out of laziness- by that point we'd made all the pies and sides and prepared the turkey and were pretty sick of the whole thing.
Everyone else liked the stuffing, but I definitely prefer my family's recipe with the sausage. The pumpkin pie was great, and not too difficult to make (joy of cooking recipe). The sweet potato casserole was great (baked mashed yams, crushed pineapple and egg mixed up and topped with grapenuts and butter, then baked, probably some brown sugar in there somewhere too- I didn't make it and can't find it on google).
It was all pretty stressful though, with all the preparing and cooking and timing and cleaning and boarding of relatives. I don't know how anyone does this for 12+ people, or at least why anyone would want to.