Turkey Dinner & Leftovers for a week!

This promises to be a really busy week with work, planting and meetings so I decided to cook a turkey so we would have lots of leftovers for sandwiches and casseroles. I put turkey on the grocery list for Rob to pick up. He bought a turkey all right. A 21 pounder! Frozen as hard as a rock and I wanted to cook it the next morning. Rob’s explanation for this monster was that at 68 cents a pound, it was the best bargain in the meat section.

Bargain or not, it was frozen solid. So I used a trick I picked up from a pheasant hunter who sometimes gives us some of his birds. At his club when they dress out the peasants for the members, they freeze them in a zip lock bag with enough water to completely encase the peasant. The theory is that the water keeps the bird from drying out with freezer burn. You thaw the bird in the bag and it is nice and moist.

People are always talking about ways to get a moist flavorful turkey as the long roasting period sometimes leads to dry white meat. I borrowed the peasant theory for turkeys and have never had a dry turkey.

I take the plastic wrapper off the turkey and submerge the entire frozen turkey in cold water until it thaws. In this case, it was a clean plastic bucket, and I left it out in a cool spot in the garage. By morning it was completely thawed.

And then I had an Erma moment. I carried that heavy five-gallon bucket of turkey and water into the kitchen and set it on the floor in front of the sink. I lifted the turkey by that stupid plastic lifter thing that you can hardly cut with the sharpest knife. Well, you can’t cut it, but they will break. Yep, about a foot out of the water that plastic lifter broke. The turkey fell back into the bucket and a couple of gallons of cold water splashed all over the kitchen floor! It took 3 heavy bath towels to soak most of the water. I suppose the floor needed mopping anyway. It was one of those little “disasters” that you are always having in the kitchen.

Floor cleaning over, I finally dried off that bird, rubbed him with soft butter and sprinkled on seasoned salt, dried sage, dried rosemary, and half a slice of minced Candied Ginger. Then I poured over a cup of orange juice into the large roasting pan. With the heavy Roaster you can drop the temperature to 300 degrees, which seems to give a moister bird. The orange juice and pan drippings make for a sweeter tasting turkey and gravy. The baster is such an improvement over the cheap old plastic basters that we used to use, and is certainly easier to clean up afterwards. I take off the lid for the last 30 minutes or so the bird is nicely browned. With the heavy heat retaining roaster, you can put the top back on after removing from the over and the turkey will stay hot for over an hour which gives you time to bake the other casseroles and dressing.

Best of all, I now have a week’s worth of meat cooked and ready to go. And you think turkey only for the holidays? Erma, wake up and smell the Gingered Turkey!