Happy Thanksgiving!

10:20am
We have so much to be thankful for! Our family is together and we are happy and for the most part healthy (all of us are in some stage of recovery from the same head cold). I'm cooking, ds1 is making his pizza pasta, dh is snuggled in bed for a nap with LJ and ds2 was up and swatting flies for a while but now is back in his bedroom.

I got a late start on our Thanksgiving dinner, but the first thing I found myself thankful for is the generosity of my mother and father-in-law who gifted our youngest son with a barbecue Christmas of 2005. So I called them and wished them a happy holiday and thanked them for the grill telling them I was making our turkey on the grill today.

Ds2 tested out grilling the bird on Tuesday and I was much impressed with the moist and tender meat. It turned out well, so I assumed he'd be grilling today's turkey. I learned last night, however, that he did not know if a 23 pound bird would work in the grill and was thinking I'd be doing the turkey in the oven. I usually use a bag... but Alton told me one day that when you use a bag, you're actually steaming the bird. Hmmm. All right. And then ds2 told me I'd not have all that broth that I usually get using the bag - if I grill the bird - and it all started to make sense! If all the moisture is steamed out into the bag, then of course the bird will be dry. Why did I never consider that?

My reasoning was you bake the turkey in the oven for hours and hours at a certain temperature, so what's the difference between grilling it in the barbecue for hours and hours? I did a bit of research on the Internet to see if I could grill a 20 pound turkey, found that it is possible, so I decided I would not only grill the bird, but also smoke it with hickory chips! I was able to locate the hickory chips - I put them someplace "safe" the last time I cleaned... since ds2 had THROWN them away in a frenzy of house cleaning. I retrieved them from the trash can and safely stored them by the front door in dh's pile of stuff. The chips are in the aluminum foil to the left of the grill. One site I read said to cook the bird 15 minutes for every pound, and smoke in the first 30 minutes if you are going to smoke it. The about.com site that I checked said to cover the wing tips after 30-40 minutes so they don't burn, and cover the breast if it starts to get too dark. I'm grilling my turkey breast down, and turning it every 30-45 minutes.

So far I have the bird on the grill for the past hour and 20 minutes, and I just put the butternut squash in the oven - I don't really even like butternut squash, but Pioneer Woman seems to think it will make me have a fainting spell once I try it cooked her way. 11:30 - I made it, ooohhhhh, it IS delicious!!!! I didn't make me faint, however. I only used 2 tablespoons of maple syrup.



And I have my pot of broth started that I make for the turkey gravy. I really need to revise my Thanksgiving Dinner plan for I do cook much differently now than 7 years ago. For one thing, 7 years ago, I thought fat was going to kill me if I ate it. I have since learned that our bodies need fat to function. The caveat: it must be GOOD fat. Fats like butter, cream, lard, chicken fat, turkey fat, virgin coconut oil. Bad fats would be partially hydrogenated oils, soybean oil. So back to my broth. Today I checked the freezer to see if I could find anything to add to my broth. Sometimes I'll find some raw chicken bones because someone cut off the breast meat and left the bones for making broth. This time I found some already made chicken stock. Here is today's recipe for making the stock for turkey gravy.

1 quart chicken stock
1 onion, chopped roughly
6 pieces celery, sliced
2 carrots, unpeeled, sliced in 1 inch pieces
5 cloves garlic
1 tsp. poultry seasoning
turkey neck, giblets, liver, heart
8 cups water

One thing I like to do when making stock - since I will be straining off the broth - is to include the onion skins. They will add natural color to your stock.

Add everything to a large pot, bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer and let it boil for 2 to 3 hours. That should make for some tasty stock to make my turkey gravy later.

Next I should probably start the potato rolls. First... I should figure out what time the turkey will be done as the cooking for everything else will correspond around that. Okay, looks like 5 hours and 45 minutes. I put it on at 9am, so it should be done by 3pm.

I'm going to reopen this post throughout the day and add to it as I have a chance.

11:30. My stock looks delicious! Ds2 just flipped the turkey from lying on its breast to its back. It looks fantastic.








And here are a couple of shots of the food on the table.


I took a little nap after eating, about half an hour. Woke up and started putting the food away, removed all the meat from the turkey and bagged it up for leftovers.

Until next time.