2010/329: Bonus – Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!
Hope everyone had a wonderful day with their loved ones, and a delicious Thanksgiving dinner!

It was just the four of us, and of course the turkey cooking did not go without a mishap or two.  The plan was to brine the turkey and deep fry it, and all was well at first. Greg wanted to put the turkey in the brine on Sunday, but I talked him into waiting until Tuesday morning.  We have this big orange 5-gallon cooler that we use just for brining turkeys. Greg put the turkey in the cooler, added the brine, and then some ice on top, that he decided to put in Ziploc bags this year, so the brine wouldn’t get watered down too much. Not sure if he checked the ice during the day… the cooler was in the kitchen during the day, and then Greg put it on the back porch late Tuesday afternoon/early evening. After we went to bed, I asked him if he checked the ice, and he said no. Did he get out of bed and check? Nope.
Wednesday morning he brings the cooler back into the house and minutes later tells me that the brine felt cold but the ice was completely melted (Should have listened to me, right?), and he was worried. I suggested checking the temperature of the brine, and it turned out to be around 54 F…. not safe in my opinion… and we ended up throwing the turkey away to be on the safe side, and buying another one.
This one stayed in the refrigerator until it was time to cook it. No brining this one! The plan was still to deep-fry it, but the weather decided not to play along. Wednesday afternoon at 4pm it was 84 F and just twenty-four hours later it was only 42 F, cloudy, drizzly and windy, with temperatures expected to drop below freezing by Friday morning.
Greg made an herb butter and roasted the turkey in the oven. All went well at first, when a couple of hours into roasting, I hear some cursing coming from the kitchen. The oven had been turned off!! It most likely happened when the timer went off, to remind Greg to baste the turkey, and instead of leaving it alone, he pressed the Cancel button, which not only made the timer “END” display disappear (it would have disappeared on its own), but turned the oven off as well! And of course he didn’t realize that until the time went off again!
But, in the end, the turkey turned out delicious! No mishaps to report with the side dishes that I cooked. I made pumpkin bread for dessert, but everyone was too stuffed after dinner, to eat dessert. Guess that can be breakfast tomorrow…