Happy Thanksgiving

Happy {late} Thanksgiving, my friends. How was your day?

The live in and I are spending a few days in beautiful Sunriver for a little rest and relaxation post holiday. Actually he’s currently at the gym which doesn’t sound restful or relaxing to me, but it’s one of his favorite things to do while on vaca. Go figure.

We arrived last night and I don’t believe we have ever slept so well. Apparently waking up a 6:30am to stick our arms down the cavity of a dead bird really wore us out.

This was the first turkey the live in and I had ever cooked.

There were moments when I wished we had agreed to that reality TV show just so we would have documentation of how ridiculous we looked. The live in had read that cooking the turkey breast side down to start was the way to go. An hour and a half into cooking we were to flip the bird breast side up. So we did this. However, how in the world are you supposed to flip a hot, greased up, 18lb turkey? After a few minutes of struggling with the thing and no luck, we decided to wrap the live in’s hands in foil to hopefully shield him from the heat and allow him to handle it. This still didn’t work as the beast of a thing was much too hot. So, we put hot pads in his hands and then wrapped foil around the two. It looked hilarious, and worked like a charm.

We also brined the turkey the night before. We disregarding the professional’s advice to not use a garbage bag and forged ahead with this method. My guess is that the cooking bags made specifically for brining are possibly a little stronger…and perhaps shaped to the form of a turkey? Because I will tell you…garbage bags are not.

I will say that the turkey turned out great. Seems like a lot of effort for a fancy chicken to me, but who am I to question years and years of suffering.

We enjoyed spending our day with the live in’s side of the family, and I truly hope you enjoyed your day as well.

p.s. more on Sunriver and Bend later…for now you can check out a photo here.