Last Thursday was the Social Studies Thanksgiving dinner and I offered to cook the turkey, along with other things so that I would have something to eat and not make others try to cook dairy-free. This was my first time actually making the turkey, including shopping for it. I purchased most of the supplies on Sunday during my regular shopping trip, but figured that I could buy the turkey on Thursday after class, which would still give me the 4-5 hours needed to cook it. I did know that it takes that long to cook. So I headed to Martins on Thursday after class ended at 11 and picked up a 15 pound turkey to feed the 10-12 people coming over that night. Little did I know that I bought a frozen turkey, who's instructions say that it takes 2-3 days to defrost in the fridge**, or 5-9 hours in cold water. So once I got home, I figured that if I defrosted it in warm running water, in the bathtub so that it was sitting in water too, it would defrost faster than the 5 hours, which I did not have, knowing that the turkey needed to be in the oven at 3:30. Fred* then took a shower from 12pm-3:30pm, attempting to defrost, and probably raising our water bill next month. At 3:30, Fred was still nicely frozen. I called my mom to ask about the possibilities of defrosting a 15 pound turkey in the microwave, or just cooking him still frozen, and was informed that neither of those were possibilities. My options were to turn back time and buy the turkey on Sunday or head back to Martins to buy a non-frozen turkey breast. And if there were no non-frozen turkey breasts, then consider having ham. (I do know how to cook a good spiral ham.) Fred then got placed in the little fridge space that I could create and I headed to Martins for the second time that day. Once there, I did not trust myself to choose a non-frozen turkey breast because I originally thought I had bought a non-frozen one, so I asked the butcher who chuckled when I explained the situation, and proceeded to hand me what he said was a non-frozen turkey breast. I got it home and un-wrapped it, only to find that parts of it looked frozen! But once I had washed it, I discovered that the frozen bits were just the juices that had frozen and the bird was not frozen. Into the pan and oven the turkey breast went at 4:30pm, to emerge at 8pm.
The cooked turkey breast
I had also spent the day making pumpkin bread, southern style green beans (need some work on those) applesauce and stuffing. I love homemade applesauce and believe that it should be eaten in mass quantities. The pumpkin bread was the biggest hit, and was alas from a box.
Attempt at southern style green beans
Homemade apple sauce
Our table with lots of food :o)
You may be wondering what happened to Fred. Well, he spent the night in our fridge and on Friday I called a local place by the name of Our Community Place that serves 3 meals a day to anyone in the community who needs it, and asked if they would like a 15 pound thawed turkey. They said yes and Fred was delivered to OCP that morning to be cooked for their dinner that night. Annalisa returned home from the library Friday afternoon and inquired as to Fred's whereabouts, and was dismayed when she found out he had left us. I responded that if she wanted to see Fred again, she could go have dinner at OCP.
*Annalisa named Fred when she arrived home to find a very large frozen turkey sitting in the fridge. I decided that Fred should be the anglicized version of Fiasco, because that's what he was.
**Note: when telling the story to my parents they kindly informed me that they have never had a turkey defrost in the fridge in the 2-3 days suggested on the package. It always takes 4-5 days. Good to know for the future!
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