Turkey Envy

[Fierce Critter]

So Food Lion is running a special this week - buy $35 worth of groceries and you can pay .18 cents a pound for turkeys. Wal-Mart does price-matching, and I get the biggest freakin' bird they've got - 23.3 lbs. Cost $4.22. Biggest one I ever cooked before was 12 lbs.

It's gonna take 4 days to defrost, and appx. 7-8 hours to roast.

I'm actually cooking it Monday - we're doing Cracker Barrel's Thanksgiving Dinner the day of. Did it last year, and it was fantastic. Nice thing to do when you don't have family to dine with.

Anyone else doing something "different" for the holiday?

[gothicmom]

I'm cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the first time in......6 years!

Meijers has a deal this week.......$9 off a Hen turkey that is 11-16 lbs...........$14 off a TOm turkey 16.1lbs and up.

We got a 13 lb turkey for around $5!

We looked for a bigger one but there was nothing betweent he 13 lb and the 20lbs!

[Fierce Critter]

I haven't bothered trying to find the answer to this myself - what's the difference between a hen & tom turkey where the meat is concerned? Is it just the size of the bird, or does one have "better" meat?

[Brenda Starrr]

As usual, I'm stuck with Thanksgiving and Christmas, as my sister refuses to do either one. So, for T-Day, I got a 4.71lb breast. I refuse to do a whole turkey this year.

[Ginevra]

I think it might be that the tom is fattier because they have to be bigger and stuff to "impress the females". That's just a guess, however.

I'm doing a 7lb ham this year and might end up fixing it when those that are going to attend are here . . . . which will be some time after midnight. (That's not been firmly established yet and it's mainly due to my crappy work schedule this year.) But I guess you could call that "doing something different".

[Onyx]

My kids will be with their dad and I'm scheduled to cover the holiday, so I'll be working and so I am NOT cooking anything at all this year. This will be the first time in years I haven't cooked. After work I'm going to watch a movie, call my relatives and my hunny and then go to bed. Maybe I'll get more than five hours of sleep. That'll be different!

[SomeDanGuy]

Yeah, uh, that's my excuse - I'm just trying to impress females with this fat

[gothicmom]

I found this on the Honeysuckle web site

Is there a difference in the eating quality or taste between a tom and a hen turkey? TOP

The age of the bird, more than its sex, is a determining factor in eating quality. Since old females generally have tough meat, it's preferable to eat hens when they're small and younger than 15 months. Just the opposite is true of toms. Large older males are make much better eating than young toms whose meat is regarded as stringy.

[Mistercreeps]

I'll probably end up eating pizza and getting drunk alone again this year. Don't care to go to the family Thanksgiving party cause I just get talked about like I'm deaf or invisable. Sadly they are closed minded people that don't understand when someone wants to be themselves. On the brightside though I'll have pizza all to myself with nobody but the dog to fight for the last pieace

[Fierce Critter]

Thanks for that answer, GM!

Well, it's Sunday night, and that beast STILL hasn't defrosted. So I'll be spending all day tomorrow speed-defrosting it in the sink so I can cook it Tuesday. Since we'll be eating it Tuesday & Wednesday, we're skipping the Cracker Barrel shindig on Thursday.

Without family to spend it with, we don't feel the need to celebrate on "the day". It's just nice to get turkey so cheap.

By the way - if you have access to an electric knife, NOTHING carves a turkey like one of those. I used to think they were silly appliances, but watch enough of Alton Brown's "Good Eats" and you come to see how handy they can be. I picked up one at a yard sale and damn if it doesn't cut a bird like butter.

[Fierce Critter]

The bird is in the oven!!! This is just after the browning phase:

Now to get to work on the mashed potatoes, yam puree and corn.

And yes, that bird is STUFFED. I'll trade a touch of dryness for bird-cooked stuffing anytime. Not that I've ever really notice that much of a difference.

[Ginevra]

What did you do? Like, 5 lbs of stuffing in there or something? The bird looks like it's ready to explode

[gothicmom]

I always overstuff!!

[Fierce Critter]

LOL! No. But this was the first time I didn't have to cook some leftover stuffing on the side. It was actually rather loosely packed. And cooked to a temp of 185 easily.

Got more pics, but my card reader isn't working and I can't restart my computer right now... more tomorrow.