Arizona Thanksgiving and Game Night

We are renting out a room in a house for the summer to save some money. We love Patricia, our landlady/roommate and it’s worked out really well. Three days after we moved in, she went to Italy for three weeks. She told us we could prepare and eat the turkey she had in her fridge. I was so excited to try making a homemade full bird for the first time (they’re a little expensive for us to buy casually). I decided to make up a huge feast and invite Musashi, Ben’s fellow intern and friend from work. We had mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, salad (with homemade croutons), and turkey with strawberry shortcake for dessert (Carly's recipe, obviously). After dinner we played Clue. It was so fun and it really brought me back. We had enough leftovers that we brought them to Ben’s house (yes, Ben’s supervisor is named Ben) the next night for dinner and enjoyed them again with his family.

A very repetitive, slightly blurry picture with people in it!

I ended up loving the turkey that I made, and it was really easy! Here’s the recipe:

Easy Turkey

Ingredients:

-12 lb turkey

-9 Tbs butter (1 stick + 1 Tbs)

-4 cups warm water

-3 Tbs chicken bouillon

-2.5 Tbs dried parsley

-2.5 Tbs minced onion

-2.5 Tbs seasoning salt

-.5 Tbs thyme

-.5 Tbs rosemary

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Rinse and wash turkey. Discard giblets or save for other use.

2. Soften 1 stick butter. Mix in ½ Tbs of each spice: parsley, minced onion, seasoning salt, thyme, and rosemary.

3. Place turkey in a Dutch oven or roasting pan. Separate the skin over the breast and legs to make little pockets. Use your hands to spread the seasoned stick of butter under all the skin.

4.  In a medium bowl, combine the water with the bouillon. Sprinkle in the remaining 2 tbs parsley and 2 tbs minced onion.

5. Soften the remaining tbs of butter and rub it over the top of the turkey. Then pour the bouillon mixture over the top of it. Sprinkle 2 Tbs seasoning salt over the turkey.

6. Cover with foil, and bake in the preheated oven 3 1/2 to 4 hours, until the internal temperature of the turkey reaches 180 degrees F (80 degrees C). For the last 45 minutes or so, remove the foil so the turkey will brown nicely.

With this practice, maybe I'll try making the bird next Thanksgiving!