Turkey Dinner Is Served

 I woke up to this .... wet and cold.  So chilly in fact that I finally had to turn on the heat for a few hours.  Between the rain and the fog, my solar isn't exactly sending dollars into my bank account.  My camera actually took out some of the fog.  I could barely see the trees.  The fireplace would have been magnificent, but I'm saving that big gas bill for Christmas.

Since I'm up so early, I didn't have any kitchen duties until later, so I tackled another problem.  My computer tells me twenty five times a day to back it up.  How annoying!  I tried to accomplish that on several occasions, but it would not cooperate.  Seriously, who knows why these things go crazy.

Apparently it didn't like the previous interloper that was backed up on the same disk.  I tried deleting a few, but it still was not happy.  Finally, in desperation, I clicked on the message to see if I could remove it ... permanently!  Up popped another message ... do you want to keep the old and backup the new?  Well of course, that's why I've been clicking the BACKUP button, yes?

I figured it would take awhile.  After three hours it was still going.  Big sigh ... what is going on?  Come to fine out it was backing up EVERY hour.  Why oh why?  I shut it off, now happy that the two computers are playing nice together, even if little brother is trying to outshine the older machine.

And then it was turkey time!  Since my oven has no clue just how hot it is, I turned it up to 400 degrees and plugged in a thermometer.  That's it on the right.  Everything went along fine for about an hour before I noticed the temp didn't move.  I adjusted the oven several times, now up to 475 degrees, but the gauge stayed the same 144 degrees.  

I got out my SECOND gauge and stuck it in the turkey.  Good grief.  NOW what do I do?  I also had a gauge inside the oven ... not sure that works either ... that read 300 degrees.  At that rate it will take all day to cook this bad boy.  

After 30 minutes and the temperature didn't rise at all, it finally hit me.  There's a battery in there and I bet it died.  

In the meantime, since Marie came to visit, I fixed her up in my Breville oven for an hour.  I've never had a Marie Callander pie I didn't like!  This is a Dutch Apple for a measly $5.00 on sale.  

When that came out of the oven, in went my cornbread stuffing.  It's always so much better when cooked in the bird, but this will suffice.  Celery, onions, almost an entire bottle of poultry seasoning, and a load of turkey broth.

Back to the bird, the second the new battery went in, it read 165 degrees.  How could I be so lucky!!  Out it came, to rest on the counter.  Yes it looks weird, because this is a turkey roll.  Ten pounds of the most delicious, moist, tender turkey I've ever had.  I can't even tell you who makes it.  This is what our Elks Lodge orders for all our Christmas parties.  No bones to mess with either!!

I whipped up my best gravy .......

and VOILA!  Dinner was served.  Obviously I was not a fan of the overcooked mushy microwavable broccoli with cheese sauce.  The cheese sauce disappeared completely.  I should have had corn ... or peas ... or anything other than this stuff.  I'll be honest, I only ate one bite of that.

As for the turkey .... it came out absolutely perfect!!  So very moist and tender you could cut it with a fork.  I ate the entire plate, along with lots of little pieces that fell off when slicing the bird.  

Big mistake .... BIG!!  I was absolutely miserable the rest of the night from eating WAY too much.  It just tasted so GOOD!  Marie agreed to wait and join the party for breakfast.

Not only did I think it was good ... Mr. Cooper cleaned up his bowl of turkey as fast as I did.  That's a good thing because we've got lots left to consume.

I was a lump on the couch the rest of the evening.  That's liable to be a repeat today since there's more fog and LOTS of turkey!!  

As for Black Friday ... that's a thing of the past.  It's Black WEEK for shopping and it's been resulting in record numbers around here.  I'm not a fan of crowds, so I'll just hang out with Mr. Cooper and eat leftovers ... and talk to Marie.