If at first you don't succeed...put it back in the oven!

Today is a completely lazy day. After cooking all day yesterday, I am giving myself permission to do (almost) nothing productive today...after the laundry is done of course. The kitchen is clean, the leftovers are in the fridge, and I am looking forward to a turkey/cranberry sandwich for lunch. Let 's take a minute to remind us all how I got to this point.

I awoke yesterday morning with butterflies in my stomach at the looming turkey in my refrigerator. At 6:30am, I got up and started my rolls, {cuz they take 8 hours from start until perfection} we had some pancakes for breakfast, and I jumped in the shower. Hannah and Josh were busy preparing decorations for the table. They had both made some cute Thanksgiving crafts at school, and wanted to use them as the centerpieces. Notice the plural in centerpiece? Yes, there was a scuffle involved over whose project would take center stage on the table, but finally they compromised and settled on Josh's turkey, filled with my tiny pumpkins and gourds if Hannah could fill my wall window with her decorations. Ahh, crisis averted. Great job guys!

Around 10, I realized that I do not own a gravy boat. It's one of the many kitchen items that I never even think to buy. Like a meat thermometer...I just bought one the other day in fact. So I ran out to WalMart for I think the 17th time this week, in search of a gravy boat. But my search was in vain, there was not a single gravy boat to be found. But, I did happen to find a pretty tablecloth for super cheap. Yes, that's another thing that I don't have. How do I not have a single tablecloth? I know, I'm a kitchen loser. What are you gonna do? I called my Mother in Law, and asked her to bring her gravy boat. Another mini problem solved. I came home, checked on the rolls which were rising beautifully I might add. Then I got out the turkey and prepared for battle with the headless wonder. After tearing off the wrapping, to my horror I found that the turkey that had been thawing in my refrigerator in the garage was still FROZEN!!!!

After pulling out the neck and giblets{NASTY} {and after a few not so tasteful words under my breath}, I breathed a sigh of relief. Once I had rinsed it out, I found that it was not frozen after all, there were just some bits of ice that hadn't thawed. Then I had to say a little prayer and apologize for the not so tasteful words under my breath. I chopped up some onions and celery, and threw them into the oven bag, then smothered the turkey in butter and placed it in the bag. I read through the cooking instructions several times just to be sure, and popped the bird into the oven. 4 hours later, I should have a perfectly golden brown, juicy turkey.

My awesome brother in law and his fabulous wife had purchased the clamation Christmas classics at Costco for the kids, so we spent the next couple of hours watching Rudolf and Frosty. Around three, Wileen and I began preparing the finishing touches for the meal. At four, after roasting for 4 hours, I pulled the turkey out of the oven, and popped the rolls in. The turkey wasn't quite as brown as I would have hoped, but I figured it would be okay. Then we poked the meat thermometer in for the final test. Panic struck me as I read that number. 160! How can that be??? It's supposed to be between 170, and 180. I tried to hold them back, but the tears were already filling my eyes. Spencer and Wileen said it would be okay. Spencer decided that we would just cut the breast meat off, and put it into the oven for a little bit to finish cooking, so that we could still enjoy it with our meal. As he started cutting into the turkey, we all noticed the lovely pink coloring filling the cavity of the turkey. Yeah. Blood. Nice. I couldn't be in the room anymore, so I went to my room and shed a few more tears. After a few minutes, I went back downstairs, and tried to salvage the rest of the meal.

After slicing off some of the good breast meat and letting it bake a little longer, we were able to have turkey with our dinner. I guess you could say that another mini crisis had been diverted. Everything else turned out great. The rolls were....AWESOME {sorry to toot my own horn, but they were} the stuffing, potatoes, gravy, cranberries, sweet potatoes, ect...All was delicious.

We put the rest of the turkey back into the oven for another hour or so, and were able to get lots more meat off of it for leftovers, so that was good news.

So I made my first turkey. So it didn't turn out so hot. Better luck next year. At least the rolls were good!