I know I am a week late but here is a turkey day post. I cooked a turkey overnight so it would be ready for lunch the next day. I Looked online and printed and copied 3 recipes. The one we used was closest to what my girlfriend had cooked before. The recipe I found was called “Easy Overnight Turkey.” We modified the ingredients but stayed true to the temperatures and times. Here is the recipe with our modifications:
1 (20 lb) Turkey (Ours was 17 lbs)
1/2 stick butter (We softened it in the microwave)
1 lg clove garlic (We used 3 small cloves)
1 lg peeled onion (we halved and quartered it)
1 lg. peeled quartered apple
We added the following items:
2 bay leaves
3 stalks celery
1 peeled and quartered red pear
Sage
Rosemary
a cup of water (really did not need it)
Rub turkey inside and out with half the butter (at this point we also seasoned with sage and rosemary. I lifted the breast skin and rubbed butter and sage under the skin also); place remaining butter, garlic, onion and apple in cavity (we added the bay leaves, celery, pear also and it was over flowing). Place turkey, breast side down in rack in roaster. Bake 1 hour at 350 degrees. Turn turkey over (I forgot to do this); reduce oven temperature to 200 degrees. Bake uncovered (We had the roaster lid on ours the whole time) without opening oven door for 10-12 hours. Should serve 12 people.
If you could just smell it the next morning when we went in the kitchen. It was a bit of heaven. We started at 9:30 pm with the hour at 350 and took it out at 9:30 am. We let it set on the oven for 30 minutes after we took it out. Here is a picture:
Turkey in the old roaster
The meat fell off the bones. I pulled the bones, cartilage, fat and skin out. We put the meat in a tray with some of the juice and put it back in the oven on warm so it was ready for lunch. The roaster we cooked it in was my girlfriend’s grandmothers that was handed down to her. What a great piece of kitchenware to still be in use.
The next day with the left over turkey and corn, and a can of Campbell’s Cream of Chicken soup with herbs and a little water my girlfriend made a turkey pot pie. She used a Pillsbury frozen pie crust she thawed and rolled into the pie pan. She mixed and added the ingredients and then put another pie crust on top.
Home made Turkey Pot Pie
Tell me if that does not look delicious. It was. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.
It looks to me as if you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had a great one, also, with our very eccentric family. Besides my wife and I the Colorado grandparents were there. “I saw a puma,” said Grandpa. “We don’t see them very often, but we have been told that they have us under constant surveillance.”