The Turkey Adventure continues…

Today we continued the turkey adventure. Yesterday we made a brine and let the turkey bathe in it over night. This morning we took it out of the fridge and out of the brine.

Once it was out of the brine we rinsed the turkey off with cold water and then patted it dry.   Once this was done we let the turkey air dry until we were ready to stuff it and cook it!

Our stuffing was a hybrid of a breadcrumb and sausage stuffing. It had mild store bought sausage, breadcrumbs, onions, apple, celery, rosemary, thyme, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper, apple cider, butter and a little water.

Once the stuffing was done we stuffed it into the chest and neck cavity, we put orange slices, lemon slices and butter under the skin. We also slathered the turkey with butter and sprinkled it with salt and pepper.

This is our turkey about an hour into roasting. Our turkey lurkey was about 8.5lbs, so we roasted it for about 3 and 1/2 hours at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. For the first half hour we cooked it without any cover and for the next 2 and 1/2 hours it was wrapped in tin foil and then the last 1/2 hour without tinfoil. This helps make the bird crispy brown! We took out the turkey every once in a while to baste it in its drippings and slathered it with butter. We also added some apple cider.

Once our turkey was all done (doesn’t it look beautiful!) we let it sit for 1/2 an hour before butchering it. When we did butcher it we started by taking off the wings and drumsticks. Then we took the breast off by cutting along the breast bone and running the knife down until it came off.

We didn’t eat just turkey, even though it would have been supper yummy! We also had mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, chipotle sweet potatoes, stuffing and parmesan green beans.

This was one of the best turkeys I have ever eaten!!! The brine kept the turkey ridiculously moist! If you’ve ever had dry turkey, you have to try brining it next time!