The first Thanksgiving with my beautiful bride and all the stores in the small town we lived in were sold out of Turkey. We decided to have Duck instead. Fast forward to the preparation, our rental house oven didn’t work, so we GRILLED the Duck.
15 minutes into the experiment, and we had duck fat which drained from our grill, and ran down our driveway. Not to mention, the duck wasn’t that good - LOL. I must have spent 8 hours with different soaps trying to get the fat off the driveway.
I guess you had to be there - it was very memorable, and we had a great time.
The first year that I wanted to brine the turkey, I couldn’t quite figure out the logistics of keeping the bird cold while it soaked. I ended up putting the thawed turkey in one of those clear plastic oven roaster bags, put that into a cooler surrounded by ice, and poured the brine into the turkey bag, where it sat for 24 hours or so. When I tried to lift the turkey bag out of the cooler (not realizing how heavy it would be with all that liquid plus the turkey), the bag burst, spewing sticky, salty, poultry-germ-laden brine all over the kitchen and myself. I actually burst into tears (for about 1 minute, because then I had to get to cleaning up – the kitchen and myself). H tried to help but was laughing so hard that he wasn’t at all helpful.
Thinking I’d learned my lesson, the next year I bought a cheap styrofoam cooler and put the turkey and brine inside. It was quite cold outside, so I put the cooler out on the deck overnight. Thanksgiving morning, there were claw marks on the cooler (a raccoon or possum, I guess). The turkey looked untouched and I didn’t have much choice but to cook it (company was coming), but I was grossed out. H threatens every year to tell my mom the story but has held off because she’d probably never eat at my house again.
Almost forgot the year of our power outage. Ice storm the day before Thanksgiving, and we lost electricity for days. Utility company had no idea when we’d be back online. Younger son was at school on the west coast with a working power grid, but older son had come up for the weekend… We had nothing, and no generator either, on a well so roughing it by dumping snow in our toilets to flush them. Wood stove was great though – our house had heat. We used our porch as fridge and freezer.
We cooked Thanksgiving dinner on that wood stove: canned chicken, rice, frozen vegetables. It was better than expected, but definitely camping food rather than holiday food. DS1 finally decided to go home to his city-with-heat-and-lights mid-morning Friday. Power came back on 2.5 hours later.
We added a Thanksgiving meal to Christmas week that year.
We had a power outage Thanskgiving, too. Cooked the turkey using the BBQ as an oven and sides on the gas stove plus the gas burner on the BBQ. It went surprisingly well, probably because we were not, but old and experienced and unstressed.
One year I fell into the open dishwasher trying to wrestle the neck out of a partially frozen turkey carcass. Wasn’t hurt but seriously bent the door. The prospect of hand washing everything (we were having ~20 over) was overwhelming. DH & DS pounded it back into shape as much as possible and I McGyvered it to latch with several pieces of scrap metal and duct tape. Ran four loads that way … each one getting harder and harder to latch (and always keeping a look out for leaking). But it got us through Thanksgiving. Bought a new one at a Black Friday sale the next day.
I’ve roasted many turkeys on the grill. We only have one oven and it frees up the space. As mentioned upthread, use indirect heat and just treat the grill like an oven. Always comes out great.
“ I think that started the whole “the turkey is NOT our favorite part” sentiment, but it took a few more tries before we switched, permanently, to steak & our favorite side dishes!”
OMG, I thought my family was the only one! We’re not turkey fans and always joke that we have “traditional Thanksgiving steak”. Although the last couple years it’s been “traditional Thanksgiving lobster”.
My immigrant family (I’m a first generation American) never got into having turkey either. We usually had roast beef on T-giving while I was growing up. With my own family, it’s turkey.
Actually, DH and I love turkey. My frustration is that during the holidays it’s an excellent price but during the rest of the year it’s hard to find and, when I do, it’s incredibly expensive. And keeping a couple of 15-pound turkeys in the freezer kind of takes up a bit of room.
My family loves turkey (white meat only). I make a very large turkey breast for the holiday. It is the only time during the year that I make a real turkey.
I guess the most interesting thing was the year our oven caught fire on Thanksgiving morning. I looked in, saw flames and (stupidly, I know) opened the oven door. That was the upper oven and we were still able to use the lower one. We moved the turkey to the electric roaster and and the dressing to the crockpot (both my ideas- I redeemed myself). We got by and our guests enjoyed the story.
ETA - @VeryHappy - you win! That story is hysterical.
Had an early, very nice, dinner here. Just husband, older son, and my mother. Husband taking my mother back home now. She seemed to have a really nice time and was very grateful. She also told me my salt wasn’t salty enough.
We’ve had a lovely, quiet dinner with just me, hubby and kids.
I had a good time making the stuffing today. Got all the ingredients ready for the oven, and just had to mix in the bread cubes. Looked everywhere. I asked my daughter where they were, because she had shopped and unloaded groceries with me. She reminded me we hadn’t bought it, because we only saw cornbread stuffing, and I don’t like cornbread stuffing.
So began a frantic search through the freezers for anything bread-like. Hey presto, there was an ancient frozen loaf of bread. I defrosted it in the microwave, chopped it into small cubes, and toasted it all under the grill. It worked great! Not funny, but it’s fun to improvise, as long as it works out in my favor.
We probably need a new roaster. Ours took way too long today, had to actually commandeer the oven for a few minutes which impacted other dishes finishing. The roaster must not be actually heating properly. It made us late eating. That said, everything was scrumptious.
Actually, DH and BIL cook the turkey breast down most of the way, then flip it to breast-up for the last hour to get the nice brown skin. This is made easier by using a roasting bag!
