Chronicles of a Turkey Dinner

As Jen put it. Turkey's die here. Like many other years, here, was my apartment, and I guess the turkey didn't actually die there. It was just stuffed baked and enjoyed by 10 of my friends and I (Yay! Gus came!).

Now this is the 9th turkey dinner I've cooked by myself (well mostly, enough so that I can say "by myself " without shame) and when I tell people that some find it hard to believe. Their surprise is generally associated with the idea of me being domesticated and not utterly feeble in the kitchen - let me cook you dinner sometime, I'll remove any doubts.

Now to prove that I did in fact cook the turkey we had on Monday on my own, I was asked to document the actual process and post it for the world to see. Here goes...

This is the prep work for the stuffing. Diced onions, shredded carrots and cut up celery get cooked together in a pot. I dunno for how long really. Just til it smells right. Did I mention I cried.

Then I have to make maaaaaaaad amounts of garlic bread. When its nice and crispy I cut the bread into bite-size cubes and let them dry out in the air a bit. This whole process takes a surprisingly long time because the bread is REALLY REALLY hot for quite a long while after its done toasting. I learned the hard way that its better to be patient and just wait for it to cool. Waiting is bad cuz I end up eating a lot of the pieces that I've cut up... meh.


Then the veggie mixture and the bread bits get mixed together. Like the bread, it is very important to let the veggie mixture cool. I don't think I learned that one until the 7th turkey.

Yes I'm mixing this is a juice jug.

I'm a poor student and my kitchen has the bare essentials. Deal with it, I do.

Then I stuff it. Top and bottom, like a confused under-developed hermaphrodite in high-school... bad image. Basically the bird gets fisted again and again. The stuffing tastes the best when it comes out of the bird so I have to make sure I get as much in there as possible. I generally over stuff it - oops!

Then the bird bakes. How long? I dunno, I just keep it in there until everyone arrives and it doesn't look jiggly anymore. That generally works, no one has died yet.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm turkey.
Forget the turkey, Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm STUFFING!