Baby Pute

I decided to make a proper Thanksgiving meal for just Jim and me. Although my friend Erin sent me home with plenty of leftovers to satisfy his Thanksgiving cravings, I thought I should do a Thanksgiving trial run as I will most likely be hosting Thanksgiving next year. Considering that I had never made a turkey, gravy or stuffing, I thought that this might be an opportune time to try my hand at a traditional Thanksgiving meal.

Since it was just the two of us, I tried to find just a turkey breast. After visiting about 4 different grocery stores and not finding a turkey breast, I broke down and bought a whole turkey. I figured that I could eat turkey sandwiches for a week if we had a lot left over. I was able to find a small turkey which was only about 5 1/2 pounds. It was labeled as a "Baby Pute". I'm not sure if they were using the word baby as a diminutive and it was just a small turkey or it was actually a baby turkey.

After searching on the Internet about how to properly thaw and cook a turkey, I realized that we weren't having our little friend for dinner on Sunday as I had planned because the turkey wouldn't be thawed in time. I didn't realize that you have to thaw the turkey in the fridge. Since I don't cook meat very often, I was a little bit freaked out about the potential for bacteria.

I calculated that I would need a little over 2 hours to cook the turkey. I didn't have a roasting pan so simply put the turkey along with some veggies into a Pyrex pan. I hate dried out turkey so I put tin foil over the breast to prevent it from drying out. Unfortunately the tin foil doesn't really matter when you cook the crap out of the turkey.

My plan was to remove the tin foil after an hour and a half to let the skin get crispy. However, when I checked the temperature at an hour and a half, I realized the turkey was already done. My turkey looked awfully unappetizing with its pasty white and raw looking skin so I figured I'd take off the foil and cook it for a little longer to crisp up the skin. That didn't seem to work so I put the broiler on for a little bit. Finally I resigned myself to taking the turkey out and getting rid of the unappealing skin.

Now on to the gravy. I tried to boil up the giblets and make a nice turkey broth, but after an hour of boiling with some veggies and herbs it still had a funky smell to it. So I dumped that and used a gravy package. That didn't taste all that great so I added some red wine to it and herbs along with the turkey drippings. After adding a roux, it wasn't half bad but didn't particularly taste like turkey gravy.

I figured I had enough to worry about with the turkey and gravy so I kept the rest of the meal pretty simple - dressing and roasted root vegetables. The dressing was actually the star of the show. It turned out incredibly well. Jim said it was the best stuffing he's ever eaten. Although compared to the dry, chewy turkey, anything would probably taste good.

I didn't even attempt to make any sort of a pie or dessert. Since I'm not really a baker, that poses another challenge for the perfect Thanksgiving meal.

I am starting to think that the answer to Thanksgiving might be to start a new tradition - going out to eat. I think I'd be ok with a nice rack of lamb at a good French restaurant. Who needs turkey on Thanksgiving? The Pilgrims probably didn't even eat turkey.