Thanksgiving Day & all my Blessings

What an interesting Thanksgiving Day to say the least. It was fun, nerve wrecking, exciting and totally exhausting. It was my first time EVER preparing a Thanksgiving dinner and it was a tiring one!! My Mom normally prepares the big meal, but she was worn out so, I told her that I would gladly help out and do it this year. I must say that I was quite nervous about it, but it turned out perfectly. Shawn was a great help, but for the most part I wanted to prepare everything and I pretty much did. My sister and her kids came over, my parents were here and then of course it was Shawn, Cameron and myself.

I bought a 22 lb turkey and I must say that Tom Turkey must have been a brut of a bird back in his day. This bird was SOLID as a ROCK!! He finally eventually thawed out, but he had to spend alot of time doing the back stroke and breast stroke in the kitchen sink. I was relieved when he finally thawed out.....that was a big worry just thinking that we would have to eat frozen turkey for dinner (hahaha). Anyway, I decided that since the bird would take about 3 1/2 - 4 hours to cook that I would get it prepared around 8:00, but Shawn thought 8:30 am would give us plenty of time so I went with his suggestion. I went into the kitchen and got out my cooking bag. That was my 1st Problem..... I was reading the directions and we didn't have any flour to shake around in the bag like it instructed us to do. How in the world can we not have any flour? I mean no flour at all. So, Shawn ran to the grocery store to get flour. Good thing it was only 3 minutes down the street. I decided to go ahead and clean out Tom Turkey while I was waiting on Shawn to get back. I unwrapped Tom and washed him off, cleaning out the gizzards (oh yuck) and then tried my best to dislodge his neck out of the somewhat slushy body cavity. Oh, have you ever stuck your hand in the body of a turkey? I literally felt like I was invading Tom Turkey and his body and in the meantime my hands were freezing. I think they were pretty much frozen by the time I got done doing a body search. Anyway, I was finally able to get the neck out and I was so excited. I did it all on my own!! Shawn in the meantime walks through the door and gives me the flour. I put my flour in my bag and then proceeded to give Tom Turkey some sun bathing oil. Just kidding... it was just some cooking oil. Just some good ole vegetable oil. I got him all lathered up and gave him a bit of salt and pepper and then had Shawn hold the cooking bag for me while I put the bird in. Ah yeah, well it didn't work as smoothly as I had planned. I put the bird in the bag and he fell right through the bottom of the bag and into the kitchen sink. Yep, indeed I was wrestling this bird and he almost won. This bird is rolling around in the kitchen sink and all I can think about is that this is going to be one BIG mess!! I could barely pick up this 22 pound bird because he was lathered with all of this oil, but I finally managed. It was a real good thing that I had one more cooking bag or else Shawn would have had to make yet another trip to the grocery store and by that time he would have really been lovin me. Well, we decided to go ahead and try putting Tom Turkey in the cooking bag (yet again) and this time it worked out perfectly. Goes to show you that we have NEVER cooked a large turkey before and had no idea about gently putting him in the bag and not just dropping him in there. I guess we must have thought that those bags were a tad bit sturdier then that, but they were definitely not no Hefty garbage bags (lol). I finally put Tom Turkey in the roaster pan and I must admit that I was happy to get him in there. I was EXHAUSTED and I had to go sit down for a little bit. I felt like I just got done wrestling some Sumo Wrestler and I was so tired and yet I still had tons of cooking to do. Anyway, the turkey was done, my cracker dressing was made, the green beans were complete and the noodles were quite tasty. I carved the turkey myself...... "Did everyone hear me?" Yep, I said that I carved the turkey all by myself and I did a pretty gosh darn good job at it. I filled the plates for everyone, we sat down and said our prayer and then we started to dig in. Oh..... my food was delicious!! It was so good and I was so proud of myself for what I had accomplished. All and all is was a great time shared with my family and now I am just recovering from all of the excitement today. Tonight we are off to Shawn's parents for some more great food and good times. Here are some pictures that my Mom took of me while I was preparing Tom Turkey for his sun bathing holiday. Hope you all enjoyed your family, friends, food and shared your many blessings with one another.

Here I am cleaning out the gizzards

Here I am trying my best to pull out Tom Turkey's neck (no exaggeration at all) lol.

Is there anything else in there or did I get it all?

FINALLY..... Tom is in the bag and ready to go.

Ohhh, he is browning up nicely and looking pretty tasty!!