Ragemonkey recipes

Father T has links to some Thanksgiving recipes, including this one lINK

1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey
For the brine:
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 gallon vegetable stock
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1/2 tablespoon allspice berries
1/2 tablespoon candied ginger
1 gallon iced water
For the aromatics:
1 red apple, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup water
4 sprigs rosemary
6 leaves sage
Canola oilCombine all brine ingredients, except ice water, in a stockpot, and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve solids, then remove from heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.

Early on the day of cooking, (or late the night before) combine the brine and ice water in a clean 5-gallon bucket. Place thawed turkey breast side down in brine, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area (like a basement) for 6 hours. Turn turkey over once, half way through brining.
A few minutes before roasting, heat oven to 500 degrees. Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes.
Remove bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard brine.
Place bird on roasting rack inside wide, low pan and pat dry with paper towels. Add steeped aromatics to cavity along with rosemary and sage. Tuck back wings and coat whole bird liberally with canola (or other neutral) oil.

Roast on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F. for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cover breast with double layer of aluminum foil, insert probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and return to oven, reducing temperature to 350 degrees F. Set thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees. A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting. Let turkey rest, loosely covered for 15 minutes before carving


Hmmm....Let's see...
Frozen Turkey?
Well, forget it.
Try LIVE TURKEY. We have two...
Our two turkeys are in our vacant lot where the generator is....
We are fattening them up.

We have two pitbulls, and have had to rescue the turkeys from the dogs several times (luckily the dogs just like to play, and have only gotten feathers in their mouths)
And remember that conference I discussed a few days ago?
On the day of the conference, while people were arriving, the front gate was open...and the turkeys took a stroll....
We found them two blocks over, in a vacant lot...

For awhile we thought they would be liberated for someone's stew, but we actually got them back...

One reason that they got out is that the female dog chose the morning of the conference to have her puppies...

Hmmm...we had her fixed two months ago, but I guess she was already pregnant...

So there we were, with bigshot Americans coming to the conference, a dog under the front porch with puppies, and the help chasing turkeys down the street.

Luckily, the visitors didn't notice anything wrong...until the third day, when the cat decided to chase a mouse into the conference room, and made one of the American wives hysterical...
Heck, it was only a mouse....

She should have been here last week when we did our monthly bug fumigation and killed a couple hundred cockroaches...