If This Turkey Tastes Half as Good as It Looks...

 

With the Christmas season coming to an end,  I scrolled through holiday photos on my phone reflecting on the holidays. I came across one from Christmas day and decided to share. Enjoy my Tale of Two Turkeys.

If you don't recognize this GIF, go watch Christmas Vacation and thank me later.

I mean, this is my nightmare when it comes to preparing the turkey for Thanksgiving. Since inheriting the job of roasting a turkey for the family, I've taken all precautions to avoid this very scenario. And roughly seven years in, I managed to perfect my recipe which culminated in quite a delicious bird for Thanksgiving this year:

It fell off the bone beautifully when I went to carve it.

This year I also roasted one for Christmas. Feeling rather confident in my abilities to produce a perfect turkey, I decided to take a wee nap while it roasted in the oven. (Can you blame me? I was up till almost 2 AM Christmas Eve to Christmas morning.) Two hours into what I assumed would be a three hour bake, my youngest son woke me up to tell me something was burning in the oven. I believe "plastic bacon-y smell" was used.

Y'all, the horror...

It was vacuum packed and not in a good way.

I could feel my BP rise. I got a sick feeling in my stomach. I knew the plastic smell would be in my nose the rest of the day. How could this happen? It was fine when I basted right before I napped! I pulled it out immediately, cursed the oven (because clearly it was broken), and declared Christmas ruined.

Fortunately, my mother freaks out a little less and has a lot more life experience. Ha ha. She noted that the roasting bag probably puffed up just enough to hit the elements on the top of my oven. (Note: I do cut slits in the roasting bag to keep this from happening.) Once the plastic melted, it exposed the turkey which cooked much faster than anticipated. My son waking me up actually saved the bird!

In the end, the turkey was perfectly fine. The plastic didn't melt into the turkey. It kinda made more of shell on the turkey. Once removed, I was able to carve it up and serve it. Thank goodness. 

So until next year...