Rick Lishman received a free turkey before Christmas, but as he and Nancy didn’t want to cook it themselves I was fortunate enough to also receive a free turkey. The Gingeriches were gathering on Boxing Day (Sunday) and Trish and I determined we would supply the meat.
I picked up the frozen bird on Wednesday evening and put it into the fridge to start defrosting. On Christmas Day I borrowed Grandma Roth LARGE roaster from Mom. In order to judge how long to roast this turkey I hauled out the bathroom scale and weighed the sucker — about 22 pounds! My Betty Crocker cookbook said it would take 6.5-7.5 hours at 325 degrees. I put it into the oven at 3:00 p.m.
I had other things to do — made supper for us, mostly leftover lentils from another night. Great-Grandma joined us for supper. After eating Mina wanted Great-Grandma to hold her. I got some nice pictures:
We had a fairly quiet evening at home.
At nine o’clock it finally registered in my brain that I was no longer smelling turkey. I checked the oven — the temperature dial was turned off. I can only guess that my wee helper had managed to do that (the dials are at a level where she could reach them). What to do? I decided to simply turn the oven on again and roast the bird for another couple hours. Maybe till midnight…
Soon the house was smelling great again. I dozed off and on, waking at 12:20 a.m. I went and turned off the oven without even opening the door. I slept till just before 6:00.
I got up as quietly as I could, I didn’t want to take Billie outside, nor did I want her ‘help’ as I dealt with the turkey. The roasting pan was still warm, the bird inside even warmer and looking good! I took all the meat off the bones, put it back into the roaster, poured a bit of the juice over all, and returned all to the oven. I set the oven at 180 degrees, hoping it would keep the meat warm without drying it out. It worked wonderfully! At noon we had far more turkey than we needed to feed the Gingeriches that gathered at Queen Street Commons.