Month 10 day 6: Turkey, stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce

Today I made:
Roasted Turkey with Rosemary-Garlic Butter Rub and Pan Gravy, Cooking Light November 2011
Fennel, Sausage, and Caramelized Apple Stuffing, Cooking Light November 2011
Old-Fashioned Cranberry Sauce, Cooking Light November 2011

We expected that today, finally, the turkey would be defrosted. Unfortunately we didn't get home until ~7, so the turkey didn't go into the oven until ~8. And, it wasn't completely defrosted, despite being in the fridge for a week! But, I guess it's not too surprising since our fridge tends to freeze things, so of course it would stop things from unfreezing. I figured that once I bathed it in hot water and it relaxed from its tight, balled-up shape it wouldn't be that bad-- it was mostly defrosted after all.

I rubbed it underneath the skin with herbed/spiced butter and then it went in at 425 for 30 minutes, cooling down to 325 for the rest of the time. After about 2 hours or so the popup timer was up and our meat thermometer agreed that the leg and the breast were done. We cut off some leg to snack on, cut off the breasts to eat, and made the gravy and put the stuffing in the oven while the turkey relaxed and adjusted its juices (is this really a thing, or is it a wive's tale?)

After we ate though, we realized that the other parts of the turkey were most certainly not cooked through. The back, for example, was still squishy-soft. Other parts were a cooked texture, but were pretty pink. Back in the oven it went for another couple of hours until just before we went to sleep! The next day when I was picking off the meat for leftovers, some parts seemed pink still, although now that I take a second glance I think that turkey is just pinkish. Nevertheless, we decided to panfry the leftovers a bit or use them in things like soups just to make sure :-P

The gravy was tasty, and particularly important given that our turkey ended up baking for probably longer than intended when all was said and done, and some parts were quite dry by the end. It never got too thick, though-- I guess the ratios might be off because the recipe doesn't specify a total volume for drippings + broth, just the amount of broth to use. Anyway, it was thin in viscosity but not flavor.

The stuffing... I'll just go ahead and say that I grew up on boxed stuffing and I stand by it! Despite the time and effort, it tasted no better than boxed stuffing, and in my opinion was worse. Normally I'm a big believer in as-much-from-scratch-as-possible, but Stovetop stuffing is just my favorite, especially when you add in some sausage, apple, celery, etc. So we will not keep the stuffing recipe. Good to know though! The first time I ever tried to make stuffing was when I lived in Japan, before I had the internet at my apartment, so I just tried to derive it from first principles. I knew there were some spices, some stale bread, and some broth... but I really didn't know how much broth to add or anything. It turned out a mushy disaster! This was better (especially as leftovers when we let it bake a while longer)

I did get converted to home-made cranberry sauce though. It is so fast to make-- just about 10-15 minutes, and tastes so good. This recipe had orange zest in it. When I was a kid I could just eat cranberry sauce straight from the can I loved it so much! I could imagine just eating this too, or using it like jam or anything.

We made a ton of food, so we'll be needing to use turkey in the next few days' worth of recipes!