This Year's Turkey

Our turkey this year was a huge 20-lb. bird that took lots of stuffing and lots of cooking and basting.  We roasted it at 350 for five hours, and 425 for another 40 minutes, basting every 30 minutes with melted butter.  The seasonings ... interior, kosher salt and freshly ground five-peppercorn (from Williams Sonoma) ... exterior, garlic, salt and pepper.  Beneath the bird ... five carrots, five stalks of celery, two onions (quartered) and occasionally, a bit of hot water during roasting to keep veggies from browning too much.  After the bird was removed from the oven, we let it rest and pushed the veggies through a sieve to extract their flavor for our gravy.

Our son hovered in our kitchen this year, learning about cooking a turkey for his own newly-established home in New York City. Teaching him to cook is a true gift for the Empty Nester Gourmet!