Let's Talk Turkey: Part 1 of a "What I Ate for Christmas" series

Christmas is only three short days away. Shopping is complete. Shipping is another story.

Josh and I are both working on Christmas, so hosting any sort of party-- let alone making a festive dinner would be a wash. We're going to a friend's house tomorrow, and we were asked to bring appetizers. On Christmas, there's a casserole contest at work, so that will be an adventure in and of itself. Knowing that there won't be much time for us to pause, reflect, celebrate quietly, or any of that homey stuff for the rest of the week, I decided to make our turkey today instead.

We were lucky and a little shocked that turkey hadn't been too difficult on Thanksgiving. Also around Thanksgiving, Publix supermarket had a sale on young turkey. 59 cents a pound? Unheard of. That was a LOT less than any other meat item-- and any other food item for that matter. So, like any thrifty girl with an extra day of holiday pay in her paycheck, I bought three turkeys! Haven't had to buy meat since.

Looks pretty tasty, right? It still has about an hour and fifteen minutes left to go before it's ready, but it smells DELICIOUS!

Ingredients:
-Turkey
-A stick of butter
-A roughly sliced red delicious apple
-Half of a roughly sliced large onion
-2 Tbs. ground cinnamon
-2 Tbs. herbs de provence OR 3 springs each of sage and thyme
-A cup of water

The turkey itself is about 10 lbs. First thing's first. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. Cover the turkey skin with a stick of butter. You can certainly use less butter if you feel like it.

After cutting up the apple and onion, put the pieces in a microwave safe bowl. Then add the spices. Cover all of these lovely things with water. I know I said a cup, but really, just cover the contents so they are all submerged. Microwave for 5 minutes. Pour all of this (water included) into the turkey-- basically, instead of stuffing.

Put the turkey in the oven for 45 minutes (do this no matter the size of the turkey). After 45 minutes, put a thermometer in the turkey leg (make sure you don't touch the bone), and check the temperature. This will give you an idea how much time to leave the turkey in the oven. The end-game temperature is 160.

Lower the temperature to 350 degrees F. Expect to leave the turkey in the oven for about 2 hours. Make sure that the juices run clear and that the finished temperature is 160 degrees F as mentioned earlier. Put a tin foil tent over the turkey for 15 minutes to ensure that everything settles and cures properly. Enjoy!

On that note, we're going to watch A Christmas Story while turkey finishes cooking. Josh just said, "It smells like Christmas!" and you know something, it really does.