Turkey Trouble

I've never claimed to be a master chef. I can make a handful of dishes and desserts really well and that's about it. I can host a good party, decorate with mild talent and keep a clean home. But when it comes to major meals like Thanksgiving or Easter, meals with a lot of pressure involved, I get very stressed and things tend to go wrong. 

This year I didn't host Thanksgiving. That fell on the shoulders of my friend and coworker Tiffany. However due to some unforeseen circumstances I ended up having to cook one of two turkeys for a very large pot-luck Thanksgiving. Having cooked a turkey once before I felt that I had the required set of skills to be able to do it once again with success. Well let me tell you now that is not true. Literally everything that could go wrong with my food contributions did. 

Before....

I'm pretty sure I touched a heart. 

First, I managed to put the turkey in the pan upside down. When I went to take it out, the turkey had literally imploded and was but an empty shell. I PANICKED, called my mother who proceeded to laugh at my dilemma and suggest that maybe my turkey was born without breasts. Not the case. I rushed the egg shell of a beast to Marsha and Jeremy's where Jeremy expertly salvaged more meat than expected from the bird while Marsha talked me down off a cliff. 

After. 

Shall I add that in the half hour that passed between checks on the bird the time I took it out and discovered the unnatural phenomenon that was my empty bird, the entire pan of drippings had burned to a crisp. Bye bye turkey gravy. Using what I could to start a base for something that faintly resembled gravy, I went for my boiled veggie water. However there were still veggies in it so what did I do? I strained them of course and absent mindedly dumped all the water down the drain. As I was doing this I just smiled to myself in my stupidity as it was too late to stop. Lucky for me I had 9 gravy packets in my cupboard and proceeded to use all of them. Clubhouse for the win!

But wait, there's more! My gravy, behaving like a rotten step child, began to get very lumpy so I dumped it in the food processor to smooth it out. That was fine! That worked! It looked beautiful! When I went to pour it back into the pan, I forgot that the food processor has a hole in the middle for the blade to stick out of and proceeded to empty precious gravy all over my kitchen counter (and down the crack between the stove and the counter - barf).

After that really nothing could dampen my spirits further and I fell into a deep pit of depression. At this point I was also cooking a roast as backup meat since the 2nd turkey being cooked had burned on top and we weren't sure what people might be eating on this fine holiday. My house now smelled of cooked beef and bird and I was close to puking. 

Anyways, it made out fine in the end. There was plenty of turkey and roast to go around, so far no one has food poisoning and I will never cook a turkey again! Happy Thanksgiving!!

Thanks Marsha ;)