I cooked my first turkey!

Is it normal for a 24 year old to not know how to cook a turkey?
I didn't even know where to begin.

I asked for tips, looked on Pinterest, and googled it. Then I texted my dad a bunch while I was preparing the turkey. I had no idea so much went into it.

First I had to take the stuff out of the inside of the turkey. There was a bag of gravy and bag of giblets in mine. Then I had to wash the outside and inside of the turkey and put it on a roasting pan.

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees.

Leave the turkey sitting out for half an hour and rub salt and pepper on the outside of the turkey.

The next step that I read about during my research was to put two cups of water or chicken broth in the bottom of the roasting pan and then put the turkey in the oven.

When you put the turkey in the oven, lower the heat to 350 degrees.

Baste the turkey every 45 minutes.

So, super simple, right? Except for the part where the turkey is heavy as he** and you have to lift that bad boy out of the oven every 45 minutes because the oven needs to stay shut (you're not supposed to let the heat out). Thennnn... lift it again to put it back in the oven.

The very last time you baste the turkey, baste it with melted butter instead of the liquid from the bottom of the pan.

That was about it!

Oh, and let the turkey sit for 30 minutes after it's finished cooking before you carve it.

I also seasoned my turkey with rosemary, thyme, and creole seasoning before I put it in the oven.

It was seriously so delicious. Nice and juicy, too! Chris said it was the best turkey he's ever had.

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. 
2. Pull the packaging out of the inside of the turkey.
3. Rinse the turkey in water, inside and out.
4. Place turkey in roasting pan.
5. Rub salt and pepper on the turkey.
6. Season the turkey with whatever seasonings you like. (I used thyme, rosemary, and creole seasoning).
7. Put two cups of water in the bottom of the roasting pan.
8. Place roasting pan in the oven and turn the temperature down to 350 degrees.
9. Baste the turkey every 45 minutes.
10. Use butter to baste the turkey for the very last time. 

I had an 18 pound turkey and cooked it for about 4 and a half hours. 

Let me know how your turkeys turn out!! 

"Buckeyes"

For the past 16 or 17 years the ladies in my family have made peanut butter buckeyes. We make a TON of them (enough for six families plus extras for sharing), so we make an entire day out of it and spend the entire day together laughing, talking, drinking wine & coffee, playing games when we have a down moment, and just having a good time.

It has always been one of my favorite days!! My sister-in-law moved here from Arizona this past year (YAY!) and was able to join the tradition. She is allergic to peanut butter though so we chose to change things up a bit. We love to pass these treats out to friends and family at the holidays and we love to sit them out when people visit so we still wanted to keep the treat sweet and easy to store so that it lasts through the holidays (freeze them!).

My sister hosted our get together and chose to do fudge. We made white chocolate peppermint, milk chocolate mint, peanut butter, milk chocolate with almonds, and just regular milk chocolate. They turned out so yummy. and were so much easier and quicker to make than the buckeyes are. We had even more time to sit and chat with each other (and drink more wine!!) and since we already switched our tradition up, we switched it up a bit more and let my nephew join in! He's going to be 16 next week so it was a big deal (to me!) that he wanted to hang out with us!

I love that we have a new tradition but I will still always call our get together "Buckeyes"! LOL

Fudge Recipe

1 1/2 sticks butter 3 cups of white sugar 2/3 cups Evaporated Milk (NOT sweetened condensed) Stir frequently over medium heat til rolling boil. Set timer for 5 minutes, continue cooking over med heat stirring CONSTANTLY!! Remove from heat Add one small jar of marshmallow creme, 1 tsp of vanilla extract and one 12 oz bag of any flavor chips until smooth. Pour in foil lined and greased 9x13 pan. If you make the peppermint, use white chocolate chips, add 1 tsp of peppermint extract as well as vanilla when you remove from heat.

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You can easily double this recipe and split it up between two 9x13 pans.