Biggest thanksgiving turkey disasters

My aunt cooked the turkey with the platic bag of organs inside....yeah we ended up at dennys.

Lol, I have no funny turkey disasters. I do have a picture of one of our turkeys holding its own organs. If I find it I will post it.

My daughter's now ex-boyfriend came over for Thanksgiving dinner several years ago, the first year they were dating, and when it was time to eat, he made a comment along the lines of "oh great, another dried out turkey" to which I told him he would NEVER find even a piece of dry turkey in my roasting pan...

He conceded after he tasted it.

I didn't get fat by not knowing how to cook... LOL

But I have gotten less fat by learning how to cook better!

ETA: my husband has deep fried a few turkeys, and will be doing so again on Sunday. So yummy and moist... and if cooked at the right temperature, less fat than a traditionally roasted turkey

Cooking a Turkey. . . PERIOD!! I'm one of those Vegetarians. :ohwell:

My mother-in-law had a long-standing battle with her oven. It was 40+ years old and electric. It would ruin at least one dish of ever meal she ever made on it. One year, it just would not cook the turkey. A couple hours after it was supposed to be done we settled for picking off the (over)done parts and avoiding the underdone bits.
After she passed away and my father-in-law had a few run-ins with the stove he finally realized why she hated it so much and replaced it.

I've heard stories of brutal burn injuries from attempted turkey deep frying

I REALLY want to try this. My fiance says not until I have better health insurance.
I'm kind of a klutz. But oh man, oh man do I want to try one.

My dad brought home a deep-fried turkey one year a few days before Thanksgiving. His friend just got one and bought several turkeys to try it out and gave Dad a practice bird. About 5-6 of us stood around the counter and ate the whole thing to the bone. We deep fried them for several years until my dad's family heart trouble started to show up. Now they have an infra-red cooker. Still crispy on the outside and moist inside but slightly less wonderful. The only advantage of the infra-red is that you get some drippings and you can make a good gravy.

Dammit.

With all your talk about food and meals on the feed, I was really hoping you had burned down a house or something.

I was prepared with comments about sticking to chickpeas.



)))

I was in charge of making the gravy a few years ago. After speaking with my father ("oh, you just add the corn starch gradually!") and my partner's mother ("oh, you just add the corn starch gradually!") and reading the instructions ("Add corn starch gradually"), I had the whole "gradually" part down. So I added some, then some more... all gradually, you know. But it wasn't thickening. So I added more. Gradually. Nothing. More. Gradually. Nothing. Eventually, the entire container of corn starch was in the gravy and NOTHING! No thickening whatsoever!

Finally my step-dad came up, stirred the pot and said, "you realise corn starch only thickens the gravy as you heat it, right?"

No. No, I had not realised that.

We wound up sending my brother-in-law to the local KFC to buy huge containers of gravy before anyone else realised what had happened.

This pales in comparison the aunt-no-one-wants-to-see-for-any-holiday showing up, usurping the cooking of the turkey, removing her dentures and placing them on the counter, and then cutting the bird and licking her fingers in between cuts only to to touch the bird again with teethless saliva fingers. *shudder* We avoided eating the turkey that year.