I found Christina Ferrare’s turkey tips and holiday menu segment on Oprah to be extremely informative.
Who would have thought?
I always thought that cooking a turkey was pretty straight forward.
Turns out there is a lot more you can do with it besides stick it in a pan and stuff some bread with sage and onions in it.
THE SHORT AND SKINNY
Here’s a quick run down, you can get the complete Christmas Holiday menu by Christina Ferrare on Oprah’s site.
– cover wing tips with foil, tie them to turkey as well as legs together so they don’t cook before the rest of the turkey.
– cornbread dressing recipe with cream of celery soup -yumm!
– stuff turkey with lemon rinds leftover from the turkey marinade.
– look for coupons right now on food for Christmas.
– mustard soy sauce and lemon juice marinade recipe – marinade the sauce together the night before.
– take gizzard out of turkey.
– rinse well inside and out.
– pat dry.
– pour marinade over turkey.
– hens are moisture than tom 12 – 15 lbs.
– put fresh poultry herbs inside turkey with lemons.
– put second bunch in roast pan.
– stuffing inside bird absorbs moisture from bird.
– use poultry thermometer.
– put it in thickest part of turkey breast.
– cover with foil very tightly.
– roast 350 for 2 hours then start basting process for total cook time of 3 – 4 hours approximately depending on size.
– after 2 hours add chicken stock or hot water on bottom then baste every 15 minutes or 30 minutes – keep covered with foil.
– keep doing it until thermometer reads 180 or until total cooking time is 15 minutes for every pound.
– no bake pumpkin Chiffon pie not as filling as pumpkin. Recipe on site.
GET THE COMPLETE FREE CHRISTMAS DINNER MENU BY AT OPRAH’S WEBSITE
Complete menu with recipes and grocery and check list on Oprah
MORE TURKEY DINNER RECIPES
I made my Big Christmas List one morning when I couldn’t sleep because I was stressing over what I had to do before the big day.
I thought that you might get some use out of it too, so I made it a printable and added a few more Christmas resources that I had handy for you to download.
A few of the additions that I found to especially helpful where Christmas dinner recipe booklets.
Lots of ideas.
No strings.
Sign up for your free Big Christmas List and get your free Christmas dinner recipes including Christmas candies and dessert ideas.
I truly hope that you find it to be of use this Christmas.
I tried Christina’s roasted chicken marinade with the soy sauce, lemon and mustard and her turkey cooking technique last Thanksgiving (2008) and it came out fantastic! I tried the same recipe again this year (2009) and it was a complete disaster. That taking the turkey in and out of the oven every 15-30 minutes to baste it ’til the meat thermometer reached 180 resulted in an over-cooked, rubbery tasting turkey….because everytime we removed the turkey to baste it, the oven temperature went down. What did I do wrong? I don’t remember having any of these \issues\ the first time I followed the recipe. Help, any suggestions to help me solve this mystery?