WKRP in Cincinnati: "Turkeys Away!"

If you never watched WKRP in Cincinnati, this is the first episode you should watch. And if you did? Watch it again! It's a Thanksgiving tradition! Have a great Thanksgiving everybody.

 

Turkey in an Electric Roaster. . .How Hard Could it Be?

Yep, this is the one, from HamiltonBeach.com

This past Thanksgiving, I was at home in Ohio and assisted (kinda) my mother with the preparation. Mom has a manse, but her kitchen oddly only has one oven. But she solved the riddle of how to do a complete Thanksgiving dinner with just the one: an electric roaster. I watched as Mom took her thawed turkey out of the fridge, dropped it into a floured plastic oven bag, put a big pat of butter on Tom, popped him into the roaster and shut the lid. Three hours later, voila! Perfect, moist turkey!

I was inspired to buy one of those roasters for The Other Half this Christmas. Got it at a steep discount, no tax and no shipping from Amazon. Sweet! More than once, we'd wished we had a second oven. And more than once we didn't want to use the oven, because we didn't want to heat up the house. So an electric roaster was a perfect gift. I had to explain why it was a perfect gift when it was unwrapped, but it was well received (even by the cat).

What could go wrong?

Three days ago, I put one of our bargain frozen turkeys in the fridge to thaw, with the intent of trying the roaster today. Unfortunately, the bird was still semi-frozen this afternoon, but we fixed that with a brine bath. No problem! So, we floured the bag, preheated the roaster, put the bird in with a butter pat and lowered the rack into the roaster. . .and the bag grazed both sides of the pan and melted. Quick! Back out and onto the counter. No problem, we'll just scrub off the plastic, and figure something out.

I'd pondered this issue when I saw "don't use plastic oven bags" in the instructions, but Mom assured me it was fine. I'd pondered it again when I saw in the bag instructions that you can't let the bag touch the sides, bottom, lid or rack (what the hell else it could touch, who knows), but if you can't trust your Mom, who can you trust? Besides, it's an oven bag, and not a cheapie, but one from Reynolds. Touching the sides was 100% unavoidable given the 20-pound bird's size (the oven allegedly will hold a 24-pounder). Didn't matter. 325 degrees and the bastard melted on. And it wasn't scrubbing off either, no sir. I even tried burning it off with a butane lighter. Nothing. No dice.

Hmmm. Says "oven" and "turkey" right on the box.
I honestly have no idea how other people
manage to do this.

Ultimately, we decided to take the roaster onto the patio, plug it in, and run it on high--empty--for half an hour. We removed the (ruined) plastic bag, coated the bird with olive oil and pepper, put it on the rack, popped it into the roaster--still on the patio--at full temperature for half an hour. I'd seen that part in one of the online suggestions. Then, I dropped the temperature back to 325 for the rest of its time. As I type this, it is still out there with about half an hour to go.

The cat takes the roaster for a spin.

Will it smell or taste of roasted plastic? I guess it might, but I hope not. Will the roasting pan have a permanent splotch of plastic on two sides? I'm guessing it will at least leave a mark. I honestly wonder what good an oven bag is if it melts instantly. Do people put Turkeys in a glass dish in the roaster or something? I honestly don't get it. But my easy breezy solution turned out to be anything but. After I bring the sucker in, and assuming that goes without surprises or injury, I will update this post. Cross your fingers for me.

Not bad, right?

UPDATE: I brought the roaster in, and despite a sore back and a generally klutzy nature (not to mention hearing the fat inside sizzle as it jostled), I got the roaster into the kitchen and onto the counter without incident. Turkey Lurkey's thermometer popped, and he's a nice golden brown. He's kind of all loosey goosey too, but smells delicious. It's difficult to see (The Other Half is asleep, and I can't really turn up the lights), but the plastic may have steamed off, and down into the fat. I hope so. Of course, then it's probably permeated the whole bird, and I'll get cancer and die. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, it looks lovely.

UPDATE II:  The turkey was moist and delicious, no issues with a plasticky taste or anything. And it turns out that the plastic did mostly disappear on one side, but not on the other (where there had been more contact). In addition to open flame, I've tried scrubbing with a sponge, a metal scrubby, a plastic spatula, a metal spatula, I tried freezing it, and I tried broiling it. Nothing. My next try may be to either put it on the barbeque grill, or put it in the oven and set it on "clean." Either thing could possibly ruin the pan, but I'm that desperate! And Googling was no help either. If you happened to find this post and know how to get a cooking bag's melted corpse off of a roasting pan, please let me know!

UPDATE III: I took the racks out of our gas range, put the roasting pan insert into the oven, closed the door and set it to "clean." Problem solved.

Weekend Update: Turkey Coma

I'm presently having one of the lightest number of blog posts runs in a while. I guess I'm just not feeling it. Thanksgiving time is one of the worst times for finding interesting things to blog about, but to be honest, I'm not looking very hard. I'll likely be back later in the day, and for sure on Sunday. But for now? Still shaking off the sleepies from my turkey coma. Have a great day, everybody.

The Sarah Palin Turkey Slaughter, Part III

And to cap off the Sarah Palin bashing, this great cartoon. . .



Source: Kenneth in the (212)

The Sarah Palin Turkey Slaughter, Part II

The host of Countdown with Keith Olbermann was on vacation during the infamous Sarah Palin turkey slaughter interview last week. So, Olbermann elected to comment on the--to him unseen--video as it unspooled. He's in a little window like Garrett Morris in the old Saturday Night Live "Weekend Update" skits. Classic.

The Sarah Palin Turkey Slaughter, Part I

Sarah Palin is the gift that keeps on giving. First, the turkey slaughter interview last week lead to these wonderful "chyrons" (the captions at the bottom of the screen) from MSNBC:



Source: AmericaBlog

Sarah Palin Pardons Turkey, um. . .and Then. . .

Image from source, Raw Story

Oh. My. God. I only wish Thanksgiving occurred before the election, because this would have been a whole lot more fun. As it is, it feels a little like twisting the knife. But hey, whatever. Why on earth was she giving an interview right in front of turkeys being slaughtered? What kind of producers/cameramen/news crews do they have in Alaska? Strange, disturbing, and yeah, funny in a morbid way.

[Excerpt]

Palin pardons turkey as bird bleeds out on camera

Now Alaska Governor and failed Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has mimed presidential tradition, but her effort at winged mercy was 'cut' short. As she staged an impromptu press conference after pardoning one lucky bird, a worker at the Triple D Farm and Hatchery in Wasilla sliced a turkey's neck, bled it out and twisted its head off behind the governor, directly in the camera's line of fire. . .

Read more (with video) at: Raw Story

One More Before I Go. . .

Photo from Wikipedia

I'm off to my traditional "home away from home" Las Vegas Thanksgiving dinner. As I've done at least 10 times before, I'll be spending it with--as he's known around here--Lesto's (and Mrs. Lesto's) house. It's always a fabulous spread, and unfailingly delicious.

It will also, traditionally, leave me incapacitated for the remainder of Thursday, on into Friday. Therefore, dear reader, the Greenlee Gazette will probably be hibernating right along with its editor. I'll be back tomorrow. Enjoy your Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! The News Has Been Cancelled

Photo from Wikipedia

No, the news isn't cancelled because of Thanksgiving. But I can almost assure you that tasty nuggets of news will be a lot harder to come by in the next few days. Air America Radio is going into reruns or using guest hosts (loved hearing Sam Seder again today, by the way). The popular pundits on cable news are mostly on vacation, or will be soon. Many bloggers are going on holiday, or using guest bloggers. And she who will not be named is suddenly back in the news.

Of course, "the news has been cancelled" is a pet phrase of Air America Radio's Randi Rhodes. In her parlance, she means that the real news isn't getting out. Another favorite of hers is, "if it wasn't on TV, it didn't happen." Fortunately, that is starting to change with the advent of bloggers, a world I only inhabit a very small corner of. But I'll do my best to bring you any news giblets I can find.

My intention is to put up at least as many posts as usual, maybe spruce up the joint a little, with some new graphics and features. And I'd also like to seek out a few ways to publicize the site a little, beyond the Feedburner. How much of that I actually get around to remains to be seen. Especially after the tryptophan coma.

In any event, Happy Thanksgiving. Don't eat or drink too much!

Blast from the Past: South Park Thanksgiving!

The South Park kids put on a Thanksgiving Pageant: Helen Keller, The Musical! Featuring Timmy and Gobbles the turkey. Funny stuff if you're slightly warped like me. . .

Turkish "Genocide" Resolution Once a GOP Issue

Photo from source, BradBlog.com

I'll be honest, I do not understand why it is necessary for Congress to condemn something that happened in 1915. But the President's "Ottoman Empire" dig today (cribbed from Jon Stewart) at Congress for doing so, strikes me as a bit disingenuous. After all, the "Democrat" Congress, as Bush calls them was not the first Congress to bring it up.

[Excerpt]

Note to Limbaugh, Boehner & Friends: Republicans Pushed Turkish 'Genocide' Resolution in the U.S. House in 2000 and Again in 2005

If The Resolution is a 'Democratic Ploy,' It Sure Was Clever to Have the GOP House Speaker Lead the Way!

ALSO: Recalling FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds's Claim that Hastert Called Off Full House Vote After Possibly Receiving $500k from Turkish Interests, And Additional New Information on Her Gag-Ordered 'States Secrets' Case...

Read more at: BradBlog.com