We decided to try a new way to cook a turkey in the oven, we cooked side dishes over an open fire outside, cooked a little bit on our grill, some in the microwave and some on the stovetop. So we basically used every cooking method and appliance we possibly could. And our goal was to "keep it simple" this year. Hahaha. It was worth it though and I have the jiggly stomach to prove it.
Below are some pictures of the days activities. If you are squeamish around pictures of raw poultry or high cholesterol food, proceed with caution.
The recipe we used for the turkey was discovered by my Mom and Dad in the Wilmington, NC newspaper. It is a bacon wrapped turkey and it was delicious!
My mom was the brave volunteer to loosen the skin so we could shove bacon in every nook and cranny, even under the skin.
The beautiful masterpiece in all it's glory!
We cooked 3 side dishes over an open fire using dutch ovens and a cast iron skillet: Macaroni and Cheese, Stuffing/Dressing (depending on your originating geographic location in the US) and Southern Fried Corn/Creamed Corn.
The coals on top create the oven effect and brown the top.
The fried corn was done in the skillet by first cooking some bacon.
We removed the bacon and added 1 T flour to the bacon grease and stirred. Then we added in the corn mixture of 1 lb corn, 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup water that had been brought to a boil.
Then we stirred until it thickened up. Actually Jason stirred, JW supervised.
To go with the creamed corn, I made grilled chipotle and corn grits cakes (grits with corn and 1 diced chipotle pepper and salt). I made them in the morning and then chilled them in a muffin pan.
Then I just grilled them on our grill for a few minutes per side.
Here are some pictures of the final products:
The star of the show, thanks to Mom and Dad for finding this recipe and Dad for being in charge of it and getting it to this beautiful finished state. It was delicious!
The mac and cheese. It was OK. I tried a new recipe and it turned out not as creamy as I like and too peppery. It sure looked good though!
The stuffing/dressing recipe I got from thePioneerWoman.com . I made this with diced french bread and homemade corn bread that I set out on my counter to dry for a few days, then added celery, onion, chopped fresh parsley, thyme, basil and chicken broth to make it moist. It was yummy!
The fried/creamed corn. It was really good too.
Here is the corn served over the grilled grits cake. It was good if you like spicy hot food, so some loved it, others didn't. Next time I will skip the chipotle peppers or cut back on them or I might use the chipotle sauce instead of the peppers themselves. I was completely making up this recipe as I went along.
A sample of some of the other items we had: mashed potatoes, coleslaw, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce. Not shown were sweet potato casserole, cranberry orange salad, yeast rolls and homemade gravy. Yeah, we kept it simple. And healthy too.
For desert we had pumpkin pie made by my mother-in-law and the cutest turkey cupcakes that my Mom and the kids painstakingly made.
All in all it was a success. I wonder why I am so exhausted?
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