What's Cookin' Sunday

BOOM!  There's the new logo for What's Cookin' Sunday!  How do you like it?  It's not super fancy, but I like it.

Well, this week isn't a big cooking day for me.  Just a turkey.  Well, I'll be cooking a couple things Wednesday morning to take to work with me on Thursday for Thanksgiving.  One will be sugar-free cranberry sauce (just use sweetener instead of sugar...I'll be using Truvia) and the other is a marshmallow yam dish.  I might share that later this week or include it in next Sunday's WCS.

CRANBERRY GLAZED TURKEY

Ingredients:
• 1 (12 lb-ish) fresh whole turkey
• 3/4 cup butter, softened (I used Country Crock Light)
• 3 tbsp fine herbs (sad to say, I'm not sure what this meant so I only added 1 tbsp of Italian seasoning)
• 1 tbsp crushed garlic
• 2 tbsp (+ 1/2 cup) orange marmalade, divided
• 2 tbsp dehydrated onion flakes
• 2 tbsp poultry seasoning
• 2 tsp kosher salt (I used sea salt)
• 1 tsp ground pepper
• 2 oranges, sliced
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 can jellied cranberry sauce

Directions:
• preheat oven to 450°.  remove giblets and neck from turkey and rinse inside and out with cold water.  pat dry with paper towels; set aside.
• in a small bowl, combine softened butter, 1 tbsp fine herbs, crushed garlic, 2 tbsp marmalade and onion flakes.  use a fork to mix together until well combined.
• in a small bowl combine poultry seasoning, 1 tbsp fine herbs, salt and pepper.
• use your hand to carefully loosen the skin around the entire bird.  work half of the butter mixture under the skin and season with the poultry seasoning mixture inside and out.  stuff the inside of the turkey cavity with oranges.  (truss if desired)  insert a pop-up thermometer at an angle about 3 inches down from the neck cavity and 2 inches from the breastbone, in the thickest part of the breast.  place turkey breast side up on a rack in the roasting pan.  place in oven and reduce temperature to 325°.
• combine orange juice, remaining marmalade, jellied cranberries and remaining fine herbs in a small saucepan and simmer until jelly melts.  continue simmering until mixture thickens, about 15 minutes.  keep warm.
• after the turkey has cooked for 2 hours, brush on the glaze mixture.  when the thermometer pops up or until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thigh registers 180°, about 3 hours total.
• remove from oven and let turkey rest at least 15 minutes before carving.

The serving size I used for the nutritional info is 6 ounces.  (also, I minused out about 3.5 lbs to compensate for the bones in the turkey to determine how many 6 ounce servings there would be)

I have to say, I've never lifted the skin off of a turkey before and, while not gross like I thought it would be, it was definitely different...a little weird...kinda fun.  Haha!  And then I got not careful and tore the skin a little.  Oops.  Anyway, I of course messed up the simmering of the glaze and so it never really thickened, so for that final hour in the oven, I just brushed the glaze on the turkey about every 20 minutes.  After I've carved up the turkey, I plan to "marinate" it in the glaze.

This turkey was an attempt to replicate the very first turkey I ever cooked back when I was 20.  I remember it had some sort of cranberry glaze on it.  I know I got the recipe out of one of those grocery store checkout cookbooks.  I long ago lost the cookbook (sad, so sad), so there is no way for me to *actually* replicate that turkey, but I think this will be a close enough effort.

I should also note that a coworker suggested simmering the turkey in chicken broth/stock (I, of course always use the reduced sodium) for 45 minutes.  He said that makes it SUPER juicy!  So, last night, I did just that.  Thank goodness I bought that 12 quart stock pot a few months ago because it definitely came in handy for this project!