Grandma Candee's Thanksgiving Roasted Turkey

 Here is my turkey recipe.  It is an art to make a good tender turkey. Pick a frozen Tom Turkey.  I prefer the not butterball one.  Hen's are generally too fat and end up with too much juice which sometimes makes the turkey too greasy./ Thaw the turkey according to the directions on the turkey wrapper. It takes a while./ When it is thawed be sure you remove the neck, giblet, liver, and heart that are sometimes in a bag in the neck cavity. These need to be rinsed off and put into a big pot on the stove to slow cook on top of the stove for gravy-making later.  Add water and or chicken broth, a stalk of celery or two, and onion into the pot.  Bring to a boil and then let it simmer until all the pieces are tender.  Don't let it boil dry.  Keep adding liquid to it...now back to the raw turkey./ Spread the turkey legs so you can clean the cavity./ Clean the kitchen sink carefully so no germs exist to transfer to the turkey while you clean it./ Place the turkey onto a bag-lined sink to clean it (edit by Candee later says turkey roasting bag).  Take Kosher salt and cover the turkey inside and out with the kosher salt. Carefully pull the skin away from the turkey breast with your hand by placing your hand flat in between the skin and breast and pour kosher salt in between the breast and skin.  Clean the inside of the turkey cavity with your hands and kosher salt./ Now hold the turkey by the legs and rinse all the salt away from the bird.  Be sure you get all the kosher salt off so the turkey doesn't taste too salty. This salt step is called brining the bird.  Now transfer the clean bird to a work area away from the sink.  (re-rinse the sink with disinfectant soap and throw away the bag that you lined the sink with while brining it so no other food comes into contact with where you cleaned the turkey.)  If you want to put dressing (edit later by Candee....use your favorite dressing recipe to make the dressing [don't cook it]  prior to stuffing the turkey) in the turkey do it now and close the legs together.  Otherwise, skip the dressing step.  Take real butter and put hunks of it and put it in between the breast skin and breast meat.  Get a roasting bag (very important) and put the bag into a large roasting pan, that already has a cup of water in the bottom.  Put the turkey BREAST SIDE DOWN inside the roasting bag.  Close the bag.  Follow the roasting directions. When it is done, puncture the bag and let all the juice from the roasted bird stay in the roasting pan.  Lift the bagged turkey to where you will carve it.  Don't leave it in the juice or it gets too greasy.  Some cooks take a heavy clean towel and wrap it around the bagged bird while it waits to be carved.  Be sure the towel doesn't smell like detergent or fabric softener or your bird will taste that way too.  Let someone else carve it.  You are going to make gravy... Turkey gravy.  You will need chicken broth, probably two containers of it (32 oz. boxes). Wondra flour (shaker box).  a 1/2 of a cup of corn starch that has been dissolved into two cups of COLD water and whisked with a whisk (or immersion blender). Have all of this ready.  Also, remember the boiled and cooked giblets that you have cooked on top of the stove?.  While the turkey was cooking whenever the giblets were all cooked they should have been allowed to cool and the giblets chopped into tiny pieces, the celery and onion pieces removed, and chopped giblets put back into the broth.  Into this cooled mixture whisk the 1/2 cup of corn starch that has been dissolved into the roasting pan and put into a container that you could pour from like the 4-cup glass measuring container or a glass pitcher or some such. Turn the frying pan on and begin to whisk it together as it thickens.  Add small amounts of chicken broth and keep Whisking as it thickens.  Turn the heat down and keep whisking as it thickens.  Add chicken broth or turkey juice.  If it gets too thin and you need to thicken add the Wondra flour by sprinkling (shaking) a small amount at a time but keep whisking so it doesn't get lumpy.  Add as much of the broth to get a nice gravy.  Never stop whisking until you shut it off.  Then reheat it right before serving.  Make a whole pan full as there is never enough gravy.  (WOW THIS WAS HARD TO PUT ALL OF THIS DOWN. ONLY FOR GRANDKIDS WOULD I MAKE MYSELF DO THIS... ugh!!!)

Original Durkee Green Bean Casserole

 

Ingredients

This uses cream of mushroom soup, but I usually use cream of chicken as I am not a fan of mushrooms.

I also prefer to use frozen green beans, but my family prefers canned green beans.  Works with either.

Amount	Measure	Ingredient	Features
16	ounces	green beans cut, drained
¾	cup	milk
1	can	cream of mushroom soup
⅛	teaspoon	black pepper	*
2.8	ounces	french fried onions Directions Preheat oven to 350℉ (180℃). In medium bowl, combine beans, milk, soup, pepper and ½ can onions. Pour into 1½ quart casserole. Bake, uncovered, at 350℉ (180℃) F for 30 minutes or until heated through. Top with remaining onions; bake uncovered 5 minutes or until onions are golden brown.