Any Turkey Day Mishaps?

[jdb in AZ]

I burned a couple of fingers, but the food turned out fine -- that's more important.

 

[happily single]

Not really a mishap, but I have my 19 yr old convinced we ate a 21 pound chicken for dinner. He’s super picky and since he was about 10 we’ve told him it was chicken. He seemed suspicious this year, but ate it.

 

[tvguy]

I'll get back to you Saturday when we have our Thanksgiving.

 

[princesscinderella]

We didn’t cook but we went to Grand Floridian cafe for lunch and my husband was the only one to order their special turkey meal. The runner bringing it out said sir did you order the kids portion? We chuckled over it with her since he’s a big guy, so she took it back to the kitchen and then returned again with the kid’s plate a minute later saying the kitchen was backed up so he could have the kids one and later brought out the adult portion too. So he got double turkey lunch.

 

[BrianL]

Not really a mishap, but I have my 19 yr old convinced we ate a 21 pound chicken for dinner. He’s super picky and since he was about 10 we’ve told him it was chicken. He seemed suspicious this year, but ate it.

21 pounder? Nice. I always like to buy the largest bird I can find - our's was 20 and change, but my Mom is insane and wanted to do a smoked Turkey too, so she bought a "smaller" one, that was still over 17 pounds. It was good, though I prefer the traditional style. I bought home a ton of leftovers!

 

[nancipants]

Clogged the sink with potato skins. Note to self: throw them in the trash next time.

 

[disneychrista]

Nope. Everything turned out good.

 

[#1hoosierfan]

It wasnt really a mishap, but I was not as happy with how my dumplings turned out.

 

[seshat0120]

It was just going to be my sister and me, but we were still going to do a turkey with all the trimmings...then our oven broke last night. Thanksgiving dinner is in the freezer and we ordered delivery for dinner today.

 

[luvthatduke]

It was just going to be my sister and me, but we were still going to do a turkey with all the trimmings...then our oven broke last night. Thanksgiving dinner is in the freezer and we ordered delivery for dinner today.

I feel your pain.
This happened on my first Thanksgiving after marriage.
DM, Uncle and Friend plus DH & myself.
Oven worked for the biscuits, turned it off for a few minutes
then turned it back on.
It was ice cold 10 minutes later when I went to the bird in.
Only one supermarket open in our area which I was very thankful for!
We ate turkey, cold cuts & cheese from the deli.
I did discover that traditional stuffing can be made on the stove! Who knew?

Two memorable comments:
DM, "This could only happen to you." (When I called to tell her what happened).
Friend, "This was the best Thanksgiving I've ever been to, it was so much fun!"
God bless our friend

 

[AprilsZoo]

My bird started out a respectable 22 lbs. It should’ve taken close to 5.5 hours to cook, I checked on it at 3 hours, and the skin and meat were all shrunken back, the drumsticks looked like lollipops, with like w.t inches of bare BONE showing and all the meat balled up at the top of the drumstick. And the opening to the back cavity where I had needed to quarter my onion to be able to fit it inside, had ‘expanded’ and would have easily accommodated a softball.

Most surprising of all— it was cooked! Yup in just three hours @ 320 F!! But, of course, it was still sadly, white, because it had been covered with foil.

Well, I hadn’t even assembled my stuffing or green bean casserole yet at that point, because I had timed out when to do each thing, and I was planning to put those things in the oven ~45 mins before we ate. I still needed to get the huge pot of potatoes going, which I had also expected to take about 40-45 mins. My son, who was bringing his awesome homemade rolls, wasn’t coming for an hour yet either.

I panicked a little. Turned off the oven, and began getting the stuffing and casserole ready to go in. Turned the potatoes on, and began getting the gravy going.

So then 20 mins before the stuffing was finished, I turned the oven back on at 365 on Convection to brown the skin, and make sure it was still warm enough. Once it came out of the oven though, I realized it just looked so sad and deformed, I made DH carve it at the counter, and served it sliced on a platter. I probably didn’t need to worry about browning the skin.

It was all yummy, and somehow the turkey wasn’t too dried out— drier than usual, still not bad. But man, that bird was strange.

And, I always, always have at least a gallon sized baggie of meat left over. Sometimes I even send some home with the kids and still have almost a full gallon baggie left. This time I have 3/4 of a QUART-sized baggie, that’s it!! (plus the wings which I sent home with my son because dgd wanted them)…

So I think this turkey was really, *really* fatty— much more so than it seemed when it was raw. I was very disappointed. I’ve never had a bad Butterball before… but this year I feel jipped, for sure. I couldn’t even bring it to the table whole. It looked like some sort of mutant alien bird. bird.

 

[pinkxray]

Ugh. I almost made it through with no mishaps. Last minute before serving I took the stuffing out of the oven and put it on the stove. Didn’t realize I forgot to turn off the back burner that I was reheating the gravy on. So the bottom of the stuffing got a little burnt. Thankfully, I realized it just in time and was able to grab. Quickly removed the 80% on the top and tossed the bottom inch. It was just the 5 of us at home and Dh and I are the only ones eating stuffing so it was fine. Had it been a big family gathering I probably would have made a quick batch of stove top or something. Dh said the stuffing was delicious so I guess it wasn’t too noticeable.

 

[pinkxray]

We didn’t cook but we went to Grand Floridian cafe for lunch and my husband was the only one to order their special turkey meal. The runner bringing it out said sir did you order the kids portion? We chuckled over it with her since he’s a big guy, so she took it back to the kitchen and then returned again with the kid’s plate a minute later saying the kitchen was backed up so he could have the kids one and later brought out the adult portion too. So he got double turkey lunch.

After cleaning and cooking for the last two days with no help from anyone in the house, I told my family to enjoy their last home cooked Thanksgiving meal because from now I’m going to Disney for Thanksgiving. From now on our new family tradition will be Thanksgiving at Wilderness Lodge.

 

[DisneyOma]

Does Hubby coming down with COVID the night before count? We attend a huge gathering (always at least 20 people) each year, and bring one of the two turkeys, bread, and desserts. Well, this year I got to cook the turkey, drive an hour to deliver the food we had already made, leave DD there and drive an hour back to take care of the sick guy. Then a few hours later I did the same in reverse, and luckily got our serving dishes back loaded with leftovers. DD and I test negative right now, but I didn't want to risk being a carrier. DD hasn't been around the sick guy for a week, so she was safe, for now.

 

[Big V]

Clogged the sink with potato skins. Note to self: throw them in the trash next time.

Been there, done that!

 

[princesscinderella]

My bird started out a respectable 22 lbs. It should’ve taken close to 5.5 hours to cook, I checked on it at 3 hours, and the skin and meat were all shrunken back, the drumsticks looked like lollipops, with like w.t inches of bare BONE showing and all the meat balled up at the top of the drumstick.

Most surprising of all— it was cooked! Yup in just three hours @ 320 F!! But, of course, it was still sadly, white, because it had been covered with foil.

Well, I hadn’t even assembled my stuffing or green bean casserole yet at that point, because I had timed out when to do each thing, and I was planning to put those things in

So I think this turkey was really, *really* fatty— much more so than it seemed when it was raw. I was very disappointed. I’ve never had a bad Butterball before… but this year I feel jipped, for sure. I couldn’t even bring it to the table whole. It looked like some sort of mutant alien bird. bird.

It sounds like your turkey was pumped full of a saline solution to make it heavier and juicer and it all leaked out very quickly and the salt made it cook faster.

 

[princesscinderella]

After cleaning and cooking for the last two days with no help from anyone in the house, I told my family to enjoy their last home cooked Thanksgiving meal because from now I’m going to Disney for Thanksgiving. From now on our new family tradition will be Thanksgiving at Wilderness Lodge.

It’s a great tradition to start. This was our first time spending it at WDW. We did lunch at GF and then we did an evening volunteer shift at Give Kids the World Village which is decorated everywhere with Christmas lights and is so magical. I got the last reservation at the end of the night at Whispering Canyon at 9:55 which we barely made it back to after our 9pm shifts ended at GKTW. The food was delicious as always and we were the last ones left eating at the end of the night. We had so much fun chatting with the wait staff. A few of them had worked all day since 8am so they were a bit slap happy at that point. Here’s some pictures of the main square at GKTW and our feast at Whispering Canyon, I have a gluten allergy so this one is slightly different.

 

[Kitty 34]

Our dinner turned out very well. We cooked a 22-pounder Meijer turkey. We don't do anything to the bird except cook it in a turkey bag. It was exceptionally good this year, tho. I did add an extra bouillon cube to the gravy which made it very tasty.

 

[mickey916]

Only one mishap but it ended up turning out great. I had forgotten to buy evaporated milk for my scalloped corn. I found a can in my pantry "best by 11/2019"...decided not to risk it. Mom said she had some so I sent my DH to pick it up. Her can was "best by 11/2022". Tried to pour it into the measuring cup and it was solid chunks (ugh). So, went on to plan C and subbed some heavy cream I had just purchased. My family said the scalloped corn tasted better than ever...happy accident!

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

The only thing we had was DH dropped a glass ornament and it shattered everywhere.