gobble, gobble...

I know I need to finish the vacation thing - but I had to jump in here and tell a funny story first...
I decided we needed to roast our own turkey this year, on top of what we'll have for Thanksgiving. So far, for the last several years, my brother has preferred to BBQ the turkey - which comes out good, but it's nothing like a regular ole roasted turkey. Hubster and I are more traditional when it comes to stuff like that...and my family is always trying new recipes and all. So we decided to have our own little thanksgiving meal sometime before Thanksgiving.
We purchased a 13 pound turkey, and I had it defrosting in the fridge for a couple of days, and decided yesterday that I needed to get that sucker cooked.
Now, we have one of those Ronco Set it and Forget it rotisseries that has been dubbed "The Raging Inferno". Hubster's parents bought it, but when they used it - it got so hot that they thought their cabinets were going to burst into flames. They only felt safe using it in the garage...and that just became inconvenient, so it sat in a box being unused...until I came along - and hubster and I became the perfect ones to inherit the Raging Inferno.

We've used it quite a few times, and while it does get hot - it's not enough to make me worry...and the food comes out DAMN good. So of course, I decided to rotisserie the turkey!

So yesterday, I get home...grab the turkey out of the fridge...and proceed to take out the INNARDS. That part gives me the heebies, so I did it quickly...throwing the INNARDS into a bowl to throw away later, and I rinse the turkey thoroughly and set it on a huge cutting board to start prepping. Between the time that I moved the turkey from the sink area, to the opposite side of the kitchen, all 3 cats had jumped up and grabbed the bowl of INNARDS...knocked it onto the floor...and one grabbed the liver and ran off...the other grabbed the neck bone and was trying to drag it across the kitchen floor...and the last one was trying to figure out how to bite through that little bag. I couldn't believe how FAST they grabbed all that stuff! I swear sometimes I wonder if they have super powers that I don't know about.
I wrestled it all away from them...cleaned up the floor (EW)...and put it in a bag for the trash while they sat looking at me all forlorn. I did let Hubster give them the liver later...liver later...hmm, say THAT 3 times fast.

ANYWAY, so I've got the turkey on a big board...I massaged it with garlic and salt, (the cookbook said MASSAGE, so I did...no happy ending though) crammed it full of onion and more garlic...pinned both ends closed...which is a very strange thing to consider...I pinned the NECK HOLE and BUTT HOLE closed. Yeah, anyone feel like eating turkey NOW?
Anyway, I put the turkey on the spike thing for the rotisserie, and realized that the legs and wings were going to be flailing about, and we can't have flailing wings. So I pinned them down as best I could...and put it in the rotisserie. Well, first time around, the pins fell out and the wings flailed and sizzled against the heating rods in the back. I stopped the rotisserie, and took the turkey out. I had used all the string to tie the legs together...so I was out of string...but knew that I needed to tie it all up somehow. So I went searching, and found the next best thing...KITE STRING. hehehe
I'm sure that if anyone was watching they would have cracked up at the contortions I was bending into while trying to tie up a slippery turkey with kite string ALL BY MYSELF. (and yes, I hummed that song while doing so "all byyyy myyyyyyyseeeeeeeeelllllf")
I had that sucker bound and gagged by the time I was finished...it was like a turkey straightjacket by the time I was done.
Which is funny because on the side of the machine, it says it can do a 15 pound turkey, an ours was only 13 pounds. I guess I got the wrong BODY STYLE of turkey? hahaha
So into the rotisserie it went, for about an hour...until I started hearing a sizzling noise and seeing puffs of smoke from the top. I noticed that one of the wing bones was catching on the heating rods. I messed with it a bit, but I couldn't get it to not hit the rods...my turkey was too fat. It was really HOT, and I even tried cutting the bone off completely - but to no avail. I ended up using two forks to pry the wing under another string hoping to bind it tighter against the turkey so it wouldn't hit.
I must be a genius because that actually worked...although it kept slipping out from the string, and I had to babysit it (set and forget it, my ASS) for most of the time it took to cook. The main problem with that is that I realized when I was stopping the rotation, it would seriously COOK THE CRAP out of the opposite side of the turkey, while I was futzing with the stupid wing.
I told Hubster that the turkey would either be really good, or it would spontaneously combust in the Raging Inferno and we'd be eating Taco Bell.

All in all, after the HOUR it took to destring and depin the damn thing....it turned out FANTASTIC...and was worth all the trouble. The meat practically fell off the bone...and was juicy and taste...I made sweet potatoes with brown sugar and marshmallows, and stuffing. Yum-may!

Course, it was 9pm by the time we ate dinner, but oh well :)