Turkey (Our Style)

     How to cook a turkey, OUR WAY... as if that is very different.  To some it is because we use a roaster instead of baking it in the oven, frying it or smoking it.  It is almost like putting it in a sauna for a water bath.  Anyway, we use the roaster for this task and for making our dressing in.

So, put your turkey in the sauna, on the rack so that you can lift it out later. 

I use fresh herbs to the extent possible.  Lots and lots of sage.  I also use rubbed sage and ground sage.  We like sage.  I also put just basic salt and pepper on the outside and maybe some of all of it in the open cavity as well. 

Cook at 350 degrees until the thermometer is at 180 degrees in the breast.  We then let it cool a little bit, lift the turkey out of the broth (which will be used for dressing and dumplings) and debone it before we take it to the table. 

There were always more kids around than turkey legs so deboning it kept the arguments down over that particular piece.  It also makes the clean up after that very filling meal much easier as we just have to put the left overs in to ziplock bags to either put in the refrigerator for next day use or in the freezer for much later use.