25. I Cooked a Turkey Dinner!

This goal is one that is an easy one in that it has been accessible to do for quite awhile. When I asked for suggestions awhile ago Gretchen suggested a turkey dinner and I thought it sounded like a neat idea. The intent of my list of goals is to motivate me to do things that should be done as well as to try new things that I haven't yet done. This fits into the latter section. It is nice to be able to say that I have done this. Now I have the confidence that if ever I needed to cook dinner for Thanksgiving I could do it with a little bit of confidence. Here are a few pictures of the day's events:

Here's the start. Yep, it is an 18+ lb. turkey for a family of 4. This also didn't cost us $18.27, I had a $10 off coupon for a turkey which made it be $8.27. Not too bad. This dinner is going to keep giving back for quite awhile with all that was remaining when we were finished.


I separated the skin from the meat in order to season the meat. It was pretty gross at first, but it turned out to be fun.
Who knew that the elasticity of the skin would be so high?
Getting ready to be put into the oven.
The finished product. I was glad that we only had four of us eating. It was so hot! I took out the electric knife and got a good slice of the breast off and was able to get some pretty good pieces out of it. I'm definitely no expert in cutting!
Here are the girls excited to begin dinner. I made some mashed potatoes to go along with it and Melissa cooked up some Broccoli. Good dinner all around!
Here's what we had left over when we were all done. I shredded it and Melissa put it into 2 cup bags for future use. Melissa already has two meals planned for this week to put this to use. It's always nice to have prepared meat on hand when preparing dinners for the week.This goal is done! I can now confidently say that I can and have cooked a turkey dinner. It's a nice thing to have done. Thanks Gretchen for the suggestion.