A Two Hour Turkey and Amazing Stuffing

Last year I offered to make one of the turkeys, stuffing and gravy for our family thanksgiving dinner.  The only problems were: I never made many turkeys in my lifetime, I no longer had my mother to ask advice, and I do not like to get up early yet alone in the middle of the night to stuff and begin baking a turkey.

I began looking through cookbooks and magazines.  In the “America’s Test Kitchen Cooking School Cookbook” I found a recipe for roasting a turkey in two hours.  It turned out amazing and the gravy was the best we ever had.  We liked it so much that I made it a week later for a small group of friends, and again it turned out wonderful.  We had bought a butterball turkey, before deciding on the recipe.  At the time I did not realize butterball turkeys were per-brined so I was also able to skip that step.

I normally would  make my mother’s stuffing recipe inside the bird, but for this recipe to work I would have to bake it outside of the turkey.  I found a recipe in Fine Cooking magazine for a whole grain stuffing that you could prepare up to two days ahead and make outside of the bird.  It has a lot of unusual ingredients in it, but it was the best stuffing we ever had.  It was a blend of savory, sweet and nutty.

Since I could do some of the work ahead of time it took the pressure off of me on Thanksgiving and allowed me to enjoy the day with my family.  It also allowed me to prepare delicious food for them.  After all food is love. 🙂

I thought these recipes might also bless you.

Jane

Classic Holiday Turkey and Gravy

Harvest Stuffing