Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays: lots of family time, great food, and no stress of decorating or shopping for gifts. Last year our family had a Turkey Cookoff. Team Mr. E went against Team L. We even had T-shirts. Mr. E smoked his outdoors, and L followed a recipe she heard on Kidd Kraddick in the morning. A tie was declared, but actually... L & K won. The winning recipe is a snap to make and delicious!! So if you're hunting the perfect turkey recipe for this year, I'll vouch for this one.

Kidd Kraddick Turkey
Ingredients: Turkey (any size), onion, carrot, celery, garlic clove, and olive oil. You will need a brown paper bag without ink and a stapler.
First, take everything out of the inside of the turkey. There will be a giblet bag and some other stuff. You don't want to leave that in there.
Next, add vegetables to the inside of the turkey. This is easy because the veggies are just for flavor...you're going to throw them away later.
You don't even have to peel anything. Take an onion and cut it into quarters. Roughly chop a nice long carrot. Do the same to a couple of stalks of celery. Add several cloves of garlic that you mash between a broad kitchen knife and the counter. Throw it all inside the turkey.
Then rub the turkey all over with olive oil. . . not butter because butter usually has salt in it and that will dry out the turkey. Salt is the enemy of a moist turkey! Make sure the whole bird is covered!
Put the turkey in a roasting pan and cover it with a large brown paper bag.
Staple shut. If you have a huge turkey, use two bags, sliding one end of the turkey into one bag and the other end of the turkey into the second bag. It won't stick to the bird because of the olive oil. Sprinkle the bag all over with water. Place into pre-heated 375 F oven, ON THE MIDDLE RACK.
The bag won't burn because paper burns at 451 and we're at 375 degrees. The advantage of the brown paper bag over the Reynold's cooking bag is that the paper breathes so the turkey roasts. In the Reynolds bag the turkey steams, giving it a different taste. Also the brown paper bag retains the same advantage of the plastic cooking bag...no splatters all over the oven.
Roast for 13-15 minutes per pound. When you think it's ready, shove a meat thermometer through the bag and into the turkey and give it a minute to register. Make sure it doesn't touch the bone. The thermometer should register between 163-170 degrees.
Remove from oven, cut away the bag and remove from basting pan.