I never should have been trusted with the turkey. I was defrosting it in the sink and fell asleep early and the cold water it was in all drained out of the sink and now I’m worried everyone is going to get sick if I cook the damn thing tomorrow and when I googled, “is a turkey safe to eat if it was left in the sink thawing all night and the water seeped out of the sink”, google was no help at all. So I’m waiting until A Decent Hour so I can call my mother and she can talk me down from this I’m Cooking My First Thanksgiving Freak Out and hopefully tell me it’ll all be OK and the stupid bird won’t make us sick if I cook it long and hot tomorrow because it was frozen solid as a brick and needed time to thaw anyway. Sh*t. I didn’t mean to mess up already. Good morning, by the way…*I’m still cussin’ in my head*
Written at 5:00 a.m. on November 23, 2011, the Day Before Thanksgiving. Thankfully, once I talked to my mom and my dad they BOTH assured me, in the calmest of voices, that Everything Will Be OK. Whew! I needed that. I've since found the Butterball website, so now I have internet, as well as phone support, for tomorrow's cooking festivities.
prepared with love
http://my.opera.com/jbaird/blog/2011/11/23/prepared-with-love
© 2011 Janean Baird, Turquoise Tangles
Turquoise Tangles 
der Wandersmann,The best part was when my mother in law sent me a text saying it was going to be fine after she read this blog post. And it was. The turkey was still icy on the inside when I cleaned out the cavities the night before I cooked that big bird. I made turkey burgers one night, adding oatmeal and seasoning to ground turkey before cookin' the patties. I rather liked them. The rest of my family made it clear they prefer beef burgers. Though I do use ground turkey for tacos and my oldest son LOVE Turkey Taco nights, which are ironically usually on Tuesday. Thank you for the recipe. Another friend sent me a turkey meat loaf recipe. She had a secret ingredient for pizzaz. I can't remember what it is though…good thing it's written down. ~ Janean
LOL … reminds me of the first time I cooked a turkey … I worried until I found the instructions in Let's Cook It Right!. I was just married, and never cooked a turkey, and neither had my wife. I must have cooked a few dozen by now, but they're too damned big for two old folks' appetites. Now I make a ground turkey loaf … like a meatloaf, but with LOTS more oatmeal in it (or else it's like turkey paté … no texture). Mix in a couple of eggs, at least one good-sized onion, diced, a touch of garlic, a little basil, but not much, and a few tbsp. of chili sauce. A little strawberry sugar-free jam doesn't hurt, if you've got some. Slather the top with chili sauce, and bake for an hour, or longer if you've mixed it up one day and stuck it into the fridge for the night.
Turkey can be eaten like a blue-eyed steak. Show it a picture of an oven, and it's good to go.I don't think there's much difference between no-air time, or 12 hours. Start worrying at 4 days.
Originally posted by bentrein:
Thank you for your Turkey Tips, Ben. It was "all good" in the end and worked out A OK. Whew! What a relief. There has been no talk about a Christmas turkey. At least I've done it once and won't be so freaked the next time around…I hope. ~ Janean
I may have told you what I've done to a living turkey a couple of times… Well, turkey fillet is really nice. 🙂 We rarely ate a whole turkey, but turkey meat is great all year long. 😀 Turks are just yummy. Oops, my bad. Typos are a pain. 😛
Yes, Ben, we tweeted about your experience doing in a gobbler around the end of November, Thanksgiving Time, here in America.