Day One Hundred Sixty

Practice turkey day.  Because my son has joined the Army and his tour of duty begins on November 14th, he'll be on an Army base for Thanksgiving this year.  So we're celebrating it early.  His sister is coming home from college and all four of the kids will be here for an early feast next weekend.  I've decided I want to pit roast a bird this year.  Since it is a firm policy of mine to never practice a new recipe or method of cooking for a big event ( a lesson my oldest sister taught me one night with a bunch of disgusting baby octopi she grossed us out with, foolishly thinking she could 'wing it'), we're doing a practice bird now.  It was fun to watch my son's face yesterday when I told him I'd need his help today to bury a turkey.  I keep chickens - have ten beauties, but no turkeys so this request confused him as he wondered whose turkey died and why he had to bury it.  Now, when you have a mother like me you're used to all kinds of strange things going on; adventures in sustainability are just a touch out of the mainstream and they're used to it.  Once he realized it was so I could make him delicious food he was totally on board of course.  So today he dug a 3'x3'x3' pit which we lined with rocks and built a fire over.  We got a big fire going and let it burn down to a bed of great coals.


I got my instructions from my sister who witnessed this and said the turkey was delicious.  I took a frozen 14 pound turkey and seasoned it with salt, pepper, poultry seasoning and butter and placed it on heavy duty aluminum foil, tucking about 15 cloves of garlic and some bay leaves in for good measure.  Then you wrap it up with a couple thicknesses of the foil.  I had a couple racks of beef ribs in the freezer and decided to throw them in for good measure.  I seasoned them with rock salt, rosemary and some great Turkish spice blend I have from Penzey's that is excellent on roasted meats.  I wrapped up the ribs in a couple thicknesses of foil and we headed out to the pit of coals.  My youngest son and I made a sling out of chicken wire to make it easier to lift the meat out of the pit when it is done.  We raked the coals to one side and lowered the chicken wire contraption with the foil bundles in it down onto the very hot rocks.  Next step was to rake the coals all over and around the meat, getting them as close as possible.  Then we placed a wet bath towel over the top and filled in the pit with the soil we had removed and tamped it down by walking on it.


Tomorrow we'll dig it up and see what we've got!  What fun it was from the building of the fire to the preparations and now the anticipation.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Ava looks like she knows I'm cooking meat in this pit!

Bed of coals heating up the bed of rocks.

Tamping down the buried treasure!

Tomorrow we'll dig it up and see what we've got!  What fun it was, from the building of the fire to the preparations and now the anticipation.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Today's five items that leave the premises:

1.  Deep Frying Pot for turkeys - don't like the peanut oil mess and won't do this ever again
2.  Apple peeler - odd crank model that doesn't work like it should
3.  Faucet adapter that is supposed to shine a blue light when the water is on
4.  A second faucet adapter
5.  Wind chimes that are bamboo - not very pretty and don't sound great either

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