Turkey and Rudolph

I have to show this to my fellow wives/moms/chefs out there. I'll try to work Ellie into it to justify making this post about food!

Last year on Thanksgiving, friends brought food to our house!  We were home bound and the doorbell kept ringing with food - including a turkey!!!  This year I thought I'd be able to make my own turkey but I try not to take too much on if I can help it.  So I decided to try something I'd read about once.  Last weekend, I went ahead and cooked the turkey all day Sunday. I used the regular spices, some chicken broth, lemon peel (makes it so good!) and threw it all in a roasting bag. I let the turkey cool, took it apart, and put white meat in one plastic container and dark in the other and popped it in the freezer, all wrapped up in foil.  

We spent Thanksgiving day with family, so on Friday we had a small little turkey dinner just for us.  So I excavated the two chunks of ice out of the freezer (I felt like a paleontologist digging in Iceland looking for bones!) and plopped them in a roasting pan.  Within one hour it went from this:

to this!!!!!  And let me tell you - it was the juiciest turkey we've ever had!!!  It marinated like that for a couple hours on 180 degrees in the oven.  When it was time to eat it was amazing and sooooo moist!  I think I'll do it this way from now on!!!  Thank you Ellie for making me look for ways to simplify life!

 And here is little Ellie being pinned down (in good fun) wearing a blinking Rudolph nose!

 She thought it was hilarious to keep pulling it off :).

Y'all have a wonderful Sunday!  We'll be celebrating 12 years of marriage today - Jeff and I are by far not perfect people...but we are certainly perfect for each other :).