Turning Thanksgiving into a Science Experiment

Leave it to the Cassavaugh home to turn Thanksgiving into a science experiment.  Nick loves Thanksgiving and thoroughly enjoys being in charge making the feast.  Granted I help a little by making rolls the night before.  I also try to let go of the stuffing but usually insert myself there (which he doesn't mind)  enough to relive the one tradition I enjoyed most about Thanksgiving as a kid.  Some years we have gone to the full extent my mom always does of breaking up all the odds and ends of bread she would keep over the year.  The one smell of Thanksgiving I enjoy the most is NOT the turkey but the celery and onions sautéing in butter with all the right seasonings.  I could probably give up all else in a traditional Thanksgiving meal, except the stuffing. 

Oven Bag Turkey

Fry-less Fryer Turkey

Back to the science experiment.  This year Nick informed me he'd like to cook two turkeys.  I'm thinking 4 people, 2 turkeys (I don't even get all that excited about the meat).  But his idea sounded fun. His idea was to cook one the way he traditionally does in an oven bag.  The other was to cook one in his fry-less fryer I gave him last year for Christmas.  First one must know that we generally do not buy bigger gifts for each other.  In fact we are content to have one small item that we really want, like my favorite wall calendar.  But last year I got wind that Nick had purchased me something a bit more pricy (a Kindle Fire), of which I have absolutely loved and put to great use!  I felt the need to come up with something equally as cool for him.  Well I was a little off in my thinking as what I got him was the last thing he would have ever thought of.  But he has tried to make good with it.  We have joked for years about frying turkeys, how crazy that sounds and how dangerous.  So when I found the fry-less fryer...Hmm what!? It said it was a fryer and yet really it is more of a broaster, no oil involved!  He has only been able to cook small chunks of meat in it such as a pork loin.  So he thought a turkey would be appropriate.  I concurred.  Which turkey would produce the best meat, the fry-less fryer or the oven in a bag? 

I bought two turkeys at different stores (since there was a limit of 1) with the deep discount of .69/pound.  A 10 pound turkey was pretty affordable to accomplish this task.  Yes for a real sound experiment both turkeys should have been the same exact brand and weight.  

 

Jumping ahead, the results were not earth shattering and concluded that both turkeys had moist white meat and were tasty.  Nick said the skin on the fry-less was crispier and tasty.  Can't pay me enough to eat the skin!  All that work to say "yup both are pretty good".  Both have equal messy cleanup, the part I dislike the most but Nick did the majority of it.  The real conclusion is yes not only do we have a way to cook if we have no power but we also could free up the oven should we ever need to do that some time to allow cooking of other things.  We just need to have propane on hand.  We are PREPARED! 

Now to deal with the lingering smell of turkey bones cooking down for broth...not my favorite smell in the world.