My Thanksgiving Detour & Fried Turkey

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving.  My Thanksgiving took a major detour.  My father passed away unexpectedly last Tuesday night.  My family drove into FL to be with him in the hospital before they took him off of life support.  We will eventually go back for a memorial service after his body is cremated. Unfortunately,  I'm starting to link holidays with deaths in the family now!  My FIL passed away on Halloween in 2014, my MIL passed away on Christmas Eve in 2015, and now my dad on Thanksgiving (almost) this year.  I've heard that bad things happen in three's right?  Hopefully, this is the last of it for a long time.  

I was supposed to host Thanksgiving at my house this year, but since everyone was scattered about from being in FL, that didn't happen.  So, we came back and cooked a ham and some other sides for our Thanksgiving.  But, my husband had planned on cooking some turkeys in his new Char Broil turkey fryer.  So, we decided to cook one of our turkeys last weekend instead.  It was very easy and very good. This unit cooks with hot air, NOT OIL!  So, it's a very healthy way to cook your turkey.  I thought I would share how it worked in case you were considering trying one of these.  It's nice to free up your oven by using one of these too!

We started out with a 12 lb fresh Butterball turkey.

My husband prepared the bird after washing  and drying it by injecting it with a mixture of melted butter, lemon juice, garlic, and honey.  

Then, he rubbed peanut oil all over the bird.

And finally, he used a dry rub on it for more seasoning.  

He bought the rub from a local meat market.

He placed the bird into the basket that will go into the fryer.

And now it's time to place it in the fryer and begin cooking.

There are just a couple of knobs to turn to get this bird cooking.  You can follow instructions with the unit.  But it's basically just turning it on and setting the heat and then turn on the LP tank.  

While cooking, we needed to add the screened lid at times to redirect the heat and get the bird browner.  

Then, after a few hours, it was done!  We brought it inside to carve it.

Would you believe that I forgot to take a pic of it all carved up?  But, it was very moist and delicious.

  I honestly think the best thing about cooking it this way is that it frees up your oven so you can cook other foods while this is cooking outside!  Also, it cooks in less time than it would take in your oven. 

 The bad thing is that it only cooks up to a 16 lb bird, so if you need more than that, you will have to cook an extra bird.  We planned on cooking 2 birds.  Since they cook in half the time of the oven it wasn't going to be a big problem though.

Have you started decorating for Christmas yet?  I just got started yesterday and I'm almost done.  I just need to finish my front door.  If you follow me on Instagram, I have already shared some pics!

Thanks for stopping by.

~ Kelly ~