Gobble, Gobble

My Mom has Thanksgiving at her place (up here, in Georgia) and she or usually her older sister, my Aunt, will fix a turkey. Problem is, by the time we all eat at it, there's not much left for left overs. And we loooove leftover turkey sandwiches the next day...or so.

So I decided I'd get us a small turkey (on sale for 59¢lb) and cook it up and we could pretend it was leftover Thanksgiving turkey from Mom's.

I've never cooked a turkey before, so while it spent the weekend in the fridge thawing, I read about a thousand websites telling how to fix/cook/bake/roast a turkey. (Because, not like I over-think things or anything.)

I read about brining, but I also read that some store turkeys are already injected with broth and salt and brining might be too much.

I skipped the brining, but I did do as this site advised and sprinkled it all over with salt, let it sit for a bit then coated it with (I Can't Believe It's Not) Butter, then let it sit a little longer, to kind of get close to room temp.

I heated the oven to 400*, and put the turkey on a wire rack in my roaster pan.

I cooked it uncovered for 20 minutes.

Then I reduced the heat to 325-350'ish and put the lid on (as per this site), and baked/roasted for 2 hours.

I looked like it was done, nice and golden and crispy, but actually the skin is kind of dry/tough and it didn't get done all the way through, I don't think. Or maybe dark meat just looks like that.

Either way, since I'm "freezer cooking" it, I'll cook it some more when we get ready to eat it after Thanksgiving and make sure it's done well.

I deboned the turkey,

Putting the meat into freezer bags by white, dark, and broth.

The shocking news is, I wasted about 1/2 of this turkey. I know, terrible.
Not the meat, but the neck/gizzards, and the bones. You're supposed to make gravy and turkey-bone broth/soup from those things, but I decided to try learning to fix the turkey first before I move on to learning other stuff. I don't like giblet gravy, and don't know when I would use turkey-bone broth/soup anyway, so not a great loss...other than being a sad waste. However the yard cats probably think they've died and gone to Heaven.