Monster Turkey

Yesterday I cooked a 14 pound turkey I'd bought a while back. It's been lying in the freezer looking at me every time I opened it, but I've managed to ignore it for a while. I bought the giant thing for Monster on a whim, when it was on sale, but I've been putting off cooking it... For one thing, it's gross! Seriously, dog food and treats are bad enough, but putting a giant corpse in the oven to steam and stink all over the house is just, well, yeah, gross. When I win the lottery (relax Mom, it's just a figure of speech, I don't gamble!), I'm getting a house with two kitchens. One for human (vegetarian) food, and one for dog food. But until that day, I have to accept that we only have the one oven, so I'm either going to have to share or I can't make special treats for Monster... Sharing it is, then.

That's right!

I grew up on a farm. My parents actually used to raise and sell turkeys once, but by the time I came along they'd moved on to sheep. And in all the years in my mother's house I never tasted turkey. No turkey came into our kitchen, ever. I'm not sure what those birds did to her to piss her off, but I'm thinking it must have been pretty bad... Although, now that I think about it, once we moved on to raising cattle instead of sheep (when I was around 6-7 years old I think), we never ate mutton again. And believe me, we ate a lot before then. Did the sheep piss Mom off too, and that's why one day they were out of the picture...? No idea. Although I do remember a rather vicious ram. Maybe he made a mistake he would soon regret? Anyway, what I'm getting at is I have zero experience in cooking turkey. Did you know it takes a whole day!? Did you know how they smell!? Did you know the damn thing is impossible to turn over inside the oven!?

Do. Not. Care. So worth it!

And do you know how long it takes to take it apart, cut it up into small treat sized pieces, packaging it, and freezing it? I went to bed at two in the morning! Which was when the real fun started... I have a special sheet pan for Monster cooking, and once I've used it he gets to clean it. So as I went to bed I put the (gross) pan down for Monster. I've cooked dog treats on it before, but turkey juice (combined with the long cooking time, I suspect) seems to be a very special kind of mess. I don't know when Monster came to bed, but I woke up around four in the morning and I could still hear him licking that pan downstairs... Which means, this has been Monster all day today:

Zzzznnnnnffffgghhhhhh...

I may have to throw the sheet pan away though. It's still full of turkey remains, and if hours and hours of Monster working on it can't get it out I'm not confident it can be cleaned. Still, very content Monster. I may just buy another turkey in the future...