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Turkey day is getting closer and closer. I can not wait to eat me some turkey. We still are not too sure what we will be doing that day but I know we will be making a turkey even if we do not have Thanksgiving here.

Moving all the time means that we never really live very close to family members. James' dad is the only one that will be around for Thanksgiving so it is up in the air. Some holidays we go there and some he comes here. It all depends on weather and health. He was just here for a turkey and ham dinner a few weeks ago so we shall see.

Yes we just had a big turkey dinner but we have them more often than most families. We usually have turkey several times a year. We like having big dinners all together. The grocery store had buy a ham get a turkey free that week so that was all we needed to inspire us to have a big dinner.

I do not do a normal rosemary and sage turkey but what really is a normal turkey? Everyone has their own "style". I do a simple turkey with very few steps. I mix butter with Cajun seasoning mix and pack that under the skin. I also use a bit to butter up the outside of the turkey. Other than that I just stick an onion cut in half up the birds butt. I do not think it adds too much flavor to the bird but it makes the drippings taste better.

I do not stuff my turkey ever. My mom always said it would dry out the bird if you cooked it long enough to kill the poultry germs that get into the stuffing. I rarely listened to my mom but that is one thing that I followed. My mom always baked stuffing in separate baking dishes.

I do roast my turkey a bit differently though. I like making a big breakfast on holidays since that is the only time we are all home and not in a hurry. This means that I always start the turkey later than I would hope. I speed up the roasting process by starting the turkey at 500 degrees for 30 minutes and then dropping the temperature to 350 degrees.

I learned this method from Alton Brown on Good Eats. I love his show. He always has these big scientific reasons things work and why you should do things that way. When it comes to making turkey this way all I care about is that it takes about an hour off of the cooking time. This means that I do not have starving people wondering why I did not start the turkey sooner.