Episode AH2341B – Hello, welcome to home. Glad you came back for part two of our special Thanksgiving dinner. Today we’re gonna be doing something with good ole’ Tom, Tom turkey. We’re gonna show you how to make a good old-fashioned dressing for him and how to carve, to make some gravy, and most of all, just has an attitude that this is Thanksgiving and a thankful attitude is in order. And we’re gonna get started with all the preparations in just a moment, stay with us, we’ll be right back. Here’s today’s At Home hint. Never freeze stuffing that is inside a cooked or uncooked turkey. Remove all the stuffing from a cooked turkey, wrap the stuffing separately and refrigerate it. If you’ve got a helpful hint that you’d like to share, we want to hear from you. Send your hint to At Home Hints CTV Wall, PA 15148-1499. Well, we’re glad you came back. To get started with, we’re going to be making a stuffing for our turkey. Now I want to just say a few words about the turkey bird here. Let me put this off so it doesn’t get too hot. When you’re buying a turkey, what you wanna do is, these are the important things to look for, I have a tendency to never buy frozen turkeys. I think that fresh turkey has a much better taste and believe it or not, the turkey that I’ve prepared today is 50 cents a pound less than a frozen turkey and this is a PERDUE turkey which is a very good brand. Very little bruises. You don’t want a turkey that’s got all these black marks all over it. You want a nice, clean outside skin. This one has this little thermometer and I think this has saved a lot of embarrassing moments at a Thanksgiving dinner because this little temperature gauge is really what it is. That little gauge will pop out when the turkey is completely done. So you don’t have to guess and say, “Let’s see, when time did I put that in? “Oh, I should give it 15 minutes. “Oh, it should be another hour.” There’s no guess work. You know that when this little, white dot pops out, it comes out about this far, you know that, that turkey is done to perfection and you just go ahead and carve and you’re ready to go. The other thing that I am meticulous on about turkeys is I have got to make sure they have to be good and clean and basically what you do, we have removed that big, thick piece of skin that hangs here, that has come out, and all the insides has been thoroughly clean and water has been run through there to be sure that it’s nice and clean. And ladies too, I had a girlfriend one time tell me, “I was so embarrassed, Arlene, I cooked turkey dinner “for the first time.” She forgot to take that bag of the giblets that’s usually in this end of it. She forgot to take that out and cooked the whole turkey with it. Well needless to say, it was an unusual smell for a turkey dinner. The paper’s cooking and she was really embarrassed, so we don’t want that to happen to any of you and I’m sure that there are many unusual stories going through your mind right now that you have heard of people doing their first turkey dinner, but anyway, what we want to start with is after you have cleaned this very well and try to dry out as much moisture as you can for the inside of your turkey like we have done here. Let it drain. Now remember when you’re thawing this, if you buy a frozen turkey, the process by which you thaw that turkey down to room temperature to prepare it to be roasted is very, very important. You cannot let them just sit out. It used to be we could do that, but you can’t do that anymore. So follow the instructions that are on the wrapper of the turkey. If you are thawing down a frozen turkey because it will really, really, there’s a danger of your guests becoming ill from the salmonella and other things that will happen to your turkey if you don’t do it properly. Anyways, like I said, this is a fresh turkey. I think if you’ll try a fresh turkey for the first time, you’ll be presently surprised. So what I do now, I just am going to salt very in the cavity. Not much at all. You say, “What do you do that for?” Well, I do it ’cause my mom did it and she always was a good cook and I guess you don’t need to, but I think it just seasons it inside better, and we’re gonna start to make our dressing. Now down south they call it dressing. Nhere we’re from here in Pittsburgh, we always call it stuffing. My mom would call, “Let’s get that stuffing made, Arlene.” She made just simple, old-fashioned stuffing which was I have a stuck of oleo butter, whatever, melting in this pan and very finely chopped celery which is about a cup, maybe three fourths of a cup. We’re gonna put that in there. We’re gonna need some. Remember, celery cooks quicker than onion does. Let me make sure I get some heat going here. It’s always good to pick the pan up. I’ve been around people that they get down and they look and it’s better to pick the pan up because your eye can tell you better. If you’re looking under something, it may not even look the same. So celery cooks quicker than onion. I’m gonna put the onion in there. We don’t want this to fry, we want this just to heat through because remember it’s gonna be cooking inside the turkey also. So, don’t worry about, oh, if it doesn’t cook enough, what am I gonna do? It’ll be fine. I know sometimes I don’t do it, but I’ve had friends put it in, just mixed it in without ever sauteing it or cooking it all. They have mixed it in with their bread and it’s fine because it cooks while it’s in the turkey. Just a little crunchier. Okay, while we’re getting started with that, let’s go over here and talk about the bread stuffing because it’s important. A lot of people use cornbread, people use rice stuffing. They’ll use a wild rice stuffing or a plain rice stuffing. It’s really what your family likes, it’s according to what you like. Some people buy the packaged croutons that are already seasoned and you put moisture with that. The stove top makes the stuffing. Those are prepared ahead of time. You’re just adding some moisture and some butter to them, and they’re fine, but old-fashioned bread stuffing is you start with your bread, your slices of bread, and we don’t go even go the fancy cut, we don’t cut them. That takes time. Now if you have the time to do it that’s fine, but we don’t. I never do. That’s me I’m talking about, but you just break it apart, break it apart. Just keep breaking it apart and I like to let mine sit out so that it can air dry overnight because it takes some of the mushiness out of the bread and it makes it a little stiffer, okay? The other thing I like to do is I always save a heel. Some people say well I never put the crust in. That’s up to you. If you don’t like it, that’s fine, but I save one of these because this is an important part of stuffing a turkey and we’ll just leave that on the side for now. I have an 11 1/2 pound turkey, this is about one large king-size loaf of bread, maybe not quite that much. But we have just air dried it overnight, let it sit out so it gets a little bit stale. Stale bread cubes are better than the fresh bread. So here we are. We’ve got that going. The celery and the onion has started. We might need to put just a little nip more of butter in there. It seems like butter plays a predominately important role in the Thanksgiving dinner, particularly when you’re sauteing things to get them ready to go into the turkey. If you were with us last week you saw we did the sweet potatoes and we’re going to be showing you the completed meal. And I trust that this time, I know it’s probably pretty late and you’ve probably planned everything that you’re going to have for your Thanksgiving dinner by now because it’s the night before, but hopefully there are some helpful hints for you so that when you get up in the morning to put the turkey in the oven, you’ll think about them and my mom, because we always had a big family day and guests at our table on Thanksgiving, Mom would roast a large turkey on a very low temperature all night long. She’d get it started on a high heat and then turn it down and just let it go all night long. And you know what? When you wake up on Thanksgiving morning and you can smell what smells like the most wonderful smell, our dog, our old dog Tip used to be laying by the front of the oven, just dying to jump into that ’cause he could smell that turkey cooking all night and it would be a common joke every Thanksgiving morning saying, well, we know where Tip is. Where’s the dog? Oh, the dog’s in front of the oven. He’s waiting for Thanksgiving to arrive and he would, it’s the truth. Okay so what I like to do to make my dressing a little moist, I will take about, oh, maybe a half a can. This is cream of chicken soup and I put it right in here with my celery and onions. Now you don’t have to do this, but I like the flavor that the chicken soup gives the dressing because it tends to enhance it and you just leave that in there so that it will melt down because your onions and your peppers have sauteed and it melt down so that it will incorporate those flavors of the butter and the chicken will be all over the celery and the onions, okay? Just keep going here. If I had just a little bit, put a little bit of this broth in here, but it’s a little bit thick. This is just basic broth from chicken broth. We need to hurry along here because I’ve got so much to show you and I want you to get it all. Okay, I think that’s just about right. You might wanna let that bubble a little bit more if we were not pressed for time, we would let that just cook a little bit longer, but I think it will be all right. All right, then we’re going to pour this into the bread cubes. Cubes, that is. That’s my oven. Excuse me just a moment. Aha, I think that’s just about right. Let’s shut that off and let that sit there for just a minute. Okay, we’re mixing here. We’re gonna mix our celery and onions in with the bread cubes. Now you’ll find that this feels very dry because remember the bread cubes have dried out overnight. I’m gonna add my freshly grounded pepper. There we go. And you’ve salted the inside of the turkey a little bit, so you don’t want to add too much salt to this but it’s gonna need a little bit. So I would just give it a quick couple of times. One thing nice, you can always add salt when you get to the table if someone wants need it. I mean, we’re really trying to restrict our intake in salt, so it’s good to be conscious of that, but if there’s someone who’s a diehard and just says, “Well, I have to have it anyway.” Then, at least that’s the way they can add it at the table instead of putting it and everybody using all the salt. Okay, let’s take our turkey that has been totally cleaned and salted on the inside. Basically all we’re gonna do is start to, excuse my hands, I have to use my hands on this. Once you get to this point, there’s no turning back. Once you have stuffed the turkey. You absolutely need to get it immediately in the oven, you don’t let a turkey sit with stuffing in it. This is warm, this is cold. You know happens if you let that sit? You have a major problem. You don’t want to do that. Now, sometimes I add poultry seasoning, sage. My mother didn’t go for a lot of that. I like the flavor of it, but I didn’t happen to have any with me today but you can put whatever type of seasoning you like. Sometimes I use the poultry seasoning ’cause it has all the different seasonings in it that you would want to use to pick up the flavors for your turkey or your chicken, and so I just keep adding the bread, okay? You don’t wanna pack it too tight because when this roasts, the dressing will expand, you see. And sometimes you’ll have a problem with the turkey bursting because the dressing has swollen and it’s too large. This is what you do with this heel now. Because I’ve cut all that big layer of fat and all of that out of there, now some people say, “Oh, but that’s what keeps it moist.” Yeah, but we don’t need all that fat in there. And sometimes I bring it across just like this. Now, if we had skewers, which I’m sure we do here somewhere, I’ll get them out of my silverware drawer. Okay. It’s important to keep that stuffing in there. If you leave it like this and it starts to swell, it’ll all just burst out and you’ll have no flavor to it. So you want to take your skewer, plunge it through this way and you need to bring it over to the other side. If I can see what I’m doing it would help too. Okay, and you just bring it over and give it a push and see this little hook on here? That will keep it from going through. That will hold and that will keep it from going through. Sometimes you need a lot, sometimes you don’t need as many. And again down at the lower part of the turkey, okay. And we feed it across. What you’re doing, essentially, is trapping that stuffing in there, okay? That’s basically what we’re gonna do there. Move that out of there. Now we’ll turn the turkey around. And this little pocket, instead of leaving the little paper sack in there with all the giblets, we’re gonna put some additional stuffing there. Some people don’t do it. I think it’s nice because it gives you more stuffing and it gives you more flavored stuffing when you do that. Is everybody laughing over here? I can see the crew is all snickering. Well, you’re gonna snicker when you eat too, aren’t you? That’s all right. This crew, I’ll tell you. This is a group that likes to eat. They’re working on the right program, that’s for sure. Now tuck that down underneath the turkey. Don’t worry if you have some little crumbs down there, that’ll just flavor your dressing, don’t worry about it. Okay. Clean up here a little bit. How much time we have there, Frank? We doing all right with time? Okay. Now, what we would do is baste this with some butter, add some salt and a fresh ground of pepper on the top of this. Put it in the oven, I start mine at 350, and drop it down to 325 and for this size about four hours is plenty. I would not put any broth or any water or anything like that in the bottom of the pan because this turkey will give you a lot of broth and I’m gonna set this over here for now to show you what I mean. If you come over here. Move my board here ’cause this will be easier for everyone to see. I have been letting the cooked turkey sit here because after you bring it out of the oven, you don’t ever want to immediately serve it. A turkey has got to sit for some time. Aren’t these things great? I bought these at a flea market for 50 cents and sterilized them very well and they are so good. You ever try to get a turkey out of a pan and you know that you’re having major problems because it’s sticking at the bottom or whatever? Well, this is the neatest thing. This picks up turkey and all, pan and all. See there? Isn’t it nice? Comes right off. This turkey, like I told you, is a PERDUE turkey. Remember I told you about the little thermometer that shows you that it’s completely done? Here it is. When that is popped and all you do is you pull this out. That’s that long so it goes down deep into the breast meat to keep the temperature so you know that it is completely and well done. Okay, first of all, here’s our skewers. We’re gonna take the skewers out. Okay. And I have a serving bowl here. First thing you want to do is remove all of the stuffing from the turkey because if you don’t, when you go to slice it and carve it, the stuffing is going everywhere. Now you’ll notice the stuffing will come out, it’s piping hot. Isn’t that nice? Everybody says amen together, okay. All right, here we go. And that’s a lot of stuffing in there, isn’t it? That’s a lot of stuffing in this little 11 pound bird. This would probably serve, I would say, eight to 10 maybe 12 people depending on if they’re big eaters or not. That’s the important to know and you know usually when you have people coming, you know if they’re gonna be big eaters or not. Okay. This is not the prettiest picture because everyone shows a Thanksgiving dinner with this beautiful turkey sitting there, but if anybody has asked someone to carve a Thanksgiving dinner and they did it at the table, you know how messy that can be. So, I don’t think you need to be doing that unless you really want to and that’s fine. You may have some talented men in your family. The men in my family just say, “Oh, let’s it.” And expect somebody to do that in the kitchen, do all the work in the kitchen for them. I like to get all this skin off as much as we can because we’re not going to be eating skin of the turkey. We don’t wanna be doing that. Now what I would do is put this in my oven to keep it nice and warm. We’ll sit over here by the stove. If you have a gas stove, put it at the back so the vents will keep it hot until you get the turkey ready. And now, this is the way we’re gonna do the turkey. Let’s see, which camera’s best on this? Where do we need to work here? Right here or here? Over here, okay. First of all, you can see that this leg is very well done and it will take little, if any, encouragement, look at that, coming right off. You want to get this done first because if you do, this is the thigh and the leg, the drum stick connected and what I do is just break it back and cut it and begin to cut the meat off. Look how that falls right off because this is so well done and believe me, we really like to have turkey very well done. Take the little bones out. You don’t wanna serve bones to your guest because we don’t need any problems or accidents. If some of it seems a little dry, you can work through that and pull that off. Let me just take some of this off. Okay. I’m gonna put that there. Okay, there’s the drumstick bone is gone. Now, get my fork here. Now I would butcher or carve, as they say, I would take that thigh off of here, okay. And I would definitely pile up. What I like to do is keep all the dark meat to one side. That’s one thing people are very, very quick to tell you, I like the white meat, I like the dark meat. They know what they like. They’re not, well, I don’t know if I like the white meat. People know I like the dark meat, I like the white meat. So, I keep mine separate on the plate so that they always are able to get just what they want and they know, oh, that’s the dark meat. Okay, it’s falling apart. It is so wonderfully tender. So I would keep just stacking my slices up. You really almost don’t have to cut or carve it. It just really is falling apart when it’s this tender. Let me show you what to do. I know we don’t have too much time here, but I really wanted to show what to do with the breast and how you carve the breast meat, two ways you can do it. First of all, you take the wing off like I just have then you can either cut it straight down and take it completely off the bone so that you would have this whole breast piece that you could then slice in uniform pieces. I do that if I want the turkey to go far, okay? You find that you have five more people coming than you thought and you want it to go far so you don’t have the luxury of just hacking away at it, take the whole breast off and slice it down in uniform slices. The other way I do it is I make it a slice into the breast like so, okay, clear into the bone. And then begin to slice straight down and every time it hits that horizontal slice, you have a slice of turkey, okay? Every time. Okay and, again, you keep all your white meat. Kind of hard to do this going backwards, but I think you understand what I’m saying. Okay, you always keep cutting away from you. Look at the nice uniform slices you get, and this is a very moist turkey. You’ll find that most times when you use the fresh turkeys they are and we’re gonna be back to show you the completed meal with all the trimmings in just a moment. Here’s how you can get all these recipes we’ve been talking about for two weeks.
[Narrator] To receive the recipes presented on today’s program plus many more great recipe ideas, send your best donation in a stamped, self-addressed business-sized envelope to At Home CTV Wall, PA 15148-1499. You’ll receive Arlene’s heartwarming newsletter Enjoy featuring an entire month of At Home recipes including today’s mouth-watering dishes. Be sure to include the Enjoy issue number with your request.
Well, here we are at our Thanksgiving dinner and I trust that you have gotten some ideas on what to do with your special meal with your family this Thanksgiving. Let me go over quickly what we have prepared in the last two programs. Here’s our cranberry walnut relish and that is a treat. You’re gonna love tasting that. He’s our candy sweet yams. See how they’re all coated with that sweetness? That’s just what you’re looking for. Okay, then we have our pumpkin pie that is just as beautiful as can be, and a little dab of whip cream on the top. What more could you want, right? Anyway, we have our green bean casserole with our cream of mushroom soup and it’s just baked to perfection, very tasty. There’s our stuffing there that we have prepared, old-fashioned bread stuffing and, of course, our platter full of turkey that is just overloaded with the fullness of that roasted meat that’s just delicious. We added a little gravy to it, we added a few fresh mashed potatoes and a jello salad with some pears and cherries and it’s a completed Thanksgiving meal. If I might, I’d like to be the first to wish you a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving tomorrow. May it be a very special day that you spend with your family. Create some memories, do something special, and let the love that you have in your heart just flow out from you to each family member. If I may just share for one moment and may I invite you stop before you partake of your Thanksgiving dinner and thank God for all the good things that he’s provided for you. Tradition in our home is my dad, who’s always with us will always take his Bible and he begins to read Psalms 105 that says, “Oh give thanks unto the Lord, “call upon his name and make known his deeds “among the people, oh, give thanks unto the Lord “for he is good for his mercy endure forever.” His mercy does endure forever and I trust that tomorrow will be a very special day for you, your friends and family and we here at home want to wish you the very most blessed and happy Thanksgiving. Take that moment to reflect and remember all the good things that have happened in your life. For one day don’t think about the bad things, just think about the good things and there’s something to be thankful for in all of us, and I trust that you’ll join us the next time here At Home. We enjoy having you as part of our family. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and please, please know that if you weren’t here with us, it just wouldn’t be the same without you right here At Home with Arlene Williams and her family on Thanksgiving. Thanks for joining us, we’ll see you next week. The Lord bless you with a very beautiful day.
[Narrator] Thank you for joining us for today’s program. Be sure to join us next time right here At Home. Fresh produce provided by Jordan Banana, wholesalers of fresh fruit and vegetables In Dravosburg, PA. Cookware provided by Wholeys. Your favorite gourmet deserves the best for less at Wholly Balcony Cookware. Some of our guests stay at the Palace Inn, your home away from home in Monroeville, PA. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.
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