Any Turkey Day Mishaps?

[Babs Johnson]

Not personally, but we ate at a restaurant and midway through the meal another server apparently lost balance of a heavy plate laden tray and dropped everything while exiting the kitchen. I felt bad both for him and the table that was anxiously waiting to eat.

 

[WDWEPCOT]

I almost dropped my turkey putting him in the oven - he started to take a nose dive towards the oven door all 14 pounds - may not sound like a lot but for me it was too heavy as I have an injury and I’m not to lift anything over 10 pounds - so I had to throw him back up on the stove top and try it again - thankfully it worked the second time. I had him in a turkey bag so I wouldn’t have to get him out to baste him as I knew that would be an issue
He turned out fabulous and was resting comfortably on the stove while I fixed sides and I slightly burned my finger in the pan he was sitting in - can’t tell you the last time I burned a finger cooking it’s probably been a decade thankfully it didn’t blister it was just a little tiny burn
I was very blessed everything turned out very well!

 

[BrianL]

Only one mishap but it ended up turning out great. I had forgotten to buy evaporated milk for my scalloped corn. I found a can in my pantry "best by 11/2019"...decided not to risk it. Mom said she had some so I sent my DH to pick it up. Her can was "best by 11/2022". Tried to pour it into the measuring cup and it was solid chunks (ugh). So, went on to plan C and subbed some heavy cream I had just purchased. My family said the scalloped corn tasted better than ever...happy accident!

My buddy's go-to for anything like that is to sub in heavy cream for milk. It sure IS good, but probably doubles the calorie count!

 

[TwoMisfits]

I wouldn't call it a mishap, but a minute after my spouse poured my wine, my kid dropped a glop of mashed potatoes in my cup (don't ask how). I figured it was someone higher up telling me I didn't need it (and I didn't), so I dumped the wine and switched to water, and carried on (and no one dropped potatoes in my water).

 

[sam_gordon]

Does having TOO much food count? We usually have ~12-14 people and do a 20# turkey. DS told us he's bringing three of his college soccer teammates. We had already purchased a 19# turkey, but thinking with three extra bodies, and athletes at that, the 19# might not be enough. So we got another 10#.

We baked the 10# and fry the 19#. The 19# took an hour to heat up the oil, and then 30 minutes to cook. The 10# took just over two hours to cook. We never had to carve the 10#. The 19# fed 17 people and we have some left overs. We've got a lot of sides left over too.

 

[slo]

Does this count?
My DH almost gave this to his Dad. Luckily he saw it at at the last minute.

 

[Luv Bunnies]

No actual mishaps here because we had no actual Thanksgiving. Covid reared it's ugly head when DH tested positive on Sunday. We had to cancel our plans to host dinner and have our younger son come and stay with us. He lives in NYC but is working for two months about 30 miles from us (we're in CA). We were so excited to have him nearby and be with us for Thanksgiving. He stayed with my sister instead and she hosted for my mom and brother. I turned up positive for Covid yesterday, which I knew was coming. I'd been having symptoms since Monday but kept testing negative. It was just a matter of time before the little pink line was going to appear. Older DS lives with us and has been staying in his room and only coming out in a mask. I ordered some turkey dinners from DoorDash but wasn't hungry enough to eat mine. DS delivered some pie from my sister's house so that was my dinner. DH and I both work for schools, so we had the week off. It turned out to be a bust. All our fun plans went down the drain. Thank you for attending my pity party.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

Clogged the sink with potato skins. Note to self: throw them in the trash next time.

We did that one year. We had to hire a plumber, who informed us that potato skins blowing out the garbage disposal was their #1 day after Thanksgiving repair call. He taught me how to use the key to unjam the disposal in cases where it's not a blown motor but said that most disposals are builder grade and can't handle anything that dense. He installed a higher power one that could, but the whole incident cured me from wanting to test it. So, now we also peel directly into the trash can.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

Does this count?
My DH almost gave this to his Dad. Luckily he saw it at at the last minute.

View attachment 813036

OMG...I have a crazy case of arachnophobia! Just looking at that is freaking me out. I don't know if I could have eaten if that were my drink.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

But man, that bird was strange

Wonder if there's something different this year because the turkey we had last night there was no dark meat at all. I'm not sure the brand they got but yeah it surprised everyone.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Does this count?
My DH almost gave this to his Dad. Luckily he saw it at at the last minute.

View attachment 813036

I'm not sure any of us can top this

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

There was an almost mishap. We arrived and it was right when mother-in-law was about to mix the potatoes to make mashed potatoes...and no mixer was in the house. We were at my husband's grandmother's place that one of the sister-in-law's and her boyfriend had just moved back in and they didn't have a hand mixer.

Crisis was averted when sister-in-law walked next door to mother-in-law's cousin's house and got a hand mixer. I think it got mother-in-law flustered more because this was the first year in several years she had made from scratch instead of doing like a container of bob evans ones from the store.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

No actual mishaps in our house, but my husband and the kids went to my MIL's for a bit and their meal had several.

For us, I normally stock up on turkeys when the prices drop for the season. I look at birds in the 20-25lb range as my trophies, but I'm finding that birds in the 16-20lb range have a better meat yield. So, I'm trying to reprogram my brain when frozen turkey hunting. Our Thanksgiving bird was 20.30lbs and it's been a breeze ever since we bought a big Oster roaster 5 year ago. No basting or brining necessary (we've found, in general, that not brining has better moistness results) and it only needs a quick trip to the oven to brown the skin.

As for my MILs, she bought a 13 lb turkey for 15 people. She's had lots of experience making turkeys over the years, but decided to go with Butterball and supposedly followed the instruction on the packaging. She cooked it without any kind of covering the entire time and my husband said it looked like something out of National Lampoons Christmas Vacation.
She also forgot to make the mashed potatoes. My husband's stepsister's youngest daughter tried to make broccoli and cheese casserole, but it was a comedy of errors as she tried to follow some TikTok as she made it. The rice was undercooked (somewhere between chewy and crunchy), some of the broccoli florets were still frozen, and the cheese sauce was prepared too far in advance and broke before assembly. Even my MIL's fan favorite deviled eggs were missing the mustard and tasted funny. My MIL didn't reach out about coming to her house until last minute and I had everything all ready to go for us for Thanksgiving Day. My husband originally wanted to push our meal until today, but he was so thankful that I insisted on having our meal on Thanksgiving as well. At least my MILs lemon meringue pie was great as usual, since that's DH's favorite and she doesn't let anyone take home pie leftovers.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Nothing yesterday, but I always think about my mother telling the story of our German Shepherd walking up the stairs with the turkey in his mouth!

Our current Shepherd rescue came with the habit of jumping up and taking things off the counter. A little shocking to see since we never allowed that. Thankfully no longer does it, but I‘m not totally sure a turkey left out wouldn’t tempt him, lol.

 

[tinkerbellandpeterpan]

Not this year, but one year my mom couldn't figure out why the gravy wasn't thickening and was tasting very strange.....until she realized she had mixed up the powdered sugar canister for the flour canister. Definitely a dump it out and start over moment. Very funny!

 

[tvguy]

Well, first mishap, minor. DW is making the pies today for our Thanksgiving gathering tomorrow and opened a can of sweetened, condensed milk instead of evaporated mil for the pumpkin pie. No biggie, we had plenty of both types of canned milk on the shelf, but the unused opened one may go to waste.

 

[Rogue1677x]

Our Thanksgiving consists of pizzas and cookies, and other sweets, all of which is delivered and/or made ahead of time. This is good because the day before Thanksgiving I got my COVID shot so my arm was sore, but had gotten progressively worse overnight. That wasn't the big deal. What was, however, was the monster migraine and all that comes with it (sensitive to light, sound, smell, nausea, etc.), so I spent the day hiding in my bedroom and slept the day away.

 

[CynBeth]

When we went to have the pumpkin pie yesterday that we had gotten from the bakery on Wednesday noticed the crust seemed to be raw it was soft and gooey not hard. The second pie was the same way. Luckily we eat early so there was time to go to the grocery store and get one before it closed.

 

[dizneegirl]

Well, first mishap, minor. DW is making the pies today for our Thanksgiving gathering tomorrow and opened a can of sweetened, condensed milk instead of evaporated mil for the pumpkin pie. No biggie, we had plenty of both types of canned milk on the shelf, but the unused opened one may go to waste.

Make caramel out of it for something else. It'll last longer that way, too.

 

[tasha99]

I also had a 20-21 pound bird that was supposed to take 5 hours or so but was done in a little over 3. Overdone at that point, actually, and yes, it was a frozen store brand bird pumped full of solution that I got for free with a grocery purchase. It was a bit dry, just how my husband likes it, lol. It gave us unexpected oven space, but I think I prefer paying for a smaller, non-injected bird.