As of today, there are only 16 days left before Thanksgiving. Somehow that always seems to sneak up on me every year – probably because after getting through Halloween, and then my birthday less than a week later, I usually start concentrating on and panicking worrying about Hannah’s birthday, which falls on the 29th. And probably because we go to Ron’s parents’ house every year, so there’s little, if nothing, that we need to do, other than to show up on time (and preferably avoid getting stuck in the snow).
Well, bringing our appetites usually helps too. Although that’s not usually a problem. 
You may not believe it, but I have never cooked a turkey before. Ever. Oh, I’ve watched, and when I was a kid I can remember helping my mom stuff the turkey. But I’ve never been completely, solely and 100% responsible for ensuring that there’s a tasty Thanksgiving dinner on the table.
I have the feeling that might change in the next several years. Ron’s mom’s health hasn’t been great (although she has been doing much better since her kidney transplant this past spring), and besides, if there’s ever an extremely snowy Thanksgiving day again, we’ll probably avoid getting stuck by sticking around home. In which case, cooking dinner would fall… well, to me.
I had the opportunity this week to chat with one of the over 50 experts who staff the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line® during November and December every year. Not only did she answer my questions, but I found out a lot of things that I’d never known before – both about the Butterball Talk-Line and about cooking turkeys in general.
The Talk-Line is staffed by dieticians, home-ec majors and other volunteers and has been going strong for 28 years now – wow! They field over 100,000 calls, plus e-mails, texting, web chats, etc. This year’s Talk-Line opened last Monday. And there are a lot of ways to get a hold of them, other than just by picking up a phone.
For instance, did you know that starting in October, you can email them at talkline@butterball.com? Or that you can text the word “TURKEY” to 36888 to have weekly turkey tips, thawing reminders, and cooking alerts sent straight to your mobile phone? Or even that you can log on to Web chats on Butterball.com with your favorite Turkey Talk-Line experts on November 11, 18, and 25 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. CST? That’s a lot of expert turkey help right at your fingertips, no matter where or how you can access it.
This year, the Talk-Line has added three bloggers! They are Chris Jordan from Notes from the Trenches, Susan Wagner from Friday Playdate, and Roxanna Sarmiento from Miguelina. You can read their turkey-oriented blogs over at Butterball.com or chat with them during the Web chats or via e-mail.
Turkey expert Mary Clingman was kind enough to take a few minutes to talk with me about everything Thanksgiving and turkey. She’s been involved with the Talk-Line for over 24 years and is a media pro who’s given turkey advice to everyone from CNN, MSNBC, USA Today and even The David Letterman Show. Talking with Mary was so much fun – I felt like we were having an enjoyable conversation that just happened to center around Thanksgiving and turkey talk.
I asked Mary what kind of questions they get this early on, with Thanksgiving still so many weeks away. She replied that the questions change as Thanksgiving gets closer – right now people are working on their early planning, and on getting their ‘game plan’ together. Some people are organizers and have everything figured out weeks ahead, while others wait until the last minute.
Here are some of the other tips that Mary gave me – in no particular order:
- A non-cooked turkey can last for over a year in a freezer, if solidly frozen through. After a year or two though, you may not want to use it as your ‘main’ turkey on Thanksgiving.
- When deciding how big of a turkey you need, start with determining how many leftovers you want to end up with. A good rule-of-thumb is 1-1/2 pounds of turkey per person. You can go slightly lower if you don’t need or want many leftovers, or you can go higher if you want to send leftover turkey home with all of your guests or have a lot of it left for yourself.
- You can go down to a pound per person if you don’t need leftovers, but you also want to make sure that you’re getting the best value, especially in today’s economy. There are a lot of things you can do with leftover turkey – as long as your pan and oven are big enough it makes sense to cook a larger bird than you may strictly need.
- The turkey is really the simplest part of the meal – it’s the side dishes that get more complicated. Since Mary works every Thanksgiving, her family does dinner the pot-luck way with everyone bringing their favorite side dish. Not only does this help with the preparation, but lets everyone sample various dishes that they may not already be familiar with.
- The best kind of pan to cook a turkey in, is a shallow open one, where the sides are no more than 2 inches high. If your pan has high sides, then cook with the lid on in order to cook the turkey more evenly.
- Use a 325-degree oven, and a meat thermometer is highly recommended. Mary suggests the kind that has a ‘candy-cane’ looking probe that attaches with wires out to a box on the counter. Different parts of the turkey are done at different temperatures, such as 160 to 165 degrees in the breast or 175 to 180 degrees in the thigh. If you stuff your turkey, one idea is to put the probe in the stuffing – that way once it’s done, you know the rest of the turkey is as well.
- Don’t overcook your turkey! About 2/3 of the way through the cooking time, put tinfoil on the breast of the turkey to act as a shield so the breast won’t overcook while the rest of the turkey is cooking.
- There are a lot of variables that can impact total cooking time, like whether or not the turkey is stuffed, if it’s partially frozen when you begin cooking it, if the oven temperature changes, or if you baste the turkey. A general guideline though is that an unstuffed 12-pound turkey will need about 3 hours to cook.
- If you only have one oven to use for all of your Thanksgiving dishes, schedule things so that your turkey is done about an hour ahead of time. Take it out and cover it with foil and a bath towel to keep it hot, then you can use your oven for your side dishes, and you’ll have your pan available for making gravy.
Wow, that’s a lot of advice and some great tips – thank you again to Butterball, and to Mary Clingman for putting my mind at ease about cooking a Thanksgiving turkey! I’ve already talked to Ron about our heading up to his parents’ house early this year so I can be there to help his mom with the preparations – and so I can put this new knowledge to the test by helping to cook the turkey.
Would you like a little bit of help with your Thanksgiving turkey this year?
No, I’m not going to come over and cook yours. Nor am I going to ask Mary to come over to cook it for you. 
But, thanks to Butterball, I do have a couple of coupons for $15 off a turkey to give away to two very lucky readers!
If you would like to win one of these to help out with your Thanksgiving turkey cost this year, here’s how to enter:
- Please leave a comment and tell me your best Thanksgiving-oriented story. Did you get stuck in the snow like we did? Did you over or under cook the turkey? If you don’t have a great story, then just share your favorite Thanksgiving recipe. Please don’t just say ‘choose me’ or I will discard your entry.
- Since I want to make sure that the winners get their coupons in time for Thanksgiving this year, this giveaway will end on Wednesday, November 19th at 11:59 pm EST. The winners will be randomly drawn and contacted via e-mail. You can also check back on this post to see if you won. If either of the winners hasn’t responded after 3 days, then an alternate winner will be drawn.
- Going along with the previous – please leave a valid e-mail address or other way to contact you if you win!
Yes, there are extra entry options available. For extra entries, you can:
- Subscribe to my site (click on the orange RSS icon in the upper right sidebar, or subscribe via e-mail) and leave a comment letting me know for one extra entry.
- Blog about this giveaway on your own site and leave a comment with a link to your post for one extra entry.
- Either Twitter about, Stumble, Digg or Kirtsy this post and leave comments letting me know for one extra entry per method.
That’s a total of 6 possible extra entries, if you do them all (don’t forget to leave a comment for each different extra entry method).
Good luck!
PS – Just wait, after Thanksgiving comes Black Friday. And after that, there are only 26 days left before Christmas…
THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED – see who won here!
CrAzY Working Mom (4)
Harriet (3)
Marise (3)
MomOf4 (3)
Upstatemomof3 (3)
November 17th, 2008 at 12:54 am
I am now a subscriber via feedburner
thanks for another chance to win!!!
November 17th, 2008 at 12:57 am
I stumbled it
ID: fantacydawn
November 17th, 2008 at 1:07 am
I twitter updated about it (couldn’t find your twitter page to be a follower there though *sniffles*)
My ID there is also fantacydawn
November 17th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
[...] 21st at 11:59 pm EST)/ $10 gift card to Build-A-Bear Workshop(November 26th at 11:59 pm EST)/2 coupons for $15 off of a Butterball turkey(November 19th at 11:59 pm EST)/ Baby Language One of Two Onesies Set from Trendy Bebe(November 20th [...]
November 17th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Ok I never under cooked or over cooked a turkey before but my sister once cooked it with the giblets bag still inside~! lol But I topped that one year by setting the siding on the house a fire. It’s a real long story but to try and make it as short as possible what happened is I decided to use the grill to keep a couple of dishes warm. However when I shut the grill off it malfunctioned and never shut off like I had thought and since it was sitting on the patio next to the siding it got a little should we say hot. The next thing we know we saw flames out the window. No worries we got it out quickly and it only caused minimal damage but I won’t do that again for sure.
P.S Also never use a glass pyrex dish that is cold and stick it in a preheated oven to cook your turkey because it has the tendency to explode~! lol
Thanks for bringing back some good old memories.
Rhonda Martins last blog post..One of Those Days!
November 17th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
I have yet to make thanksgiving dinner but i think i might help out this year. My grandmother makes the best homemade stuffing and i think i might ask her for the recipe so i can share it with my new family this year.
Thanks for the opportunity to win!
Michelle
Shellydelight@gmail.com
Http://shellydelight.etsy.com
November 17th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
I was wearing my favorite red silk pant and cooking my very first turkey (35 years ago). I pull the turkey out of the oven and the juices splashed all over my new holiday pants & ruined them. To make matters worth, it burned like crazy.
As awful as it was at the time, we laugh about it every time we baste a turkey!
November 17th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
We were cooking our turkey dinner in our new house when it started to smoke. It smoked so bad that all the fire alarms went off. It got so loud, our guests to take shelter outside. The funny part of it all is I did the exact same thing the next year! Luckily it was only a two year tradition.
November 18th, 2008 at 5:52 am
My favorite Thanksgiving story is when I get to take a nap after the meal! Lol!
Nancys last blog post..Our Pre-Holiday House Party
November 18th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
My best Thanksgiving was my first with my husband as a married couple. We were stuck in a new town, unable to visit family, so we gathered recipes from family members and made our own Thanksgiving feast. It was delicious and fun (if time consuming!).
Thanks for the giveaway!
November 18th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Blogged about here:
http://loreley-lorelei.blogspot.com/
November 18th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
When I was little, my brother was away in Germany serving in the Civil Service. My best Thanksgiving was having him come home to surprise us all!
November 18th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
It was a very heartwarming Thanksgiving back in our early 20s. It was simple enough : great food, no heavy drama involving the fire department! What set it apart from traditional family-oriented families was the fact we were watching a marathon of gory X-Files episodes on the t.v.! Nothing tops your meal like alien autopsies and government conspiracies! That was such a great show, and what does it say about my family that we bonded strongly over that particular meal accompanied by hours upon hours of X-Files!? I’d like to continue the tradition, but I don’t think the network airs such a marathon anymore. But there’s always DVD!
Thanks for letting me share
Enjoy the holiday everyone!
November 19th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Last year at 8 1/2 months pregnant I hosted my first Thanksgiving, and cooked my first Turkey. Ok, my MIL did most of the cooking…but needless to say it was a disaster. It was totally raw and took an extra 4 hours to cook. She told me my oven was not accurate, but I had never noticed before and haven’t since. I think we had too many cooks in the kitchen opening oven doors. We ended up eating all the side dishes and I was stuck with a 15lb bird for 2 people.
Rebecca Cs last blog post..Obama does weekly YouTube posts?
November 19th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Last Thanksgiving was great because my brother-in-law came to visit and he cooked everything and it was delish. It was especially nice to not have to cook when I had a new baby to take care of.
November 19th, 2008 at 11:57 am
IT’S THANKSGIVING MORNING AND THE TURKEY IS READY TO COOK. TURN ON THE OVEN….NOTHING (REPAIRMAN LATER SID IT WAS A MOSE INDUCED PROBLEM). OUR NEW RANGE WAS DEAD. EVER COOK A TURKEY ON A GRILL? NOT BAD AS WE FOUND OT.
November 19th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
My fav recipe is Pumpkin Pie Cake
1 yellow cake mix (reserve 1 cup)
1 egg
1 stick butter, melted
1 (20 oz.) can of pumpkin
2/3 cups brown sugar
2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk
Mix the cake mix, egg and butter together. Press into a 9×13 inch casserole pan. Mix the pumpkin, brown sugar, spices, eggs, and milk together. Pour the mixture over cake mix. Sprinkle the 1 cup cake mix on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes. Can be served warm or cooled.
Diana’s Daily Ramblingss last blog post..Wordless Wednesday
November 19th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
sausage stuffing
Ingredients:
1 lb. bulk sausage, mild or sage flavor
2 c. chopped onion
1 c. chopped celery
2 tsp. rubbed sage (if using mild sausage)
1 tsp. marjoram
10 c. dry bread cubes
1/3 c. chopped fresh parsley
2 c. chicken broth
2 TBS. butter
Salt & pepper
Directions:
Brown & crumble sausage in skillet. Remove & drain off grease. Cook onion & celery in drippings until tender. Combine sausage, cooked vegetables, sage, marjoram, bread cubes, and parsley in large mixing bowl; blend well. Stir in chicken broth to moisten (just gradually add it as you may not need the full 2 cups). Season with salt & pepper. Stuff mixture loosely into cleaned cavity & roast along with turkey. OR, you can make dressing out of it by placing it in a greased 13×9x2″ baking dish. Dot with butter, cover & bake in 350 degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes. Uncover & bake 10 minutes or until golden.
12 Cups or 10 to 12 Servings
November 19th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
I just twittered this giveaway. My twitter name is FreeStyleMama
Diana’s Daily Ramblingss last blog post..Wordless Wednesday
November 19th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
I like to make pumpkin rolls for my husband. They are like a jelly roll cake with cream cheese frosting. I hosted a big family thanksgiving last year and it went way better than I expected. all 20 of us had room at the tables. yeah!
Jennifers last blog post..I like it!
November 19th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
One year I decided to buck the Turkey trend and make something else for the main dish. Well Thanksgiving morning my resolve dissolved and I was out looking for a bird to cook! Of corse almost everyone was closed or out of Turkey! I finally found a package of wings and cooked ‘em up for dinner with all the fixins!
November 19th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Thanksgiving of 1986, my three sons shopping with me and then to get home to find the electric co shut off my lights by mistake,it was freezing also . Call the emergency number and had it back on that night
November 19th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
We were new to the turkey frying stuff, so we didn’t know you shouldn’t put the lid on while cooking. Well, the turkey was burnt on the outside, but mmm, mmm, boy! It was nice on the inside! Lesson learned.
November 20th, 2008 at 2:27 am
[...] you haven’t already you really need to head over and check out the comments over on the giveaway post – there are a ton of funny Thanksgiving stories and great recipes that were shared by everyone who [...]
November 21st, 2008 at 6:08 am
[...] Mom of 3 Girls – 2 coupons for $15 off of a Butterball turkey (Nov 19th/US) [...]