Monday Morning, Start Your Week Off With A Giant, Fabulous Roast

It'll save you a gzillion dollars.

Or maybe ten, I'm not sure. But it will keep you sane for the week if it's big enough. This week, in honor of my little sister's birthday, it was a large, fresh, organic turkey, purchased on sale for $1.29 (!!!!!) a pound.

It was truly a thing of beauty. I brined it, overnight, cooked it upside down, and then flipped it for the last half hour so the top would brown.

It was, well, Good Eats. I only use the salt, pepper, and brown sugar in the brine, and I don't get all crazy with the "aromatics" because this is NOT a Thanksgiving turkey. It's an every day turkey, and we eat enough of it, because Turkey is CHEAP.

Then, I cleaned the carcass...that's got to be the nastiest thing I've ever put into print...as carefully as could be, getting every bit of leftover goodness tucked away for the rest of the week, much to the chagrin of my dog.

I think she's finally gotten over it, but I've never seen a more pathetic looking creature..staring at me with deep, sad eyes the color of melted chocolate, brown with gold flecks. It was highly distracting.

She wimpered quietly as I took the bones out the door. It was a sad minute...I would love to give them to her...but they will KILL THE STUPID DOG. I felt so guilty about denying the dog turkey bones that I was driven to distraction...and tripped over her while carrying the quart size bowl of gravy.

Gravy evidently flies with a pretty decent velocity. It hit the ceiling, it hit the floor, it hit the dog full on in the face and a good bit landed on my head.

Turkey gravy evidently trumps lost turkey bones, and the dog went effing ballistic..tail wagging, groaning with joy, licking the floor and all the surrounding furniture.

I figured I'd let her, and washed the gravy out of my hair. My kitchen now smells like dog breath. Do you like how I'm taking care of that right now?

I'm mad, because I wanted that gravy for a pot pie for tonight, which is pretty simple...you take a couple of cups of leftover turkey, a bag of frozen mixed veggies, and moisten it with some gravy, and bake it in a pie crust. I make a homemade pie crust, but you could just as easily grab a store bought. It bakes for about 45 min at 375. I like homemade because you can trim the extra crust into fancy shapes like hearts and stars, and fix them on with a bit of heavy cream or egg wash, and then the kids freak out and eat it up.

No turkey pot pie. No turkey gravy. Sad face.

But that's okay...cooked turkey can be used in ANY recipe that calls for cooked chicken, so I'm feeling turkey and noodles, turkey and dumplings, turkey taquitos, turkey enchiladas, turkey divan... each assembled quickly and easily from a single night of cooking. It couldn't be simpler.