Thanksgiving in February!

So back right before Christmas, I smashed a deer with my car.  Oops.

There are deer parts under the snow. You're welcome.

We have a local auto body shop that offers a free frozen turkey if you bring your deer-smashed car to them for repairs. Sweet...... and weird. Whatever, so they fix my car, and give me a turkey.

Cut to 2 months later, this 12-lb monstrosity is still taking up valuable freezer space, and I'm not growing my proverbial set of testicles as far as gaining the courage to cook the thing goes.  So I manned up last weekend.  I found the following recipe on All Recipes.

Homestyle Turkey, the Michigander Way 

(why it's "the Michigander Way", I don't know. Maybe you have to know how to build a car to fully enjoy this meal?)

1 (12 pound) whole turkey
6 tablespoons butter, divided
4 cups warm water
3 tablespoons chicken bouillon
2 tablespoons dried parsley
2 tablespoons dried minced onion
2 tablespoons seasoning salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Rinse and wash turkey. Discard the giblets, or add to pan if they are anyone's favorites.
2. Place turkey in a Dutch oven or roasting pan. Separate the skin over the breast to make little pockets. Put 3 tablespoons of the butter on both sides between the skin and breast meat. This makes for very juicy breast meat.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the water with the bouillon. Sprinkle in the parsley and minced onion. Pour over the top of the turkey. Sprinkle seasoning salt over the turkey.
4. Cover with foil, and bake in the preheated oven 3 1/2 to 4 hours, until the internal temperature of the turkey reaches 180 degrees F (80 degrees C). For the last 45 minutes or so, remove the foil so the turkey will brown nicely.

It was fan-freakin-tastic.  I didn't take a picture of it because I'm an idiot.  But it was so delicious.  You know how when you go to your grandma's house for Thanksgiving, and the turkey is always dry and bland and you have to cover it in gravy?  Yeah, not this one.  It's still moist today, after being sliced up and refrigerated. Outstanding.  And I feel like an idiot for being so nervous about cooking a turkey this whole time.