It makes me think you're gonna smoke a turkey

After Thanksgiving I found some fresh turkeys on clearance at Smiths for 49 cents a lb. I picked up 2. We froze one and Mark decided to smoke one that weekend. We had roasted one and deepfried one for Thanksgiving so smoke was the only way to go this time around. It's an all day thing.
Mark is really, REALLY, really into injecting his birds. This all metal injector is the way to go. Our deep fried TG bird was injected with a cajun seasoning and the outside rubbed with a cajun dry rub. I was really annoyed he'd chosen to go with the cajun because he did a cajun bird a couple years ago and I hated it. I felt a bit affronted he wouldn't go with something I liked too, like a nice lemon-garlic. He said he was going with a different cajun flavor.... a cajun garlic rather than a hot cajun like last time. I was still mad and slammed a few cupboards to make my point. He pretty much ignored that.

We WERE having a 2nd turkey that I got to season any way I liked. We have one of those plug-in, sit-on-the-counter-top turkey roasters which I highly reccommend. Your turkey comes out tender and your oven is free for whatever else you need to cook that day. I used a dry seasoning rub I got from my friend Melissa years ago. I have used it on roast chickens before but never a TG bird. Mark injected my roasting bird with melted butter and we put onions, celery and a quartered orange in the cavity. I rubbed a little oil on the skin and then patted on my dry rub.

Savory Roasted Turkey
1 T Italian seasoning 1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp season salt 1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp dry mustard 2 bay leaves

The recipe indicates this is for a 12 lb turkey. I doubled it for my 20 lb bird and it was just fine.
I sprinkled 3-4 tsp of the seasoning inside the bird w/my doubled recipe.  For a single recipe, it calls for 2 tsp sprinkled inside the cavity.  You put the bay leaves inside the cavity with the onion/celery/orange.

You might think the seasonings would be too strong for the juices for making gravy but the drippings always make wonderful gravy. My gravy was the best ever this year. Yum. I'm starting to drool just thinking about it.

After our fabulous TG dinner when I was pulling all the meat off the carcases of our birds to refrigerate, I decided to try a bit of the cajun bird I'd been disdaining all day. Nobody was watching. I had made such a scene I didn't want him to SEE me try it. um... I liked it. yeah... The garlic cajun was yummy. I ate a little more. mmmm.  He came into the kitchen.  I swallowed discreetly. "It was good Honey and really different from the last one, I wish you would try it!" His kind concern did me in. I confessed, "oh... well, I just did actually. it's good......" Wisely, he simply smiled and said "oh, good, I'm glad you liked it".

We had some Martinelli's sparkling cider left over from our TG celebration so Mark decided to inject this smoking turkey with the cider and melted butter. He's all about wild experimentation.

You've got to soak your wood chips for a couple hours before you start. You don't want them to burn, you want them to SMOKE!

After appropriate soaking time, you start your charcoal. You lay your wood chips on top of this compartment thingy. (hey~ if you want a technically correct "how-to" on smoking you'll have to talk to Mark)

Then you put this middle part on......

Make sure it's nice and tight.....

I'm not sure what he's doing here... Is he pouring water on something?

Transferring the 14 lb bird......

Cover the smoker and wait about 8 hours....

Ahhhhhhhh.........

And that's how you smoke a turkey folks.
(We didn't let Carly out of her room all day)