turkey talk

I suppose this could be a regular feature called "meat zone" or something, but whatever. I have a lot of thoughts on turkey right now. I think it gets a bad wrap. I say that because when someone says "turkey" I think bland, weak, no flavor crap.

But it shouldn't be like that. I love thanksgiving turkey when done right. I've had plenty a bland, dry turkey while watching the Lions lose. But I've also had it moist, seasoned, delicious. What's even better is the post-Thanksgiving sandwich leftovers. Usually I just go with turkey on mayo with cracked black pepper, a little mustard. You could add pickles or a cheese like provolone (cheddar goes better with chicken or roast beef) and toast the bread if you want. But that's a damn good sandwich.

So why then, is the sliced turkey sandwich, what people order year round, the worst goddamn thing in the world? You got to Subway, you try and make it yourself with Hillshire Farm Deli Select sliced turkey, and it tastes like shitty nothing. It's TERRIBLE. I told someone how good Bellacino's sandwiches were. They went and got the turkey sandwich and said it was just okay. Well of course it's not great, you ordered the wrong fucking hoagie.

To correct this injustice to turkey, I recently bought a pre-roasted 1/2 turkey breast for 9.99 at Trader Joe's. I've looked at roasting my own turkey breast before (as I've done with a whole chicken) but it seems that even just the breast usually costs around $15. I suppose it's a fine value for the meat, but that's a mental price barrier that's a little steep for me. But at Trader Joe's I was looking at 25oz of roast turkey for $10. Since I usually pay around $4 for 9oz of sliced ham, I went ahead and got the turkey.

It's delicious. I've had 3 sandwiches so far and should be able to get about 6 more out of it. So how does slicing turkey turn a delicious meat into a slimy, flavorless, soft mush? I don't know. Ham tastes better sliced thin and piled high. But turkey? Eesh.

That was all I was going to say about turkey, but then I was doing some research to find anyone else that agrees with me that sliced turkey sucks. I came across a recipe for thanksgiving turkey jamabalaya which caught me eye. Except if you have to roast the turkey first which is a laborious process it seems to be adding a lot of work. Perhaps it would make a nice Thanksgiving side dish if you used pre-roasted breast to cut down on prep time.

And then I came across this page of layered Thanksgiving leftover sandwiches. As I said before I'm usually a simple leftover sandwich guy. But if I were to think about such things, I wouldn't be a fan of cranberries or mashed potatoes on mine. Instead I would go with turkey, dressing (aka stuffing, but we don't stuff ours) and a little bit of brown sugar sweet potatoes. Mmmm.