Bye Bye Birdie

On Saturday I rode my bike to the farmer's market with my shopping list and my $40, ready to buy food for the week. I mean, where better to eat all summer than from the farmer's market? Madison has the largest producers-only market in the country, and boy, is it big - 1 mile long circling the Capitol Building. Being Wisconsin, there are typically at least four stalls selling cheese, but there is so much more in the treasure chest of the market! Breads, jams and jellies, honey, syrup, meat, a ridiculous amount of amazing produce, exotic jerky, herbs, plants, flowers...if you visit us, make sure your timeframe includes a Saturday morning!

This week I got some assorted vegetables and leafy greens, a baguette, and half a turkey. I intended to buy a whole chicken to roast in the crock pot and use all week, but three-quarters of the way around I hadn't found a chicken! So I settled for half a turkey (and found the chickens about three stalls later), which I still felt was impressive and a great step into full adulthood. Cooking a bird is quite the accomplishment, right??

We were there from about 7-8am, but it gets really crowded after that!

Thanks to Google, I found a recipe for herbed slow-cooker turkey, which is currently smelling amaaaaaazing and is very distracting. Lucky me, everything I needed was in my fridge and pantry! I've gotten much better at finding recipes that use up what I have, and it's really quite a relief.

I'm honestly not sure what to do to prep a bird...I think you're supposed to pat it dry and rub it with salt and pepper, usually, but I just removed the organ-looking bits, stuck the turkey in the crock pot, and brushed the buttery spread over the top of it. There wasn't much in the way of an inside to stick lemons and butter in either. So I just roughly chopped an onion, a few medium potatoes, and maybe half a pound of carrots or so to rest the turkey on.

Then I combined 2 Tbsp of butter, 4 oz of cream cheese (the recipe actually called for whipped cream cheese, but I only had regular), 1 Tbsp soy sauce, and a mix of pepper, parsley, sage, thyme, and garlic powder in a pot on the stove. Once it was all melted together I spread it onto the turkey with a spatula.

If you're like me and buy a turkey an inch too long for your slow cooker, you can cover it with foil for a little while (to keep in the moisture) and then just cram it into the pot once it gets flexible enough.

And voila - an herb roasted, slow cooker, half turkey dinner that can be eaten so many ways! Turkey dinner. Sandwiches. Stock. Soup. Pot pie. Pasties. Casserole. Pizza. Oh, the possibilities!!