Turkey Pit

When we moved to Gilbert in 2003, we were introduced to the new tradition of cooking our Thanksgiving bird in a barbecue pit. If you are in charge of cooking the turkey each year, you know how wonderful it is to free up your oven by cooking the turkey elsewhere! Last fall, Dan and Max (Michelle's brother) built a pit in our backyard. After a successful maiden voyage last year, we invited others to put their turkeys in the pit this year.

It seems other people were just as excited to free up an oven for Thanksgiving - and still others wanted some turkey for leftovers at their house. In the end, we had 16 pieces of meat - 13 turkeys and 2 pork roasts and one beef roast.

It was a pile of meat. Despite the rain that evening, Dan and the rest of the pyromaniacs built a great fire, and put the meat in the pit around 9:30 pm.

We are happy to report that the next morning the meat was all cooked to perfection and everyone had a yummy Thanksgiving. We found that the brined turkeys are extra juicy, so we will be trying that next year...