How do I cook a pasture raised turkey?

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November 18, 2022

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours! We hope you have a wonderful holiday, filled with good food and good friends. Here are a few tips for cooking your turkey to perfection!

Thanksgiving Turkey Tips

1. Thaw in a refrigerator in a wide pan.

2. Plan 4 – 5 days for a 20 pound bird to defrost completely.

3. Consider brining your turkey, if you're concerned about overcooking and drying it out.

4. If you’re planning to roast your unstuffed pasture-raised bird, plan about 8 -10 minutes for each pound (because our birds are not injected with water, they don't take as long to cook as store-bought birds).

5. Roast at about 350 degrees F - For a crispy skin, start cooking at 425 degrees for 30 minutes, then lower to 350 for the remaining time.

6. Remove from oven when the turkey temperature is 165 degrees F.

7. Test the temperature at the thigh, where the thickest portion of meat is.

8. Tent the bird under foil for about 20 minutes after it’s removed from oven.

9. Save turkey drippings for the best gravy!

10. Save the bones for homemade broth!

Have some helpful hints of your own you'd like to share? Comment below! Thanks :)

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PS: The turkey tends to steal the show at Thanksgiving, but it wouldn't be the full traditional meal if there weren't stuffing, pumpkin pie, and greens with bacon in the feast, too! Double check the list below - have you got everything you and your family need?

Turkey

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Turkeys

Recipe Ideas

Where to Find Riemer Family Farm Eggs!

Just look for the PINK carton at a grocery store near you! The egg business has been crazy lately to say the least! It seems like every third news story is about the price of eggs and shortages and even thievery of eggs! Who knew there could be so much drama around the humble chicken egg? We partner with a young farm family to produce our seasonally pastured eggs. These hens have a pretty posh life, non-GMO feed, plenty of space, never any cages and are out and about during the growing season. The bird flu outbreak is just another bit of evidence that the industrial food system is very broken! One of the solutions is MORE farmers on the land raising livestock at a family scale and not more concentrated factory agriculture in the U.S. Barns of tens and even hundreds of thousands of chickens are the ones primarily affected by the bird flu for all the obvious reasons! When 150,000 or more birds are together in a barn when one or a few get infected it's a matter of hours before the whole flock is infected and all must be destroyed. Family farms came through for customers during Covid and are proving to be resilient during this current egg problem too! While we are still learning and don't claim to be perfect, we are more sustainable and adaptable than the factory model of farming. Thank you for standing by our farm and other regenerative farms in your area! If you would like to purchase (or dine on) our eggs you can find them at many stores and restaurants! Including: South Central WI: Brodhead Piggly Wiggly Gempeler's Market-Monticello Roy's Market-New Glarus Evansville Piggly Wiggly Oregon Hy-Vee Fitchburg Hy-Vee Cadre restaurant (and others through a distributor) Sunrise Cafe-Monroe N. Illinois: Bull Valley General Store Daily Project Cafe-Algonquin Duck A Diet, Ready to Eat Meals-Huntly Forest Green's Juice Bar-Lake Bluff Just look for the PINK carton. With all the egg shortages from the industrial farms and spiking prices from a fragile industry, our eggs are quite affordable. We will never price gouge. We seek to provide a fair price for both our customers and us. As always you can pick up your eggs on the farm. Please place an order on our website and we will have them ready for you within a day. Make sure that you have Riemer Family Farm as your pickup location.

How do I cook a pasture raised turkey?

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