Mud Oven Thanksgiving.

With the unusually high temperatures we had for the last few days,it seemed like a good time to use our mud oven for some of our Thanksgiving Day meal and avoid having the house be 95 degrees when our guests arrived. Ann started a batch of bread Wedenseday evening and I got busy firing the mud oven. The real key to success is having fire wood that is absolutely dry. Mine was not as dry as it should have been which means I had to fire longer to get the heat up there. We had to keep the bread dough a little cool until I had the oven hot enough.

It only took me about a extra half hour and then the bread went in. As you can see it came out just fine. By the time the bread was done the oven temperature had dropped back to about 275F. so I started firing again while Ann got the turkey ready to go in. We did check before hand to make sure the pan would fit, it was close but do -able. I fired with some nice small wood which was a little drier and was able to slide the turkey in to a 450F. oven about 9:00 pm. Soon after it was off to bed .
  Next morning a trip straight out to the oven was in order. I was glad to see the temp. was still over 250F. When I opened the outer door I was greeted by the very nice aroma of roast turkey. I popped out the inner door and peeked in, every thing looked good.I slide out the pan and Ann lifted off the cover. A beautiful golden brown bird rested inside. Horay, Thanksgiving dinner was on track!
 Ann did her usual fantastic job of cooking and put a great spread on the table as our family gathered here with us.

Other than the turkey most of the meal was grown here on the homestead. We would have butchered  our own turkey but he is a three year old tom so we thought we would buy a younger one.
 We were going to bake the pies in the mud oven to but it needed to be brought back up to a higher temp and we were running out of time. They went in the cook stove oven and came out great also. The best part of having dinner at your house is that you have the left overs!

Has any one ever complained about leftover pumpkin pie? I'm not.