Girls Night In with Turducken | chicago foodie girl

1.25.2016

Girls Night In with Turducken

After the holiday craziness has finally died down and before the stress/planning frenzy of the new year kicks in (new semester! birthdays! more holidays!), Diana and I traditionally designate a welcome-to-the-new-year girls night out (aka a night in which we get drunk, eat way too much, make a ridiculous number of inappropriate jokes, and then laugh almost nonstop because we're obviously the most hilarious people ever). Typically, our shenanigans take place at one of our favorite restaurants (and yes, the servers really do love us), but this year, we decided to make it a girls night in complete with movies and cooking at Diana's fab new condo.

Now to some, spending time in a kitchen may not sound like much of an exciting girls night, but Diana and I do greatly enjoy our joint cooking adventures (plus, we're hilarious when we're together, remember?!), especially when they involve copious amounts of alcohol and meat... *enter the Turducken*. Yes, the Turducken: aka a turkey stuffed with duck stuffed with chicken. The moment the fine folks at Echelon Foods contacted me to see if I would be interested in sampling one of their newest versions of their Turducken Premium Roast, I knew that our girls night in would be the perfect opportunity for this legendary triple stuffed meat extravaganza!

We kicked off our epic night in with a round of spicy Micheladas, courtesy of our friend Margaret over at Ketch on Fire. How fantastic are these glasses?!

An evening of cooking requires a massive spread of appetizers (the Turducken Roast does take five hours to cook, after all!). 

As our Turducken roasted, we kicked back with a few rounds of Moscow Mules, made with Cherry Ginger Beer (yes, we're hanging out in our pjs - that's the beauty of girls night in!).

After five hours, numerous cocktails, countless episodes of The Great British Cooking Show, and oodles of cheese, we pulled this bad boy out of the oven. *Ta-da!* Notice I mentioned nothing about prepping the Turducken... that's because there is no prep work other than taking it out of its wrapper! The Echelon Turducken Roast comes pre-flavored with a spiced rub, completely deboned, assembled, and ready to roast. Basically, you throw it in the oven, set a timer, and forget about it (or in our case, imbibe!). Easiest roast ever!

 Echelon offers three varieties of their Turducken Roast, including the Bacon Wrapped Roast, stuffed with Italian sausage (because turkey, duck, and chicken is clearly not enough meat!).

Just look at that crispy bacon blanket!

Besides the no prep/easy cooking process, we both really liked that the meats are so well layered. Under the crispy bacon is a thick layer of turkey, followed by a layer of Italian sausage, and then smaller layers of chicken and duck. If you slice down the center, you get a perfect mix of all the meats; if you'd rather not have everything at once, you can easily take pieces of the individual meats from the top down. We also enjoyed how flavorful and tender each layer was (it cooks in its own juices) - individually or all together, each type of meat was really quite delicious!

As we had been snacking all day and didn't want to go overboard on the sides, Diana threw together a simple Pecan Sweet Potato Casserole, which perfectly complemented the rich meat.

Jumbo gooey marshmallows are the best!

We ended our epic foodie night with a batch of these delicious and totally adorable Cherry Pie Cookies.

While everything we ate and drank during our fab girls night in was fantastic, really, the Turducken was the star of the show. I've always wanted to try a Turducken, but quite honestly, I had no interest in putting one together on my own - the fact that the Echelon Turducken Roast is completely assembled and ready-to-cook is a *huge* selling point in my eyes. Along with the fact that it's super easy to make, it really is delicious and such a fun alternative to the same ol' (slightly boring) turkey. The only major downside to the Turducken is that is will make you very, very sleepy... it's like a turkey x10. Also, the price tag may turn some off, but keep in mind that this hefty roast serves 8-10. Considering the lack of prep work and portion sizes (not to mention the wow factor), both Diana and I agreed that it's definitely worth the price!

Disclosure: I received a complimentary product to facilitate this post. Review and all opinions are my own. 


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