A 19-lb. turkey makes for an impressive centerpiece for a holiday celebration or party and provides enough meat to feed a crowd. If you estimate that each person will 1 1/4 lb. of turkey, your 19-lb. turkey will serve 15 people.

Turkey chops are thin, bone-in 4- to-8-ounce slices cut from the breast of a turkey. The tender chops look and taste much like lamb, veal or pork chops and use similar cooking techniques. However, turkey chops are lower in fat and calories.

Ground turkey is a healthy alternative to ground beef that is usually lower in fat and calories, but supplies just as much protein. Often ground turkey is browned in a skillet before adding to recipes or formed into patties to make a turkey burger.

If you are planning to feed only a small number of guests, you can save on preparation and cooking time by making a small turkey. A small turkey may weigh between 4 to 12 lbs. and only take a couple of hours to roast in the oven. Plan on about 1 lb.

Aluminum foil is a big help when roasting a turkey. Use aluminum foil in one of two ways: enclose the turkey in the foil before roasting it in a hot oven; or, use the foil as a tent to control the level of browning. Enclosing the turkey makes it cook faster, but the turkey skin, though golden, isn't crispy.

Whatever you can cook in your oven using ground beef you can also cook using ground turkey. Just as when you use ground beef, the leaner the meat, the greater the health benefits, but the more care you must take to avoid a dry and tasteless meal.

The pilgrims first celebrated Thanksgiving in 1621, but it took until 1863 for President Lincoln to declare the third Thursday in November as a national day of thanksgiving. It wasn’t until 1941 that Congress declared Thanksgiving a legal holiday and created anxiety for cooks across the country.

Oven bags are manufactured from a high-heat-resistant polyamide film, safe for cooking in the oven and microwave oven. The oven bag keeps the turkey surrounded in its natural juices, producing a moist turkey with more flavor. Cooking your 20-lb.

Traditionally, cooks use peanut oil to fry turkeys because of the flavor it adds, but you can use other common cooking oils. Whichever cooking oil you choose, make sure its smoke point is higher than the 375 degrees Fahrenheit you must maintain to fry the turkey.

The advantage of roasting a turkey in a cooking bag is that it yields a moist, juicy turkey. However, bags are not without their problems. Paper bags are a fire hazard, and roasting bags tend to produce pale turkey skin that sometimes sticks to the bag. An alternative to using a cooking bag is braising the turkey.

Turkey slices, or cutlets, are boneless, skinless, and offer an alternative to chicken breasts or cooking an entire turkey. The cutlets are sliced from the breast, across the grain of the meat and may be up to 99 percent fat free.

Turkey franks are a healthy, low-fat alternative to traditional pork or beef franks. According to Brown University Nutrition Academic Award Program, turkey franks contain 8 to 11 fat g, depending on the brand, while beef and pork franks contain 12 to 18 g.