Sam's Club Smoked Turkey will Travel

After a full week of sickness, missing a week, including the weekend of Christmas shopping and still not feeling 100%, it was a blessing to not have to cook a full gourmet Christmas dinner, since we were heading to my son's for a visit.  I did promise to bring the main course, but with the pressure of wrapping all the gifts we had finally bought in the nick of time, as well as being on a more stringent budget due to pay cuts, I was struggling with what to bring.

Lo and behold, Sam's Club had fully-cooked smoked Butterball turkeys for $9.91 for a ten pound turkey.  It was frozen, so, I defrosted it in the fridge.  I put it in a cooking bag as recommended and cooked it in a convection oven at 350 degrees for two hours.  The drive to Columbus takes a little over two hours, so to keep it warm (at a safe temp) and ready to serve when we arrived, I lined a 5-day cooler with a towel and wrapped the now hot turkey in foil (after emptying most of the cooking liquid in the sink) and placed it in the cooler, topped it with another towel and pot holders to help retain the heat.

We did not take the turkey out of the cooler until about two hours after we arrived.  It was still piping hot. The turkey wasn't as moist as when I brine the turkey, but was still juicy and very good tasting.  The smoked flavor was not overwhelming and everyone enjoyed the turkey.

I give the Butterball fully-cooked smoked turkey four forks and highly recommend it, if you're not into smoking your own turkey or need an easy protein with little to no work.  You could definitely serve this to your mother-in-law without worry.