My goose is cooked!

Over the holidays I read "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens and absolutely loved it. It really helped me to feel the Christmas spirit and made me feel all cozy inside:) Ever since I read the section about the Cratchitt's Christmas dinner, I've wanted to cook a goose. I mean, if Bob Crachitt's family had goose, then I should probably have some, right? Right! Anyway, I wanted to wait until after the holidays to try it so I wouldn't feel stressed about it having to be perfect. You know, since I've never even cooked a turkey, let alone a goose.

I searched high and low and finally found a place that has goose and yesterday I did it! I even went all out, we had a full on Thansgiving style dinner and it was fantastic! Aside from the goose, we had candied yam casserole (oh so yummy! shout out to my fabulous sis-in-law Nicole for supplying the recipe), home-made honey wheat rolls with honey butter (mmm mmm mmm, they were fan-freaking-tastic!), crispy, seasoned potato wedges with a cheesy, sour creamy dipping sauce, and a scrumptious salad including (but not limited to) feta, candied almonds, blackberries and romaine lettuce. We did not forget to have some Martinelli's with our yummy dinner, and we topped it of with a tasty cheesecake made by my friend Danielle (who joined us for dinner with her bf). Here's a pic of the spread



Now, about that goose... wow, what a task! Mostly everything that I found about goose warned about it being greasy if not prepared correctly, so I took every necessary precaution. I think I did too good of a job rendering the fat, because it actually ended up being kinda dry :( Although, I do think I may have cooked it a bit too long. I found a few recipes with a few discrepancies about what temp to cook the goose to, and I cooked it to the higher temp, I'm thinking it would have been better to cook it to the lower one. Anyway, I actually liked the flavor, it tastes a lot like chicken, but has a texture more like beef... very interesting. Here's an up close pic of the final product:



It took about a half hour to prepare the goose for cooking and I roasted it for around 2 1/2 hours. The process was pretty intense though. You don't just put the goose in the oven and then forget it. Every 30 min it needed something done to it. It was a fun experience and I am excited to try making other fancy dishes. Would I cook/have goose again? I think I would! But, probably only in the fall when you can find fresh goose at a reasonable price (this one was expensive! and it was frozen!).

The End. :)