Do yourself a favor with turkeys and part them out. Breast meat and thigh/leg meat do not cook at the same speed...this is a reason you have been a fan of "dark" meat your whole life. After that, there are a ton of great ways to handle wild turkey. My personal favorite methods are as follows.
1. Brine the breast and make turkey schnitzel. This is almost imposible to mess up. Bread it, fry it. Then add lemon and chifonaded parsley if you wanna get fancy. A close relative to this recipe is to make spicy turkey nuggets,
I posted that whole recipe here.
2. For the legs/wings, you have a few different options, but in my mind all of them involve low temps, high moisture, and a lot of time. These pieces of meat can be very tough, but are some of the most flavorful when handled in a way that breaks down the connective tissues. Think pulled pork type applications. Tamales, tagine, and caseroles are great options. If you should a young bird (like I stupidly did this year), then of course you can do some simpler baked preperations. I just personally like things that really stretch out the use of the bird.
3.As for the back (and whatever is left of the neck), I usually make stock. It's a great way to add a ton of flavor to whatever other dishes you might make throughout the year (or just a way of having a killer base for soup when you get home too tired to manage much else). In a deep roasting pan, or oven safe stockpot, place your turkey back, some chunks of onion, and a few cloves of garlic. Lightly salt and sprinkle with olive oil. Roast in an oven at 350 for an hour or so; until the meat is well browned on the outside. Deglaze the pot with a small amount of water to get all that browned goodness off of the bottom of the pot and into your pan (this also makes dishes easier). Cover with a whole bunch of water and simmer this on the stove-top for...a long time. When the stock hits the flavor intensity you are looking for, remove all the solids from the liquids and freeze in 2 quart plastic lidded containers (mason jars have a tendency to break).
Do not. I repeat DO NOT throw out your feet. Blanch them for a minute in boiling water, and peel them. Toss these into the stockpot during the simmering phase, this addition to your stock will add a silkiness that you just can't get elsewhere (it's the gelatin). One Bird makes 4-6 quarts of stock. The meat can be picked and utilized, but will lack most of its flavor at this point, so I'd advise you use that in heavily spiced dishes to compensate.
Once you start taking your birds apart you will have a whole world of options open up to you. Start messing around with it and tell us how it turns out.
