Turkey Soup
Once upon a time Thanksgiving meant 4 days off. And I usually took Wednesday off to cook, so it was a 5-day holiday. Friday after Thanksgiving was our Christmas Decorating Day. None of this shopping at 3 ayem junk. A good nights sleep, and then we decorated until we dropped.
Then we moved east and I changed professions. That luxurious 5 days off is a thing of the past.
But while the days off may have changed, the decorating hasn't. We still get up early and start hauling out the bins. That's "bins" as in plural. Many. A lot.
Merging Christmas Decorations was fun. 17 years of buying even more has been even more fun.
And making Turkey Soup on Decoration Day is the final part of the tradition.
I do not understand people who throw away the turkey carcass! Turkey soup is the whole reason for roasting a turkey in the first place! It is the best part of the feast.
Thanksgiving evening, I break out the stock pot and into it goes the carcass, a couple of onions - skin and all - plus celery, garlic cloves, and carrots - also unpeeled. The skins and peels add flavor and color to the stock. I usually add a bit of gravy to the pot, as well. I make a lot of gravy.
I let it simmer overnight - it's a big pot and not about to boil dry - and the following afternoon I strain it all and have the base for several batches of soup. I portion it up and freeze some and the rest is for the leftover soup.
Leftover Soup. I call it that but could just as easily call it clean out the refrigerator soup. Same concept. Everything goes into the pot.
Today's batch included the leftover risotto from the appetizers, stuffing, spinach, and turkey, plus leeks, carrots, celery, white beans, red-skinned potatoes, mushrooms, peas, green beans, and a bit of salt and pepper.
Clean out the 'fridge, indeed.
We're slowing down a bit with the decorating. The number of bins has continued to grow and it's taking us two days now to get everything done, but the soup just continues to get better with age. Of course, it doesn't take any effort.
And speaking of decorating...
About 5 years ago we finally went out and got an artificial tree. I know... I know... We thought the same thing. No Way! Travesty! What we finally figured out, though, is the tree really is all about the ornaments. Virtually every ornament on our tree comes with a story... We have handmade ornaments, ornaments bought on our travels, family ornaments, beautiful gifts from friends, and the first two ornaments we exchanged on our first Christmas - that always go on the tree first.
Some of the ornaments really are priceless to us and we just wanted to take as good care as we could with them. It works for us.
And I don't miss cleaning up the needles...
Hot Turkey Sandwiches
The cold from hell has re-reared its ugly head. That fleeting moment of almost feeling human has deserted me. I'm back to feeling like I just went ten rounds with Muhammad Ali. Oh joy. Oh rapture.
The taste buds and the sense of smell deserted me, as well. How can I be comforted by comfort food if I can't taste it?!? Heck, I can handle being sick, add another ladle of whatever to the bowl, please. But unable to taste?!? That's downright unfair.
It was with this inability to taste that I approached dinner tonight.
I had to go out and shop for Victor's mom this morning. I pulled myself together fairly well... at least well enough that children wouldn't run screaming when they saw me. That's one of those things I can generally turn on or off at will. It's hell when it's stuck in the on position. Kinda like when the verbal filters fail when speaking with your boss.
But I digress...
I picked up mom's groceries and dropped them off along with a small heart-shaped box of Hershey Miniatures that she's not supposed to have. She's 85. I told her not to eat them all today and not to tell.
On the way home I decided to pick up a couple of things for us. Shopping is great when you have no appetite, can't taste, or smell. The cart was pretty empty. But I did notice a fresh turkey breast on sale. a 9lb turkey breast for 9 bucks?!? From a local family owned farm? SOLD!
Okay. Scratch the last part. Shady Brook Farm - local place with great reputation and a lot of fun is NOT the same as Shady Brook FARMS which is part of Cargill Meat Solutions.
Meat Solutions. That's their name. Cargill Meat Solutions. I didn't know meat needed a solution. Of course, if everything wasn't factory-farmed there wouldn't be problems that needed solutions.
I'm going to blame this one on illness.
But back when I was all excited about a fresh turkey breast for dinner, I bought a loaf of country white bread to make dressing. I mean, I'll be on my death bed and not use store-bought croutons. But as the day wore on, my desire to make the dressing went away. Since I wasn't that hungry anyway, turkey, mashed potatoes, and peas would work just fine.
Victor is being good. He's trying not to hover and only asks about a dozen times if I need any help with anything.
Just as I'm getting ready to get everything on the plates, I see the bread. Hot Turkey Sandwiches flash in my mind.
Done.
We even had a can of whole-berry cranberry sauce in the cupboard.
So dinner was a success. I couldn't taste anything but the textures were comforting.
And I think it's getting to be time to crawl back into bed.
Turkey Soup
Lobster one day, soup the next. It's just the way of things around here.
But hi-brow or low-brow, it's always fun.
Tomight's dinner came completely out of the freezer. Well, almost. The carrots were fresh.
I had a small container of turkey soup from Thanksgiving, a small container of turkey gravy - also from Thanksgiving, and a container of chicken stock from whenever.
All three went into a big pot. I let it come to a boil, added some shell macaroni and a couple of sliced carrots.
I warmed up the bread from a couple of days ago and dinner was served.
It was the perfect for the weather - getting cold outside, again - and the perfect meal to balance the food-a-thon we had yesterday.
Oh. And there's more cheesecake for dessert.
Turkey Soup
This has to be the best part of Thanksgiving... well... besides all the other best parts, that is... It's hard to top a turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce and stuffing on squishy white bread, but the turkey soup is something I look forward to the minute I start thinking about a turkey.
It's a childhood-memory-thing. Soups were definitely a mainstay growing up and I can see that big oval pot my mother used to cook down the carcass and make her soup. Everything went in it. Just as I make it, today...
I started by simmering the carcass all day yesterday. I threw in a couple of bay leaves, a quartered onion, skin and all (the onion skins help make a nice, deep-colored broth) and the ends of celery and carrots, and a bit of sage. Those trimmings you'd probably toss make for great soup stock.
After straining it, it went into the 'fridge. Today, I scraped off the thin layer of fat and started heating it.
To the pot I added about 3 cups of turkey gravy and then chopped carrots, celery, potatoes, a lot of turkey meat, and all those partial bags of frozen vegetables... peas, corn, green beans, and spinach.
A bit of salt and pepper was the only seasoning it needed.
Soup really may be the easiest food to make - and in our house, at least - the perfect comfort-food when the weather starts turning cold.
I froze half the broth for another soup, another day. I haven't made Mulligatawny in quite a while.....
The Day After
The upside of not hosting a holiday dinner is the chaos, confusion, and dirty dishes are all at someone else's home. The downside is all the leftovers are there, too. I like holiday leftovers. So, today, we created our own.
The day after Thanksgiving... Black Friday. Shoppers frenzy. We don't leave the house.
This is Christmas Decorating Day!
We're definitely a couple of Santa's Elves when it comes to decorating. It's just a lot of fun. We have so many decorations it's frightening. There's a dozen huge plastic bins in the basement, plus all the stuff that doesn't fit in bins- the wreaths, and all that stuff... It's a lot of work just getting the bins up the stairs.
And then the fun starts as we open each one and go through every Santa, every ornament, and figure out where they're going to go this year.
This year is especially different because we rearranged the whole living room after finally getting drapes for the front window. Everything needs a new home.
We're crazy, I know, but it's a fun sort of crazy.
So... in-between hauling bins upstairs, emptying them and bringing them back down, I had to deal with our lack of leftovers.
I cooked a turkey. And dressing. And gravy. And mashed potatoes...
A feast.
I had made cranberry sauce on Wednesday and pumpkin rolls yesterday.
A feast, indeed.
The turkey came out great. I broke the whole carcass down, packaged the meat, and have the carcass simmering away right now for a big Sunday Soup - my favorite part of Thanksgiving - other than the sandwiches tomorrow...
There's also pumpkin pie in the 'fridge for later.
But not too much later... I'm ready for bed.
Turkey Soup
It was sunny and mid-70's today.
I made soup.
Even though it wasn't totally weather-relevant, it tasted great.
The broth was the boiled-down carcass with everything in the kitchen I wanted to get rid of. There was part of an onion, onion skins, garlic, part of a head of lettuce, celery bulb, carrot ends and peels... Odds-and-ends from containers of this-and-that. Seriously clean-out-the-refrigerator.
It made a damned good base! This is the kind of stuff you really can't screw up. It's what every decent restaurant in the world does - boils down that stuff that would otherwise go down the garbage disposal. Other than a little salt and pepper, I don't add any herbs or spices at this point...
The soup itself was chopped carrot, chopped celery, chopped swiss chard, Italian green beans, peas, a can of hominy, and two pastas - pastina and 0's. herb-wise I added a bit more garlic and some dill. And salt and pepper.
And we had a half-loaf of bread from last night.
Good stuff.
Turkey Club
What do you do when you have turkey and are not quite in the mood for turkey a la king or turkey tetrazzini?!?
Make a Turkey Club!
I really love a good clubhouse sandwich, but rarely order one out anymore because it seems they're all made with turkey roll. If I want lunch-meat, I'll buy lunch-meat. A Turkey Club should be made with hand-carved fresh-roasted turkey. And thick-sliced bacon. And fresh ripe tomatoes. Crisp iceberg lettuce. Mayonnaise. Toast.
As basic as basic can be. There really is no big trick. A couple of good, quality ingredients make for a fantastic sandwich.
And I do have to admit that these were pretty good sandwiches.Neither of us cleaned our plates, but we did a good job trying!
And those sweet potatoes?!?
Even better than last night!
Turkey Dinner
A perfectly drismal day. Dreary, dismal, cold, rain... Perfect for a quick shopping trip and back home. Well... not that quick of a shopping trip. Victor went shopping with me, today!
I do the majority of the grocery shopping. I also do most of the cooking. It's one of those divisions-of-labor that couples consciously or unconsciously make. Victor does the laundry. I always have clean clothes, he always has a hot meal. It works for us.
But when the two of us are in a store together?!? Uh-oh...
We tend to encourage the other to buy things and spend money. I'm bad enough on my own - but with the two of us?!? You want Sicilian Blood Orange Marmalade? It costs $12.99 so you're not going to buy it? Go get a jar. It will be our one extravagance this trip.
Sold. We'll add it to the collection of fabulous foods we need to eat one of these days.
So while I was shopping the store with my Wegmans iPhone app grocery list (arranged by aisle and department, thankyouverymuch!!!) Victor was perusing the Italian dinnerware. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the only one he liked was open stock for a dinner plate, salad plate, and soup bowl for $185.00, give or take... Since we would need 4 of each to match our numerous other sets of 4 of each, we decided we really didn't have a place to put them. Or the $740.00 plus tax. They were nice plates. Just not that nice.
Back to that iPhone app for a moment... It's marketing genius. Search for products, add them to your list, bring up past register receipts and click on items to add to your list... And the final saved list is grouped by aisle and department. It's a tech-junkie's paradise. I found several items that I knew I would be needing soon for the holidays and picked them up today. I had no idea they even carried the stuff until I went through the list. Marketing genius.
Because the app drew me over to the meat section to get suet for my Christmas puddings, I espied a fresh turkey breast. Dinner tonight, sandwiches, a big pot of turkey soup... a lot of meals can be made from one of those. Sold.
I have to admit I restrained myself a lot with this. Turkey can often just take on a life of its own... Dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, vegetables, gravy, cranberry sauce... Craziness can (usually does) ensue. Tonight, I made turkey, sweet potatoes, peas and gravy. That's all.
It was more than enough!
The sweet potatoes were the star tonight.
I peeled and sliced the potatoes and put them into a big bowl with a half-cup of flour. Coated them well.
Meanwhile, I took 6 tbsp butter, 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, a half-teaspoon of cinnamon, and a half-teaspoon of ginger, and placed it in a small saucepan and brought it all to a boil.
I took the floured potatoes, placed them in a buttered pie plate and drizzled the sauce over them, covered the plate with foil, and baked at 350° for an hour.
They were really good.
They made enough for 6 people, easily, so we'll be enjoying them for another day or two.
Drismal outside, fun inside.
Life is good.