Turkey Soup/Turkey Potpie and the Turkey Crack Whore

This was my first year to host Thanksgiving. This was the first time I cooked a turkey. Not just any turkey, but a twenty-one pound organically fed, no antibiotics given, free-range Whole Foods turkey, kind of Thanksgiving. We have never started small in my family.

Despite all my minor and major freak-outs and stressful moments, Thanksgiving Day went off without a hitch. We ate with in 15minutes to my estimated time, people had seconds, thirds, and M said it as the best Thanksgiving dinner he ever ate (and if he is smart he will continue to have the ‘best Thanksgiving dinner ever’ every year I cook).

I learned two unanticipated lessons from this Thanksgiving. The first being, the one dish I did entirely on my own with no help, prep, from anyone one but myself, was the one that I was most disappointed in. The sweet potatoes. It wasn’t the recipe or the flavors that disappointed me but my own personal mistake. I didn’t have enough olive oil on the roasting pan and the sweet potatoes over browned on their bottoms. Goes to show that sometimes doing something on your own isn’t always the best way. The second lesson I learned was that leftovers, i.e. the opportunity to make turkey soup was the best part of hosting Thanksgiving. The sweet reward to my tired feet and aching back of non-stop cooking on Thanksgiving was rewarded on Friday evening with the slurping of Turkey soup.

Here’s how I made my turkey soup. I can only assume it is basic because it seemed pretty simple and tasty to me.

Take the turkey carcass, and place in pot. In my case the turkey carcass was bigger than my largest pot so I split in half in order to fit it all in the same pot. I added water, to make the turkey stock. Once the turkey was falling off the bone, I let the pot cool. I removed the carcass and strained out all the stock into smaller pot. I picked off all the turkey from the carcass, and removed the stray stuffing that had gotten in the mix. I replaced all the turkey in the smaller pot with the stock and refrigerated over night. On Friday evening, removed the pot from the refrigerator skimmed off all the coagulated fat from the top then placed on the stovetop to heat up. I added chopped onion, celery and carrots to the pot and some additional water and chicken stock. I let everything simmer together till the vegetables were cooked. To give the soup a hearty feel but without adding the typical noodles; I boiled up some dried mini-cheese ravioli. I served the soup topped with a sprinkling of pecorino romano cheese.

The other leftover creation I made from the turkey was a turkey potpie. I followed the guidance in one of the basic cookbooks in my collection. I used a ready-made piecrust (we made all our own pie crusts for the Thanksgiving pies) turkey, chicken broth, milk, flour and veggies I had on hand. It really was a quick and easy way to use up more of the turkey, since it only took about 15 minutes once I popped it in the oven. In the future I would add mushrooms and perhaps red peppers.

All this turkey has made the feline in our home a fiend. She looooves turkey. She craves turkey. She won’t let me open up a container of leftover turkey without whining at me incessantly. Sometimes I feel like her dealer, but mostly I am just grateful for the help with the leftovers.