Surprised there isn’t a thread for this yet…or maybe I’m just bad a searching.
I took the turkey carcass out of the fridge and into a stock pot. Added in some leftover chopped carrots and celery. Some parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. (Yes, in that order, of course.) A few garlic cloves. Some leftover pan drippings, and then a bunch of water. Brought it to a boil, then let it simmer for hours.
I need to strain it now, but it looks pretty good so far.
Anyone else making stock today?
And then…what shall I do with it? I don’t usually cook with poultry stock. I put some in a lentil stew, but that seems like a waste. Not sure I want to just make turkey soup. So it might end up in my freezer for a while.
My stock seemed to come out well. But it congealed in the fridge. I guess I needed to scoop more fat off the top while it was simmering?
Anyway, I found a use for some of it - I put it in my lentil stew…I normally use beef broth, but I’ll see how this works instead.
In other news, I finished off the sweet potato casserole and the apple pie today. A little turkey, and a little too much cranberry sauce left still. Eva Luna – that looks yummy. I need to save the recipe for next time I have a carcass lying around!
No, you did it exactly right! Cooling and scraping off the top is, IMHO, much easier than trying to remove the thin layer off the hot liquid.
I might get some cheap turkey this week too. My husband isn’t a big fan, but we did this last year and he maybe didn’t mind it. Ooh, or maybe a ham! I was sick this week, so we cancelled our travel plans and have been eating random leftovers from the freezer.
The entire thing gelatinized, not just fat on the top. It liquifies when heated up, so it’s usable.
I’m eating my lentil stew for breakfast. The turkey stock added a nice extra layer of flavor. It’s a little subtle, but definitely there.
We had a spiral ham, and there’s a lot left over. I’m going to slice some to freeze and bring out for Christmas (shouldn’t do it any harm frozen for 3 weeks), make sandwiches, grind up to make ham & pickle, and of course the bone to make soup.
This morning I picked the last of the meat from the turkey bones. Made turkey salad from the choicest pieces along with some red bell pepper, green onion, celery, mayo, dijon, and cider vinegar.
The rest of the meat is in a bag in the fridge, waiting for the stock I have on the stove now to simmer most of the day, and then rest overnight. Tomorrow is soup day – honestly, the soup is my favorite part of thanksgiving.
We ate the last of the stuffing, potatoes, and green beans yesterday, so aside from a lonely and doomed slice of pumpkin pie and a few slices of cranberry bread, all of the leftovers have been disposed of. I think this is the earliest we’ve ever accomplished that.
We’ve already made stock and frozen it, along with some turkey meat. Been eating turkey sandwiches made with the homemade cranberry relish (which was killer this year), stuffing and mayo. Gotta say, I like the sound of Johnny’s sandwich, though. Turkey pot pies are in our future, as is curry.
I live alone but I love turkey, so I made a whole bird and assorted sides for one. Ate the the best parts (i.e., the wings and the skin off the breast) on the day. The breast meat (my least favorite part) got cut into bite-size pieces and frozen in single-serving baggies; someday it will be vegetable-and-turkey or black-bean-and-turkey soup (I also want to try making pot pies at some point). Thighs got deboned and frozen, to be nuked and served with those bags of seasoned rice when I don’t feel like cooking anything real. The rest of the meat and the leftover sides reappear nightly until gone; I only do this kind of cooking once a year, and I’m perfectly happy eating Thanksgiving dinner 4 days in a row. (I’m actually considering making a second pan of stuffing, which is my second-favorite part of the meal; also I’ve got to use up this celery and milk, which I don’t usually eat.) Normally I would use the carcass for stock, but I wasn’t up for more cooking this year and there wasn’t room in the freezer to save it.
We spatchcocked our turkey (a 15 lb one), and used the backbone and neck to make about 2 quarts of stock, along with onions, celery, carrots, thyme and peppercorns (and maybe a bay leaf; I know I thought about it, but don’t recall if I actually put it in).
My wife ended up making turkey vegetable soup with it and some of the leftover meat. Some of the rest will go to make turkey salad, and anything left will probably end up in tacos of some kind.
I just realized that I’ve got a mason jar with turkey fat and drippings, and another full of stock; enough to make another good-sized batch of gravy for potatoes or biscuits.
We didn’t host, so on Saturday I made a Second Feast, so we can live off the leftovers. That was a ham, a tray of cornbread stuffing, green beans, roast squash, cranberry sauce, and another pie. Blackberry custard, to add to the leftover apple and cherry we brought home.
Ye gods I love cornbread stuffing and cranberry sauce.
