food

Last weekend, I cooked our extra Thanksgiving turkey from last year.  It came out beautiful.  We had turkey dinner, I reserved the dark portions for later, and then I tossed the carcass into the crock pot after picking it clean of its meat, which we ate for a couple of days before most of the rest ended up being stirfried with spices and rice and then tossed into reheatable portions in the freezer.  The next day, I strained out the crock pot goodness and stuck the gelatinous ooze into the fridge.

Today, I heated up the reserved dark portions of meat - the drumsticks and wings and thighs - and while that was going, cooked up some taters and divvied up the ooze to be frozen for later gravies and soups.  I kept some aside and made gravy for the taters.

Multitasker that I am, I then sat down at the counter with the crock pot and a plate of potatoes with gravy.  I took one drumstick and began to pick the meat off it.  Some went in a bowl for later soup, some went to the cats, and some went into me as I ate the potatoes and gravy.  I discarded the bones and gristle and other such things into the crock pot.  I repeated with each darkmeat piece until it was all gone.

When I was done with my breakfast, I took an aging onion, chopped it up, and then chopped up a carrot and threw in the potato peelings, some spices, a bit of salt... and filled it with water.  The cover went on, I set it to high, and then I set to work on the breadmaker.  I set that to start a few hours later so the bread would be as fresh as I could get it compared to when Dale gets back.  I have no idea when he'll be back, actually, so I guessed.

Hungry from the smells of everything, I just stole some broth and a few pieces of very tender onion from the crock.  The broth is a little weak right now, so I added a bit of soy sauce, srichi, fish sauce, and hoisin.  Then I went outside and snagged some green onions and a bit of cilantro (which I was surprised is popping up on its own... it must have seeded itself last year, yay).

It always amazes me how easy it is to make fresh, wonderfully complex soup out of bones, veggies, and a splash of a few premade sauces.  Quite frankly, the soup is the easy part of the turkey... picking the meat off the bones is the most time-consuming part.  Turkeys have a LOT of freakin' meat on them!!  On the other hand, the meat can be frozen and makes excellent stir-fries when you're finally in the mood for turkey again.  So it saves time later... and it's probably a heck of a lot healthier and/or cheaper than stuff prepared for you.

Anywho, back to it I go.  The bread is rising in the maker and I've got the dishwasher going.  Oh yeah and I have some beans soaking, too.  I was thinking of turkey bean soup with fresh bread tonight.  Dale ran a marathon.  I figure he needs some protein and carbs.  I know /I/ want them.  Sure do burn a lot of calories sitting around on one's butt all day long playing games on the computer and eating homemade soup... har har

~nv