Viv’s Turkey Soup

This is my mom's turkey soup, with some tweaking by Bryant Fairley

Read all the way through for all the ingredients – before starting!

Save the wishbone, then salvage your turkey bones, cartilage, skin, etc.  Freeze if you’re not ready to make the soup while you’re still stuffed.  Don’t strip the bones off all the meat; it’s good for the stock and the soup.

Use a stock pot – it does make a difference to have a heavy, tall, large pot with a flat bottom (they are truly called Stock Pots).  The flat bottom makes even and high heat conduction, and the height lets the flavours concentrate while holding a large amount. This is a great explanation http://jacquelinechurch.com/essential-kitchen-equipment-a-stock-pot/

Stock is the base liquid that gives soup great flavour.  Use raw vegetables in the stock; they are there for flavour.  The stock needs to cook for a good while: You are extracting the flavours.  Leftover veggies from dinner can be pureed and added to the soup; they make an excellent thickener for rib-sticking warm winter soups.

STOCK

• 1 turkey carcass, broken up
• 4 carrots, chopped
• 4 celery stalks, chopped
• 2 onions, chopped
• Salt and pepper
• Stalks from broccoli, chopped
• Water, enough to cover everything to ¾ full of the stock pot 

Put all the stock ingredients into the pot.  Put on the stove at High and bring to a boil, then turn down to simmer (soft but steady bubbles).  Simmer for 2 hours.

SOUP

Strain the stock through a colander into a large bowl. 

Separate the vegetables and puree them (hand blender, blender, food processor, ricer...)

 

Remove skin and cartilage and discard. 

Strip the meat off the carcass, and chop the meat into smallish pieces.

Put the stock (liquid) back in the stock pot.  Add the pureed vegetables and chopped meat.

To the stock pot add 

(See! These are the ingredients I warned you about at the beginning!)

• Chicken bouillon – one or two cubes or teaspoons of powder
• Bay leaves
• Turnip, cubed
• Broccoli heads, chopped
• Rice/barley/alphabet macaroni
• Mixed vegetables (corn/peas/carrots)*

Simmer till turnip and rice/barley/macaroni are cooked.  *If using frozen vegetables, add just a few minutes before serving.

Cheater S'mores!

Cheater S'Mores!

The best smores are made of campfire gilded marshmallows, Hershey's Milk Chocolate and HoneyMaid graham crackers (if you can find the kind made with honey, even better).

Put two or more squares of chocolate on one graham cracker.  Toast a marshmallow to golden brown.  Place the marshmallow on the chocolate on the cracker, top with a second cracker, and pull the roasting stick out, leaving the hot marshmallow in the sandwich, melting the chocolate.

But sometimes there is no campfire, and - let's be honest - graham crackers can be not to everyone's taste: They aren't that sweet, for one thing.

Here's how to make them indoors and without the mess of chocolate falling out!

8 digestive biscuits with chocolate 

4 marshmallows, regular or jumbo sized.

Heat a toaster oven or oven to a moderate heat.  [You want to melt the chocolate, not cook the cookie because, well, it's already baked.  A second baking would make it biscotti :-)  ]

Put the chocolate digestive biscuits on a tray (line it with parchment paper). Top 4 of them with a marshmallow each.  Pop them in the oven.  Watch closely!  

The marshmallows will puff up and start to turn colour.  You won't get as golden a colour in the big oven as you would over a campfire, but will get some from a toaster oven if the top burner comes on. 

As soon as that happens, take the tray out, pop the empty biscuits on top of the marshmallows and serve!

 Of course, these are also wonderful with campfire marshmallows too!

Makes 4 Cheater S'mores!

My Friend Janice's (tm) Easy non-Cream Creamy Soup

This is just like cream soup but without the fat and with the veggies!

1 head of cauliflower, with the end of the core and the leaves removed*

1 L tetrapak of low-sodium stock (chicken or veggie) 

a light sprinkling of ground nutmeg

(optional) Bay leaf

(optional) chopped onion (or dried onion bits, such as from Victorian Epicure)

• Put the whole cauliflower in a large pot . Pour the stock over it. 
• Bring to a boil, then turn down to simmer
• Cook till the cauliflower is completely and utterly soft
• Whizz it smooth and creamy with a handheld blender

Modifications  Use a big bunch of broccoli, but peel the stalk and chop into two or three chunks.

*The green leaves  are delicious  to crunch on, a bit kale-like.  Or put them and the onion skins in the soup pot too!

"Shortbread, Scotch"

This recipe gains much praise for its flakiness and buttery flavour, without being too rich.  Once, asked for my secret, I confessed it was straight from Joy of Cooking.

"But so are mine, and they're nothing like yours!"  We looked at our books. While the same edition, they had different publishing dates and the recipes ARE different. This is the simplest, and the best. The rice flour is my addition and adds to the flakiness.


My copy of Joy of Cooking is dated 1978. And a bit battered, as you can see!        (NB: there is no 'The' in Joy of Cooking!)

Preheat oven to 325F

Ingredients
1 cup (1/2 lb) butter, at room temperature
2 cups sifted* all-purpose flour
 OR
1-1/2 cups sifted all-purposed flour and 1/2 cup sifted rice flour, then sifted together to make 2 cups
1/2 cup sifted confectioner's sugar (icing sugar).  You could use powdered fruit sugar but I don't find the flavour as good.
1/4 tsp salt (delete if you use salted butter, as most in North America do)


Instructions
Cream the butter (that is, beat steadily to lighten and soften and incorporate air.  A wooden spoon is traditional, a handmixer or Cuisinart do well, and a KitchenAid mixer is superb).

Sift together the flour(s), confectioner's sugar and salt (yes, more sifting!)

Blend the dry ingredients into the butter.  Pat the stiff dough into an ungreased 9x9 pan, or a round greased-and-floured shortbread pan if you are lucky enough to have one.  Press edges down.  Pierce with a fork through the dough every half inch or so - make a pattern!

Bake 25-30 minutes.  Do not let them brown.  Cut into rectangles while warm.

Makes about 20-24 pieces.


Tip:  Sift THEN measure. While there are fancy sifting thingies about, I use the strainer. Tear off a large piece of parchment paper or waxed paper, crease crosswise and sift the dry ingredients onto it.  Then just pick up the paper and use it to slide the dry ingredients into the butter.  Tada!

Spaghetti with Scallops

from Bonnie Stern in Canadian Living @ 1985

1 Tbsp salt & 1 Lb Italian Spaghetti

1/2 best quality olive oil
6 med cloves fresh garlic, finely chopped
1/4 tsp dried red pepper / crushed chilis

1 lb sea scallops, quartered
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 chopped fresh parsley

1/3 c toasted fresh fine bread crumbs

Cook spaghetti until tender with 1 tbsp salt.

In large skillet, heat oil gently (medium low).  Add garlic and red pepper; cook 5 minutes without browning.

Add scallops, salt, black pepper and parsley. Cook 2 minutes until scallops are opaque.

(Meanwhile toast breadcrumbs in separate, dry frying pan on medium-high heat.  Do not burn!)

Drain spaghetti and shake out excess water. Place in deep serving dish. Top with bread crumbs.  Pour scallops and sauce over. Toss until sauce coats all noodles.

Serve immediately.

Serves 4.

Fudge Nougats

These are not real fudge, more of a square, but they are chewy and yummy and, above all, chocolate.  If you use a small pan (8'' x 8") it makes these quite thick, so best to cut them into 1/2-inch bits.  And then eat more :-) 

Mom sent me the recipes, though I had them on my list anyway. The orange zest is new, but yummy.  Peppermint extract has been known to find its way into these too, specially when I was on a peppermint kick a while ago. 

(Mom writes: "How many hundreds of these have I made?"  Many, Mom, many!)

Ingredients

• 1 cup  sugar
• ¾ cup  flour
• ½ cup  butter
• 1 can 15 oz sweetened condensed milk
• 1 cup (6 oz ) semi-sweet chocolate pieces
• Zest of one orange
• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
• ¾ cup chopped pecans (originally walnuts, which are known as "Death to Barbs"
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup miniature marshmallows

Instructions

 

In saucepan, combine sugar, flour, butter and condensed milk. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly; boil 1 minute.

Remove from heat and add remaining ingredients except marshmallows; mix well. Fold in marshmallows. Spread in buttered 12 x 8 inch pan. Cool.

Peanut Butter Nougats

Substitute 1 cup chopped peanuts for the pecans or walnuts.  Add ¼ cup peanut butter with the chocolate pieces.

THE Shrimp Dip

This is the ne plus ultra family recipe.  It has been shared more broadly than we can ever know - certainly across Canada, to spots in the States, to England, and I think even South Africa.

Originally made with Campbell's FROZEN Cream of Shrimp soup (who knew?!), we now stock up on Cream of Shrimp soup whenever anyone travels to the States. 

I think the original recipe came from the label... (Edit: Not that Mom is aware. )

Ingredients

• 1 can cream of shrimp soup
• 1 pkg cream cheese, softened at room temperature (8 oz.  the white Philly stuff)
• 1 clove garlic, crushed (at least one! Mom makes it with more, but everyone has to have some dip!)
• 1 small tin of cocktail shrimp, drained

Instructions

Blend the cream cheese with a Kitchen Aid, Mix Master, beaters etc. until soft.  Add soup, undiluted, and garlic. Blend well.  (Edit: Mom says she adds a bit of soup to start the cream cheese blending more easily).  Fold in the shrimp by hand with a rubber spatula.

Transfer to individual serving bowls, or one large one if you trust there are no double dippers around.  Refrigerate a few hours to let the flavours blend.  (Edit: Mom says she will often make it in the morning for that evening.) Serve with Ruffles potato chips for ultimate shrimp scooping*.  Serves fewer than you'd like, so I recommend doubling the recipe.

*I don't do seafood so I just dip my chips in, avoiding the shrimp *grins*