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!