Turkey Vegetable Soup

There is no wrong time of year to make soup. At least that's what I think. I love soup. I could eat it every day. Seriously. My dad told me once, that when I was a kid, I used to try to order soup with every meal when we'd go out. Of course, I also tried to order the most expensive on the menu, but that's another story (and really, who could blame me? It always sounded good).

I started making my own broth from chicken and turkey bones only a few years ago, and I've never gone any other way. It's so wonderful. And the beauty of it is, you can make it with any spices you want, or none at all. You can what you want, you can take away what you don't want. This particular version, I went with the less is more method. By the time I started working on this broth, I was pretty tired, but I made it, and just added what I had on hand, or what I wanted. It's nice and warming during the winter and the broth is great to keep handy for future recipes (which I did). You can do this with leftover chicken or turkey carcasses (I haven't made any beef or pork broth yet, so I'm not really clear on how to pull that off).

Turkey Vegetable Soup

For the Broth:
1 Turkey carcass with a little meat left on it
2 celery stalks, cut in halves or thirds
2 carrots, cut in halves or thirds
1 onion, quartered
about 3-4 garlic cloves, quartered
Any spices you like (I use Poultry Seasoning, Thyme, Oregano, Parsley and Celery Seed)
Sea Salt
Pepper
2 bay leaves

Heat the oven to 375 degrees ( I sometimes will go higher, but I like mine to get almost burned before I use it, it also depends on how much meat you have on there). Spray a pan that will fit your turkey carcass with non-stick coating. Place turkey carcass in the pan and put in the over for 1-2 hours. I do really like my bones to be crispy. But make sure they are roasted well.

Boil water in a large pot - for as much broth as you want. I use a couple gallons at least. You can do this one of two ways - put the carcass directly in the pot of water, or wrap it in some cheesecloth. I put mine directly into the water. add the vegetables, and spices, salt, pepper and bay leaves.

Turn down to simmer. I leave mine for a couple of hours to get maximum flavor. Sometimes, after I do that, I will add some water to the broth so there is even more for other cooking projects. Not too much water, but maybe a few cups or so. It doesn't dilute it too much.

Remove the carcass and vegetables from the pot. Put them on a plate and let them cool before tossing them out. At this time, you should have a beautiful golden broth, somewhat like this:

Now, is when you get to be creative. I do not make measurements, because it's up to you. But here are some options to add.

For the Soup:
Celery
Carrots
Onion
Garlic
Turnips
Potatoes
Mushrooms
Green Beans
Snow peas
Kidney Beans
Corn
Tomatoes
Fresh noodles
Wild rice

The list is really endless (and yes, I have put all this stuff in my soup at one time before, and it was fantastic)

Also add some turkey meat to it. Usually about two cups or so will do you just fine. Cook it until just heated through. Then, you'll have a very good soup, and it freezes extremely well.

This particular batch, I ended up using the leftover veggies and turkey from the Pasties I made the night before. And it turned out just fine. I hope you enjoy yours.

Turkey Pasties

No, this isn't a mis-spelling. It's not supposed to be pastries. Pasty. Pasties. The idea just makes me giggle. With more leftover turkey, I decided that my husband and I were going to make these. He helped me with the crust.

But first, let me tell you a story. Pull up a pillow and your blanky and get comfy. It's not long, but it's kind of cool. My husband is of Welsh/Cornish descent. He remembers Christmas Eve with his Grandma making Pasties. There were made with beef and potatoes. They are filled pie crust and almost look like Calzones. The husband told me that his Grandma used to make these for his Grandpa for lunch. They would be wrapped in tinfoil, and they were perfect to take down in the mines in Montana. You could eat them with one hand, and generally, they were still warm at lunchtime.

Since I have met the husband, he has been telling me how wonderful these pasties were. I thought about them, and even one time, my mom and I went for high tea, and they were served. While they were good, they were somewhat dry. I found out later that they should not have been. so, every year, I have been hoping that the husband would make them for me around Christmas time. He never has. So I finally asked him why not. He told me that while he watched his grandma make them, he never learned how. So, with that in mind, and leftover turkey in mind, I looked for a recipe so I could make these special treats for him.

I found a recipe that sounded easy enough for a beginner, yet yummy enough to work for the husband without beef or traditional. I ran it by him and he said it sounded good. I got this recipe from Leftover Lovers.

Leftover Turkey Pasties

Ingredients: 

For the filling

• 1 cup carrots, sliced in 1/4″ rounds
• 1/2 cup celery stalks, sliced 1/4″
• 1 Tbsp. water
• 4 Tbsp. butter or margarine
• 2 tsp chicken bouillon granules
• 1/4 tsp poultry seasoning
• 4 medium potatoes, peeled and diced*
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 2 cups leftover turkey, chopped
• salt and pepper (to taste)

For the dough**
Use leftover pie crust or use the following ingredients:

• 1 cup shortening
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 3 cups flour
• 6 T water

Preparation:

In a skillet, sauté the carrots and celery in the water, butter, and chicken bouillon for 5 minutes.

The one that would eventually belong to the husband

The one that would eventually be mine

Add potatoes, onion, leftover turkey meat and poultry seasoning.

Potatoes and onions

Turnips and onions

 

Husband's potato mixture

 

my turnip mixture

Salt and pepper and mix well.
Divide into fourths.
Mix dough ingredients and roll into four 10- inch circles.
Put the meat mixture on one side of the dough.

Husband's pasty

my pasty

Fold the other half of the dough over and seal with fingers or a fork.

two down, two to go

Aren't they so cute and shiny?

Bake 1 hour at 375°.

The beautifully finished product. Husband said they were perfect. And wonderful.

Our initials are forked in on the top so we could tell who's was who's.

Serves 4.

*I mixed this up a little. Potatoes, as we all know, can be the devil for us diabetics, so I have learned to substitute turnips. They don't taste bad in most cases, and can easily be substituted with no taste or texture difference. I gave the husband two potatoes and I ate two turnips. 

**I used a pre-made refrigerated crust. We rolled it into balls and rolled it out with a rolling pin, cut each one in half, and used it that way.

Turkey Salad Sandwich

Now that I was done with Christmas dinner, and I had taken apart the turkey and put it in a big Tupperware for later use. So then began the long process of figuring out which recipes sounded good enough and good enough for me to use. I settled on turkey salad sandwiches, turkey soup, turkey pasties, turkey and brown rice casserole, and turkey pot pie. Yeah, that's a lot of nights (and lunches) of turkey.

The first night after Christmas, I had to work, so I thought the turkey salad sandwiches would be the quickest and easiest to make and eat.I was right. This recipe is so good, that I have started making it to take in my lunches, with chicken instead of turkey (because really, who has time to make a turkey every week?) I got this recipe from Closet Cooking, which is an awesome cooking site with all kinds of experimental (but not always good for diabetics) ingredients that I never would have thought of using in my food. Plus, his blog writing is really fun, his story about he started cooking is interesting, too.

Also, when looking for bread to have with this sandwich, I came across this stuff by Orowheat, called Double Fiber bread. It's awesome. It's light, fluffy, soft, and has a good flavor. I can have two pieces for the carbs of one. So instead of having the requisite one piece of bread for my sandwich with 20 carbs, I can have 2. (this is with fiber included in the count). It works great for keeping this sandwich healthy, and it actually makes good toast (which is something I crave a lot of, but never have). I added a picture of the bag so you can find it too.

Turkey Salad Sandwich

Ingredients:
1 cup cooked turkey (shredded)
1/2 apple (cored and diced)
1 stalk celery (chopped)
1 green onion (chopped, or red)
1 tablespoon pecans (toasted and coarsely chopped)
1 tablespoon dried cranberries
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 splash lemon juice
2 leaves sage (chopped)
salt and pepper to taste
2 leaves lettuce
2 slices bread

Directions:
1. Mix everything but the lettuce and bread in a bowl.
2. Assemble sandwich.

 

Yummy sandwich

Great Bread

 

More yummy sandwich

 

And now... it looks at you and says..."EAT ME!"

Enjoy and Happy New Year!

Low-Carb Pumpkin Cheesecake

I wanted cheesecake. I wanted pumpkin pie. What could be better than having pumpkin cheesecake? Well, it's not exactly the best thing for me, I'm afraid. Even eaten in small portions. So, luckily, I found this Low-Carb recipe for pumpkin cheesecake. It's not very sweet, but it's very rich and very thick and creamy. And pumpkinny. I made it for our Christmas dessert. Unfortunately, we were both too full to have any on that day, so I have been having it with my lunches every day since. It hasn't caused a sugar spike, so that has to be good, right?

This is pretty easy to make, just kind of time consuming. I used fresh pumpkin in mine, so I just measured out the same amount that it asks for. I find that usually gives it a richer, fresher flavor than the canned stuff. Make sure it is really well mixed. Sometimes, I don't end up mixing mine well enough and I get chunks of cream cheese that separate from the rest a little. And make sure you really scrape the sides often while mixing. My mixes tend to slough off on the side and stick.

I hope that if you make this, you really enjoy it. I am pretty sure you can add more Splenda than I did. It can be really tasty and the nut crust give it a really interesting flavor. I got this recipe from 500 Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Butter
1/2 Cup pecans, coarsely chopped
2 packages (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened (I use Neufchatel, it's lower in fat and tastes EXACTLY the same)
1/2 to 3/4 cup Splenda sweetener
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups pure canned pumpkin
1/2 cup sour cream
4 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground gloves
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees
Butter thebotom and sides of a 9 1/2-inch springform cheesecake pan. Sprinkle the botom of the pan with chopped pecans, distributing them evenly.

In a large mixing bowl, use an electic mixer to beat the cream cheese, Splenda, and vanilla until fluffy, stopping occasionally to scrape the sides of the bowl and beaters.

Add the pumpkin and sour cream, mixing thoroughly on medium speed.

 

Add the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly between each one. Mix the cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and salt. 

Pour the batter over the nuts in the pan.

Bake for 60 to70 minutes, or until a knife placed in the center comes out clean.

Cool for 20 minutes before removing from the pan, and chill for at least 2 hours before serving.

Mom's Stuffing

Warning: This is NOT diabetic friendly, unless you eat it in very small amounts (like 1/2 cup).

This is my favorite stuffing ever. It's my mom's recipe, and it's fabulous. I hated stuffing when I was a kid, but grew to love it. Especially once it was not cooked in the bird anymore (yuck!) My mom told me that if you plan on putting this stuffing into the turkey, to make it a little dryer, but if you want to leave it out, add a little more chicken broth. I found that I actually didn't need to add any, it was perfect for me.

So, here is the recipe:

Mom's Stuffing

2 cubes butter
1 whole box Mrs. Cubbison's cubed stuffing (not corn bread and not torn bread), this comes seasoned
2 cans chicken broth*
2 cups chopped celery
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 Tablespoon poultry seasoning

Melt one cube of butter in large skillet or deep pan, add onions and celery.

Cook until opaque.

Stir in 1 tablespoon poultry seasoning.
Add 1 can chicken broth and the other cube of butter. Stir, heat, melt.

 In a large bowl put bread crumbs and pour mix over it, stirring until mixed well. If it's dry add some more chicken broth, until you reach the desired consistency that you want.

Bake @ 325 degrees for 25 min covered
Cook for another 20 min uncovered.

*If you do not used canned chicken broth (I don't, I use Better Than Bullion), each can is 10 1/2 oz. 

Gingered Cranberry Chutney

You'll have to forgive me, some recipes I have, I've gotten online, but I didn't keep track of where I got them from and I can't remember to save my life. So, if you happen to see something that sounds like a recipe that you have posted or you know who posted, please let me know, and I will happily give credit where credit is due.

This happens to be one of those recipes. I had been on the hunt for a good cranberry chutney recipe for ages, and finally found this one. Ah... I found it - All Recipes. Anyway, this has brown sugar in it, but I just substituted Spenda Brown Sugar to make it more diabetic friendly. It worked wonderfully.

This chutney is good on chicken, pork, and turkey. I also made this last year, put it in a jar and froze it. It was still amazingly wonderful when I defrosted it and at it at Christmas. I hope you enjoy it.

Gingered Cranberry Chutney

1 cup packed brown sugar*

1/3 cup red wine vinegar or cider vinegar

1/2 teaspoon fresh ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 pounds fresh pears, peeled and diced

1 (12 ounce) package fresh or frozen

cranberries

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

In a large saucepan, combine the brown sugar, vinegar, ginger, cayenne and salt. Bring to a boil. Add pears. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until pears are tender. Strain, reserving liquid. Return liquid to pan. Discard ginger root; set pears aside. Stir cranberries into pan. Cook over medium heat until berries pop, about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Strain berries, reserving liquid. Return liquid to pan; set berries aside. Bring liquid to a boil; cook, uncovered, until liquid is reduced to 1/2 cup. Stir in pears, cranberries and cinnamon. Serve warm or cold. Store in the refrigerator.

*I used 1/2 Cup of Splenda Brown Sugar, it worked just fine.

Brined Turkey

Ok, we're gonna start this recipe extravaganza here with the recipe I used for my brined turkey. i didn't stray too far from this recipe, since it was the first time that I had ever made anything like it, so I was a little worried that I would mess it up somehow and lose all that time, money and defrosting time (this has happened to me with other things before).

The only thing I may have done differently from the recipe, was to brine it for 24 hours, I forgot sage, and the turkey was only 10 pounds instead of the 14-16#. i don't know how much of a difference the sage would have made, as it was awesome without it. And I would still brine it for 24 hours (because the taste was SOOO good). But next time, I would buy a bigger turkey. The result of ours being smaller, was that it was done within almost 2 hours and it was still somewhat dry. The flavor was excellent, but who wants a too dry turkey?

So, without further ado, here is the recipe that I used for my turkey.

Good Eats Roast Turkey

Recipe courtesy Alton Brown

Ingredients

• 1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey

For the brine:

• 1 cup kosher salt
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1 gallon vegetable stock
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
• 1 1/2 teaspoons allspice berries
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped candied ginger
• 1 gallon heavily iced water

For the aromatics:

• 1 red apple, sliced
• 1/2 onion, sliced
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 cup water
• 4 sprigs rosemary
• 6 leaves sage
• Canola oil

Directions

Click here to see how it's done.

2 to 3 days before roasting:

Begin thawing the turkey in the refrigerator or in a cooler kept at 38 degrees F.

Combine the vegetable stock, salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, allspice berries, and candied ginger in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally to dissolve solids and bring to a boil. Then remove the brine from the heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate.

Early on the day or the night before you'd like to eat:

Combine the brine, water and ice in the 5-gallon bucket. Place the thawed turkey (with innards removed) breast side down in brine. If necessary, weigh down the bird to ensure it is fully immersed, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area for 8 to 16 hours, turning the bird once half way through brining.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. Remove the bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water.

Discard the brine.

Place the bird on roasting rack inside a half sheet pan and pat dry with paper towels.

Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and 1 cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes.*

Add steeped aromatics to the turkey's cavity along with the rosemary and sage. Tuck the wings underneath the bird and coat the skin liberally with canola oil.

Roast the turkey on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F for 30 minutes. Insert a probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Set the thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees F. A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting.

Let the turkey rest, loosely covered with foil or a large mixing bowl for 15 minutes before carving.

* We don't own a microwave, so I just boiled this concoction on the stove for about 3-4 minutes.