Dear World,

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving! It took me a few days, but I finally got around to making turkey soup. If you still have your turkey’s carcass lying around, here’s something you can do with it. If you threw it away, do not despair – the World’s Tastiest Soup can also be made with the remainders of a chicken, home-roasted or rotisserie.

You’ll need:

  • one roasted turkey, or the carcass of a roasted turkey
  • 2-3 large carrots
  • one onion, with the peel
  • 2-3 large celery ribs
  • 3-4 garlic cloves
  • peppercorns or ground pepper
  • salt
  • any soup vegetables
  • optionally: rice or pasta

Start by stripping all the meat off of the bones. Whatever you don’t eat right then and their, you can add to the soup later. Place the carcass in a large pot. Chop the onion (wash the skin and add it for color), celery and carrots and add to the pot, along with peeled garlic cloves, peppercorns and salt (one or two big pinches should do the trick). Fill the pot with water, and bring to a boil, then simmer for 30-40 minutes.

When that’s done, turn the heat off, and discard everything (bones and veggies) but the stock. Add about 2 cups of water, and throw in anything you like. I used more carrots and celery, whole wheat rotini, turkey meat and frozen peas. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 10 minutes, skimming off the fat with a spoon every two minutes. Alternately, if you’d rather, you can simmer the soup for 10 minutes, let it cool, then easily skim the fat, which will have formed into a skin at the surface.

And there you have it! If you need to store it, freezing it in serving-sized tupperware is your safest bet. I will close this post with my first poll: I simply cannot go through Thanksgiving without having thirds of stuffing, so I thought I’d ask.

With love,

– Viola –