Stop the Presses! Turkey Soup.

So we did two turkeys for Thanksgiving. Well, actually we brined and smoked one turkey we got super cheap (free essentially) before Turkey day, and then cooked another in the oven (which is something we don't usually do...in the oven). Both turkeys were fabulous. They were both small and manageable, so we cut all the meat off the smoked turkey and saved the carcass. Then, on Thanksgiving, we stuffed and roasted another small turkey. Our idea was to have some turkey left over to freeze and eat throughout December (we only eat turkey once per year). The plan worked out well.

Anyway, so today was turkey soup day. We had the two turkey carcasses (with the usual suspect veggies), and they simmered most of the day. Came up with about 3 gallons of turkey stock...with an awesome smoked turkey flavor. Tonight we broke down the carcasses, stripped the meat and strained all the rest. We were left with meat, and fantastic stock.

Reserved some of the stock (because 3 gallons of turkey soup is way too much), and set out on making some turkey soup. Add in onions, carrots, celery, some bay leaves and about half of the stripped turkey meat...and about a 3rd of a package of egg noodles after it had simmered for a while.

BOOM!! Awesome turkey soup!

I don't know what it is, but I think you could throw about anything in a turkey soup pot and it would be great. I LOVE turkey soup!!

And now we've got a ton of the stuff, with another two gallons of stock left over to make even more (or use it for something else) going forward.

Our turkey soup recipe is pretty basic, but I'd love to hear any other ideas y'all have for turkey soup! This stuff is the elixir of the Gods!!

Turkey soup! MMMMMmmmmMMMMmmmmmph!!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

It sounds awesome, FCD! When it comes to traditional comfort foods I think less is more; it's hard to improve on perfection and I think you hit the winning ticket!

Many years ago I smoked a turkey. Planned dinner for six, started smoking it around nine then increased the fire in the smoker and at five, it was smoked but still quite uncooked. So stuck it in the gas grill and started doing some stuff outside with my uncle...two hours later it caught on fire while we were away.

After scraping the char off it was really tasty and great...the ends of the bones of the feet were burnt right off and the wingtips were black right through.

About four years later attempted it again, all the time in the smoker with an increase of temp at the end. Since It took so long to do it in the smoker alone, I started smoking it at six AM and increased the temp of the smoker at three PM. Had people coming over around seven, but it was finished at about eight so we had lots of beer and snacks available because the boy scout motto is be prepared. We ate at around eight thirty, it is light here till eleven in the summer.

It is a lot of work smoking a turkey, I brined it for two days beforehand, it took a lot of room in the fridge to do that. I have not done it again in the last twenty years. I have had three smoked turkeys from a friend I used to help to clean his birds he sold for thanksgiving. Two days of work for one fresh and one smoked turkey, his was best, it was done at a regular local processing place where they soaked it for around four days and smoked it for around twenty four hours. I was satisfied with two turkeys for like fifteen hours of work.

WE got some twist top quart plastic containers that we freeze our broth in , making sure to keep the level down about an inch for expansion. We do a lot of soups and dishes with these. I think we have about nine quarts and three pints of various stocks in the freezer at this time. I do lots of beef marrow bone broth, some chicken broths, and of course turkey broth. Minestrone soup and onion soup are two of the soups we make of these. The minestrone tastes great with a quart of beef bone broth and a pint of chicken broth. The onion works best with the beef alone, each quart has some of the bone grease on top to use to fry the onions with.

The Turkey broth we use for future soups, it has a lot of flavor to it. But we add chicken breasts instead of turkey when we make it.

Never tried using smoked turkey for soup, have had five of them since we lived here, but usually just ate the meat off of them because I never even thought about making soup out of smoked meat...except of course split pea and ham.

I make a hell of a lot of soups....Specially formulated to control my epilepsy...but all of them are actually strongly antiviral and have some anti-cancer properties...enough to help prevent cancer but not cure cancer.

Since the friend of mine died last year who raised the turkeys, I probably will not be getting a smoked turkey anymore, and I don't have the ambition to do a smoked turkey anymore. Now that I rarely drink beer anymore it just isn't as fun, coffee is ok around a campfire in the firepit, but a day of smoking a turkey is too much coffee. I also know when smoking a bird, you have to be in sight of the smoker when you increase the firewood in the unit to cook it at the end.

On the way to town, someone had an old refrigerator made into a smoker on side the road, it did not appear to ever have been used. They did a lot of work to make that, it had a gas burner under a pan where they put the chips to smoke with. Someone spent a lot of time making that, but the guy had a heart attack about three months ago and never got to use it to smoke anything, his wife must have had someone come down to give it away by the road. I thought about it, one of those old roundtop fridges all gutted out and everything all completed, he even made a cylinder holder for the side which was sitting next to it because they took it off to move it . I seriously thought about getting it, but I don't have the room to put it under a roof....I have too many tools filling up everything. Can't even fit our car in the garages.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I add bacon to my turkey soups. Turkey and bacon is a flavor combo to try if you never have.

a reply to: rickymouse

Well, if you would like to try something delicious. Go to the store and get a smoked turkey leg (most grocery stores have them). Combine the leg with and Anasazi beans (also readily available in most grocery stores, they're the speckled ones). Add the spice packet which comes with the beans. Put all that in a slow cooker, just the whole leg right out of the package. Cover with water and cook on high for 2 hours and low for 3-4 hours. You don't have to touch it, just let it go.

When the time is up, pull the turkey leg, the meat will be falling off the bone. Strip any remaining meat off and put it all in the soup. Low effort, but super-sonic meal (for about 3-4 days, depending on how many people)!

Note: I usually rough chop an onion and add that also at the beginning, but it's not mandatory.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: rickymouse

Well, if you would like to try something delicious. Go to the store and get a smoked turkey leg (most grocery stores have them). Combine the leg with and Anasazi beans (also readily available in most grocery stores, they're the speckled ones). Add the spice packet which comes with the beans. Put all that in a slow cooker, just the whole leg right out of the package. Cover with water and cook on high for 2 hours and low for 3-4 hours. You don't have to touch it, just let it go.

When the time is up, pull the turkey leg, the meat will be falling off the bone. Strip any remaining meat off and put it all in the soup. Low effort, but super-sonic meal (for about 3-4 days, depending on how many people)!

Note: I usually rough chop an onion and add that also at the beginning, but it's not mandatory.

We usually use about six pounds of onions minimum a month. When our basement stock gets below five pounds of onions I start looking for sails and try to bring up our stock to ten or more pounds. When cooking I will taste test the onions after peeling and rinsing them to judge taste and strength. It is important to taste them to judge how much to add to a recipe, onions vary a lot in strength and taste.

One thing I have found about onions that I never would have comprehended them having that property. If you eat a lot it does thin the blood, so cutting yourself causes more bleeding...that I already knew. But what I found and researched was that if you eat too much, it also weakens the bond in skin...so I cut easier and being someone who is used to handling metals and working on mechanic stuff, that is a drawback. The lessoning of skin bonding does go away in a day or so, it is not long lived. But if handling wood a lot, it also makes you more susceptable to getting slivers if you do not wear gloves.

I suppose this over consumption of sulfur can also effect veins and muscle tissue and possibly even elements of your digestive system. Apparently eating a lot of onions or other chemistries not only effects blood thinning for ulcers, it also effects the strength of the tissue in the guts. It was hard to verify what I had experienced but there are some research articles I found that actually did address this. It is related to the thiols in foods...proteinases are sometimes thiols too, meat tenderizers. Too tight a bond is not good either, things are brittle so a balance is necessary.

Ok, I got carried away with this, but my research with biochemistry in relation to diet is pretty extensive and I like to share some of what I know with others, always cautioning too much of a good thing can have bad consequences.

a reply to: rickymouse

Okay, understood, but I have two questions for you...

1. Do you like bean soup?

2. I think you explained it once a long time ago, but what the hell is that thing in your avatar? Looks like some sort of a Stonehenge-like sculpture or something, and I'm constantly trying to figure out what it is. Have been for years! Some sort of an ancient club? Or some crazy disfigured tree stump? Please do tell!