Knitionary: November 2020

Hello and happy day after Thanksgiving! I’m happy you’re here for turkey soup 101. It takes so dang long to roast a turkey and get the whole shebang on the table, why not take a little bit more time and use every last morsel of that beautiful bird? Today we're going to make turkey stock, then we'll chill it overnight and tomorrow we'll defat it and make delicious turkey soup for dinner. It can be done in one day, but I don't like to hurry it along. If you don't have time today, the bones will last for a few days refrigerated. They can also be frozen for up to two months. I save chicken bones in the freezer and after a few months I seem to have enough bones to make stock. So every few months I make chicken stock in this same way, but will adjust the amounts of vegetables to the amount of bones I have.

I make a very traditional turkey soup with just a few ingredients. If you haven't yet done your shopping or your prep, here's what you need to do: (Adjust your list if your turkey is small.)

Shopping List:

-12 large carrots

-1 large onion

-1 large bunch celery

-4 cloves garlic

-1 bunch fresh spinach or 1 bag baby kale

-herbs; I use fresh parsley, sage, thyme and rosemary, although dry herbs are fine.

-2 C uncooked rice or 1 bag dry noodles, depending if you like turkey soup with rice or turkey soup with noodles. If you are a pasta maker or can purchase fresh noodles, your soup would be a worthy recipient.

-1 big ole' turkey carcass. If you have a smallish turkey, don't worry, even small turkeys can make soup! If you have stuffed the turkey, it's ok to leave tidbits of stuffing inside.

This year we will had a 20 pounder even though we were only 6 people. I always make a big turkey because we love leftovers. You may or may not have leftover meat, and if not, don't worry, you still have the carcass and you can still make soup. My husband and I prepare the leftover turkey meat in this way:

-Save the nice slices for turkey sandwiches.

-Prepare homemade "TV dinners" with turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy. (I use these restaurant containers. They are reusable and my pack of 50 looks like it will last me a lifetime.) We send guests home with a few containers and the rest I put in the freezer for busy nights when I am too tired to cook. This year I was able to make 6 single serving dinners for the freezer.

-Pick every last bit of the meat off the bones and cut into small, soupspoon-sized pieces and refrigerate. We'll use them tomorrow.

-Put the carcass and any undesirable bits, such as floppy skin and fatty bits, the pope's nose and any leftover juices and drippings you did not use for the gravy, into a large stock pot. Put some water in that roasting pan and scrape away until the tiny leftover browny bits are loosened, then throw all that into the pot too. I also scrape off any gel from the cutting board and add that. It's all adding flavor. If you did not use the giblets and neck for gravy, add them to the pot too. Add water to cover and put the pot on low.

-Prepare vegetables by washing first.

-Peel and rough chop onion.

-Smash 4 cloves garlic.

-Peel and thinly slice 6 carrots and set aside. Save the peels and rough chop the remaining 6 carrots

-Slice off 1/2" root stem of celery and discard. Thinly slice the nicer green ribs and set aside. Rough chop remaining celery, white ends, leafy tops, the center, all of it.

-Chop parsley, stems and all. Set aside a handful of the prettier parsley leaves for tomorrow.

Cover the carrots, celery and parsley that were set aside (above in glass containers) and refrigerate for tomorrow. The spinach that was on the shopping list will also be used tomorrow. Put remaining rough chopped vegetables in the stock pot. Add water to cover if necessary. Add fresh herbs, unchopped, stem and all; I used sage, rosemary and thyme. If fresh is not available, add one teaspoon each dried herbs of your choice. The above three herbs are the most traditional for stock. Add 1 teaspoon of both salt and dried black peppercorns (or ground pepper) and a shake of dried red peppers (optional). Additionally I squeeze in the juice of one lemon, totally optional, but that is the California in me--lemon enhances everything! Adjust the fire to highest setting and bring to boil. Once boiling, lower heat to just a simmer. Now here comes the easy part: relax with your knitting and some Christmas music or decorate your tree or take a snooze, because your concoction needs to simmer for 4 hours. Check on it occasionally and give it a stir and add more water if it's getting too low, but you do want the stock to condense so adding a lot of water is not necessary.

I have to warn you that the stock will look like a mess while it's cooking. Don't encourage your family to peek at it during this stage because they will surely turn their noses up at the sight. But don't fret, all will be well in the end, I promise.

She may be no beauty queen right now--she has to go through a few transformations. 😋

After it has simmered for a good long time and you feel certain that the bones and veggies have given up all their goodness, it's time to strain. I like to cool it for a half hour then use a series of strainers; the first pass is through my chinois strainer although a regular colander will be fine. If you do decide to purchase a chinois strainer, make sure you get one with a stand and a wooden pestle. Mine has been in constant use for three generations and is one of the kitchen utensils I would hate to part with. I give the mass a good push to release all the juices out of the bones and vegetables. Discard bones, etc. Next pour the stock into a fine strainer a few times to remove the smaller bits. Discard those too. Your stock will look cloudy. Refrigerate overnight. When it is thoroughly cooled, the fat will be at the top. Beef fat is white and solid and chicken and turkey fat is yellow, semi-solid and even sticky. The stock underneath the fat will be wiggly and jellied. Congratulations! You've done it right! Long and slow simmering releases the minerals and collagen that were hidden away in the bones and tissue which makes the liquid gel when cooled. Remember watching old movies or reading old books when invalids were given chicken broth? Broth is easy to digest and has health benefits beyond compare, health benefits you can't get from a can or a jar, and certainly not from a bouillon cube. Now, aren't you proud of yourself?

Keep it refrigerated overnight and we'll remove the fat and finish the soup tomorrow.

I'm going to pop in this afternoon to see if there are any questions. I'd love to know if you are making stock today, so please, please let me know. I'm feeling giddy to think we knitters may be cooking together today! If you are an anonymous commenter, I cannot reply back personally to you, so you'll have to come back here for my reply. If you are on the website, you can scroll down to the comments section, or click here.

xo Kristen

This is what my stock arsenal looks like. The stock is simmering away in my big stock pot. On the right is my chinois strainer. After hours of simmering, I'll most likely be left with broth that will just fit into the pot on the right. The fine strainer is used for the final straining. I'll pass the stock through that a few times.

November 27, 2020
9 Comments

Let's make turkey soup together!

cooking

November 21, 2020
6 Comments

Dino Softies--a hand sewing project

craft

November 17, 2020
2 Comments

winter scene night lights--a Christmas craft

Christmas

Is it too early to listen to Christmas music? Not for me; I've had it on since November 1st. It's my music to craft by. My husband has suggested we wait until after Thanksgiving before we turn on the Christmas full force, but everyone knows that crafters start Christmas early for heaven's sake. For the first time I actually feel like I'm ahead of the game: I've started wrapping presents (yay me, I'm early for once) and besides completing the one craft below, I have two other Christmas crafts going: one very big one (that honestly I'm not sure I'll finish this year) and one very small one that is finished and drying. I've also set up the Christmas ornament hospital. I am determined to repair and restore broken wings, bald glitter spots, chipped paint, literally every. single. thing that has bothered me over the years. If I cannot fix it, it's going to get tossed. Wish me luck friends. (I'm really glad you can't see my craft room now; it's a holy mess.)

But today I have a totally finished craft to share. I had so much fun making these Christmas night lights. It's an easy craft and I'll go through it step by step. If you craft with younger people, this is a craft appropriate for an older child. I made the mistake of starting this with my 3 year old grandson. I gave up after a few minutes and we just played with the deer and smooshed the clay around. When he left, I went back to the craft room and got cracking. Here's the step by step:

Gather your supplies. For the greenery I cut up a small plastic Christmas tree I never really cared for. I gathered up little plastic figures and trims but ended up preferring to use only the deer and the mushrooms. I went through my mason jars to find six jars that did not have embossing all around. Most of mine had "Ball" or "Kerr" embossed on the front side but were plain on the back. You'll want your jars to have at least one plain, unmarked side for this craft. You'll also need the screw cap but not the lid, white air-dry clay, glue that dries clear, and a little bit of faux snow. Next you'll need one package Transform Mason LED Lighted Lid Insert per jar. This light comes with both a regular sized lid and wide mouth lid so you can use either size jar. Lastly you'll need 3 AAA batteries per jar. Shopping links are at the end.

Wash and dry the jars. They need to be sparkly clean.

Roll out the clay to approximately 3/8" thick. Cut rounds (I used a small jar) to make a base that will fit into the jars. While clay is still soft, dab a bit of glue on your greenery and figures and poke them into the clay. Let this air dry overnight. See the pictures below.

When your figurine base is dry, dab a bit of glue to the bottom and place it in the jar. Sprinkle a tiny bit of faux snow around the base.

Insert batteries and affix the light to the lid as per package direction. Screw the light fixture onto the jar and push the on/off button. Voila! The light is just bright enough to illuminate the charming wintery scene.

I ended up making 6 total and am giving them as gifts with a note saying, "open me now" since they will be so pretty to have out at Christmastime even though I plan on having ours in our bedroom year 'round. They are adorable and I'm so happy with them.

Holy cow! After I wrote this post and was gathering my shopping links, I found that the LED light inserts are near impossible to find for a decent price. I bought mine for $7.50 each but they have now sold out. I found them on some other sites but they were closer to $20 and I don't think they are worth that! Perhaps you'll have better luck than I did with a search. Search "Transform Mason LED Lighted Lid Insert". Good luck and let me know how it goes. As an aside, I also have some solar fairy lights for mason jars that I was planning to use this summer. I wonder if they would work for this craft. They would not have an on/off button, but would be fun for an evening, you'd just have to recharge it the next day with sunshine--no batteries!

LINKS:

My favorite air dry clay is Delight. If you've never used lightweight air-dry clay, you are in for a treat. It's soft, clean and easy to use.

These adorable little deer are identical to the ones I had in my stash.

These mushrooms look very similar to mine.

Transform Mason LED Lighted Lid Insert: This company is out of stock but they say that more are coming soon and you can get on their notify list. It's as good a price as you'll find. They also appear to be out of stock at Joanne's.