Carcass Heaven

Picture this, I am cleaning up after Christmas dinner with my sister Pinky. She is telling me to "Save the carcass and make soup." Now I know this already, but I was too full and too cranky to contemplate it. She can attest to how cranky I was.

I was up late on Christmas Eve trying to help my mother-in-law clean up her party mess, and actually had to leave before it was all done. I felt like crap about that. But here is the situation. I was up early Christmas morning to make the turkey dinner with all trimmings, we opened presents, my brother came over to visit, them my sister and her boyfriend came at three for dinner. By five p.m. I was whipped!

I just wanted to toss the carcass. My husband came into the kitchen and said making soup was a good idea. By then I wanted to throw the carcass at him. After all, he wasn't going to be doing it and he didn't feel like picking at the carcass any more either. Some unconscious voice in my head said, "Your sister is always right about this bone thing, remember saving the almost dead bananas in the freezer to make banana bread with instead of collecting fruit flies?"

It if was a conscious voice I would have quashed it promptly. Well, the day after Christmas we had a troop of kids coming over to play, I was refreshed after a night of sleep and pulled those bones out of the fridge and gave them new life in a delicious turkey soup. I tossed in some water, gravy , carrots, celery, leftover chickpeas and corn and an onion. I gave it a pinch of saffron, a shot of italian seasoning and some celery salt. Now I thought I had cleaned the bones well, but there was so much meat left on them that floated off into the broth that I didn't even have to supplement from the leftovers. I was able to feed five hungry kids and have some to freeze. We used the rest of the leftover rolls to dip in the soup. Okay Pinky, you were right! Keep those kitchen tips coming!