I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Update on Using That Turkey

So it has been a week since Thanksgiving, and the turkey usage has gone well. There have been a few bumps in the road but with the power of the internet I was able to work through them.

I must first admit, I have never made “meat” stock before. I have made vegetable stock a few times, but I’ve never made a meat-based stock. The opportunity hasn’t really come up before besides Thanksgiving, because I very rarely buy a whole chicken. I had ladled the stock into 2 cup portions and put some into the freezer and a few into the refrigerator to use immediately. Well, I took the first one out of the refrigerator and opened it to pour into a pot and… it was like jello. It was completely gelatinous and wiggly and basically freaked me out.

Luckily, instead of just tossing the entire batch and calling it a day, I quickly did some internet research and found out this was normal and I just needed to heat it up. I thought I had done something horribly wrong but in fact it was just fine. Whew! I was pretty upset when I thought all my effort in making turkey stock was for nothing.

I made three dinners out of the leftover turkey meat - one with all dark meat, one with a mix of dark and white meat, and one with all white meat. The last meal, the all white meat meal, I made a stir fry type dish with turkey, green beans, and tomatoes served over turkey-stock cooked elbow pasta, and my spouse thought it was chicken. Hah! One victory for me. You can’t whine about eating turkey for a bunch of days if you think one of the days was chicken. Hee hee. I made:

• Turkey Tetrazzini
• Turkey in a sauce made from leftover gravy over egg noodles with broccoli
• Turkey, green beans, and chopped tomatoes with italian seasonings served over elbow pasta boiled in stock

I’ve also made two turkey side dishes with stock as well as the above meal that I cooked the elbow noodles in stock - a rice dish and a pasta dish, and my spouse also ate three turkey sandwiches over the weekend. So that has been a success as well. I have four cups of stock left in the freezer and that is it. The turkey was not a huge turkey so I am not surprised that I used up most of it in a week. I am pretty excited about how many things I did with it though. My spouse also has three more turkey lunchovers left in the freezer and one for tomorrow in the refrigerator from the three turkey meals I made.

I am not sure I am excited enough about this to buy a cheap turkey on sale, but if they get really cheap, I certainly will. Yay for the turkey! And I had a lot of stuffing, potatoes, and cranberry sauce related meals myself. Yay for starch.

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