Here's another way to use up left over turkey. This was one of our lunches over the winter holiday. To use up some left over turkey meat from our New Year's dinner, we made this Turkey Potato Salad which is very simple to make and basically is just a potato salad with turkey.

Here is the basic recipe we used:
1 cup chopped cooked turkey meat
3 large potatoes, boiled, peeled and cubed
1 carrot, peeled and grated
2 hard boiled eggs, cubed
2 tablespoons relish
3/4 cup Mayonnaise
Salt & Pepper, to taste

Mix all the ingredients together and serve.

Simple, right? You can serve this as a side, or use it like you would a turkey/chicken salad and make sandwiches. We ate this over toasted rosemary baguettes. Yummy!



Visit our new blogs:
Amoores.com
Cooked from the Heart - our new food blog
Our New Backyard - garden & photo blog
Found Not Lost - about all the things we 'find' worth talking about

Thanks giving in is exactly two weeks and the other day I got two turkeys from Kroger for about $5 each. I just love a good bargain! I didn't matter that's it's not the major brand of turkey. I don't need to buy the butter drenched kind anymore. I can cook any turkey now, even the store brand and have it come out moist every time. I'm serious. EVERY TIME!

First of all, you've got to brine it. Brining, soaking in a salted solution, tenderizes the meat and infuses it with more flavor and moisture. I have been brining all my turkeys since I learned how to brine turkey using ingredients that I normally have in my pantry anyway. No need to get special ingredients or tools. I use the biggest pot I have and go from there.

Next, don't overcook it. Of course, you'd want to make sure your turkey is totally cooked. You don't want an under baked turkey ruining your Thanksgiving. Consult the Turkey Calculator to figure out how long to keep your turkey in the oven. As a general rule, turkey is thoroughly cooked when its internal temperature reached 165 degrees F. Use a meat thermometer for this, don't rely on the pop up things that come with some turkeys and make sure your thermometer is stuck into the meatiest portion of your turkey without touching a bone.

I usually vary the herbs and aromatics I put on my turkey depending on what I have from the garden and in my pantry. Check out my basic roasted turkey recipe for a starting point.



Visit our new blogs:
Amoores.com
Cooked from the Heart - our new food blog
Our New Backyard - garden & photo blog
Found Not Lost - about all the things we 'find' worth talking about

So what comes after a turkey feast but the inevitable turkey soup? Here is a very simple version, and it got that turkey carcass out of the fridge.



After most of the turkey meat has been devoured and you are left with just the skin and bones, don't throw it away. Throw it in a stockpot instead, and squeeze the last remaining flavor from it by adding about a gallon and a half of water and boiling it for oh, about an hour. Let it cool, remove the bones and discard. Then strain the remaining broth to remove all solid matters from it. Now you have turkey broth that you can either freeze and use later, or make turkey soup with. To make soup, just add any vegetables you like, I added a couple of cupfuls of frozen mixed vegetables, and any pasta you have on hand. I used fucilli in this case. You can also throw in whatever turkey meat you have left (I didn't have much as you can see), and in ten minutes, or when the pasta is tender the way you want it, soup is on!

Santos of the Scent of Green Banana blog has been wandering in L.A. at Third and Fairfax and she has been so making me hungry! One of the things she reminded me of? La Brea bread! Hhmmm, this goes so well with soup.

We were a bit leery about having turkey again, and had actually considered having fish or quail, but one, I couldn't find quail, and The Clone does not eat fish, and I would have had to fix another meat dish for her. So, back to turkey we were. I wanted to try something new, and since I was off on Wednesday anyway, I thought I would try brining the turkey. The result was wonderful! I think this is the best turkey we've ever had, it was moist, and most of all the meat was flavored all the way through. Here is the brine I used, combined from several recipes I used for reference:

1 1/2 cup Kosher salt (don't use ordinary table salt)
1 1/2 cup Brown sugar
10 whole cloves
3 teaspoons peppercorns
2 oranges, quartered
3 teaspoons dried Thyme
3 teaspoons dried Basil
1 1/2 gallons of water

Combine all ingredients in a stock pot, bring mixture to a boil, lower heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Allow brine to cool completely.

Rinse turkey under cool running water, inside and out (remove giblets from cavity). Pat turkey dry with paper towels, then immerse turkey in cooled brine. Turkey should be completely submerged in liquid. My pot wasnt big enough, so the tips of the legs were sticking out a bit, but it still turned out ok.

Cover the pot and refrierate for 8-10 hours or up to 24 hours. Remove turkey, rinse, pat dry, and roast as usual.

Turkey has been in the food blogging air this week as TingAling did her own trial run, and Drstel reminisced about Thanksgiving dinner past. It just so happened that the same day that TingAling posted her turkey dinner, I came home from the store with a turkey. It was on sale. My husband, who just loves turkey and can eat it at least once a month, has been asking for turkey and I have been trying to put his craving off until Thanksgiving. But since the turkey was on sale, I decided to indulge his craving.



It is also the baby Clone's birthday tomorrow, so this was a sort of pre-birthday dinner.

First, the turkey:



1 12 lb. Turkey
4 cloves of Garlic (peeled, leave whole)
1 Onion, quartered
1 Stalk of celery, cut into 1 inch lengths
1 Carrot, peeled and cut into 1 inch lengths
2-3 teaspoons of Salt, according to taste
1 teaspoon black Pepper
2 teaspoons dried Basil
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Wash turkey thoroughly and pat dry. In a small bowl, mix the salt, pepper and spices. Rub the turkey inside and out with the seasonings, and stuff the cavity with the garlic, onions, celery and carrots. Instead of the vegetables, some people would at this point stuff the turkey with stuffing, but I have gotten a bit paranoid about getting the stuffing up to a safe temperature, so I just cook the stuffing separately, out of the turkey. Bake the turkey at 325 degrees F for about 3 hours, basting occationally with the drippings. Let the turkey rest for at least 10 minutes before carving.

After you have washed your turkey, hopefully you found the bag of its gizard, liver, and neck usually tucked in the neck cavity of the turkey. The first time I ever cooked turkey was when my husband and I just got married and I was trying to cook something that he liked. I looked through my cookbooks, consulted my mom, and finally I was ready to attempt this turkey roasting fete. Well, they all said to remove the bag containing the gizard and liver. However, when I was washing the turkey, I didn't find this said bag inside the cavity, where I expected it to be, just like a chicken. So I asked my husband, who I thought had more experience with turkey, how come there was no bag inside? He said, maybe they forgot to put it in, so we both said, oh well, and went on. I fixed turkey and all the trimmings, and we had invited my sister, his brother and a couple of friend over for dinner. It was a huge success, everyone thought everything was perfect. That is, until it was time for seconds. My brother in law wanted seconds, so he goes to carve more turkey. Lo and behold, when he cut into the upper portion of the breast, he goes, "What is this?" and proceeded to pull out a plastic bag from the turkey!!! Needless to say, we all lost our appetite at this point. There was the plastic bag with the gizzard, liver, and turkey neck.
So if you find this darn bag before you roast the whole turkey, do take it out and wash the contents and place them in a separate pot to boil as this is what you will need if you are to make giblet gravy. Another southern thing.



To make gravy you will need:

Giblet and liver, boiled until tender and chopped up. Reserve the boiling liquid.
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 onion
1/2 cup of flour
1/4 cup of butter
2 cups of the reserved boiling liquid plus any drippings from the roasted turkey

Melt the butter in a saucepan and sautee the onions and garlic until the onions are tender or translucent. Add the flour and cook until it has turned into a light amber color. Add the broth and simmer until the gravy has thickened. If you use the drippings from the turkey, you usually don't have to add anymore salt as the flavor from the turkey should be enough to season your gravy. However, taste and adjust the seasoning to your liking.