Let's Talk Turkey~!

    Turkey.  It is that meat that around my house we have three times a year.  We have a turkey for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.  It is only recently that I have discovered that I actually like turkey.  It's that meat that most of our mother's feared salmonella from so they over cooked it.  The result was dry meat (don't tell my Mom I said that).  The thing about turkey is that it feeds a lot of people, thus the reason I serve it on holidays.  With those beautiful Butterball turkeys there is no excuse to make a dry bird.  *I would like to take this opportunity to admit to over cooking many a bird.

   I don't usually buy it more than for holidays because it always seems so expensive.  It costs about $30.00 for a twenty pound bird.  That is a big investment in one meal!  That just seems like a lot of money for one meal.  It is, but I don't use the logic.  It isn't just for "one meal".  When I make a turkey it lasts for several meals, to the point that we all get sick of eating turkey.  Were I to do my math, turkey is actually inexpensive.  Realistically if I were to cook a turkey for Sunday night dinner, I would have enough turkey to last for most of the weeks lunches and dinner.  If I look at it like that, turkey is a good meal.  With that in mind, here is what I have come up with for one turkey...

    The first thing I did after our first big feast, was to the meat off of the bird.  We had Mom and Dad over for dinner and had all really feasted on the meat, but there was still a lot.  I packaged it up into a large tupperware dish.  I then boiled up the carcass to make turkey soup.  I fished out the bones and put the stock and meat into my crock-pot.  I added pretty much everything that I could get my mitts on, celery, shredded carrot you know, the usual.  The nice thing about homemade soup is that it is limited only by your imagination and food supplies.  I have never made any two soups alike.  I usually prefer to add noodles to my soup, but this time I changed it up and added rice.  The trick to rice is to add it just before you are going to serve it.  If you don't (I know this from experience) it will not look like rice.

    Turkey wraps.  The first day back to school after Thanksgiving I made the kids turkey wraps.  I stink at wrapping them.  They always look like after one bite they will explode.  I'm not sure what the secret is.  I have looked at several youtube instructional videos, but am not sure that I am any farther ahead.  For my not so perfectly wrapped wraps,  I put homemade salsa into the middle of a tomato basil wrap, a few slices of turkey breast, and some lettuce.  I then did a sad job wrapping them.

Tuesday night I made turkey salad.  I put some of the smaller bits into the food processor.  This was a great way to use up the little bits of turkey that were too small meals, but too much to waste.

    I dumped the shredded turkey into a big bowl and added about a quarter of a cup of mayo.  I tossed in some greek seasoning, and some diced celery and some ground pepper.

    Turkey scraps became turkey salad that lasted for a weeks worth of lunches.  It was big hit with Christopher and the kids.  I made the turkey salad into sadly wrapped whole wheat wraps.    

    I would like to be able to tell you all of the other wonderful turkey meals that I made out of that one turkey, but I can't.  After the third night of Thanksgiving leftovers, we wasted the rest of the turkey.  I had plans for turkey potpie, turkey noodle casserole, turkey a la king but none of it happened.  I had thought that Christopher had taken the left over turkey to the basement, and he had thought I had.  The turkey sat out all night.  It was a waste, but we did get quite a few meals out of it.
    Writing today's blog has inspired me to see how many meals I can come up with from a single turkey.  I'm going out right now to buy a turkey and try my culinary experiment... wish me luck.