Turkey Tortilla Soup

Photo credit: cooking-spree.com

Turkey Tortilla Soup
Part 1: Submerge and simmer in 2 quarts of water any "spare" parts you retrieved from the turkey before baking (neck, giblets)

Part 2: 1 leftover turkey, demeated (is that even a word?)
1 bunch celery, cut bottom off and throw stalks into the pot
2 large onions, halved but not peeled (the peel turns the soup a rich brown)
10 garlic cloves, don't bother peeling these either
2 Tbsp season salt or Mrs. Dash
salt and pepper to taste

Part 3: soup veggies and turkey meat
1 tsp cumin
1 tbsp chili powder
1 can black beans (if desired)
Part 4: 3 cups cooked rice
fresh chopped tomatoes, peppers, onions - or use a can of seasoned tomatoes like Rotel
cilantro, avocados chopped and set aside
1 cup shredded cheese
1-2 cups crushed corn tortilla chips.

Part 1 of this soup begins before the turkey even gets into the oven by removing the "extra" parts from the bird and putting them in a pot with all of the above ingredients (except the turkey bones and meat, obviously). I add about two quarts of water, bring it to a boil and then let it simmer for the day while the turkey is baking and the festivities are underway. If you don't do it that way, don't worry, just move on.
Part 2 After dinner is over and dishes are done we turn our attention to the turkey carcass and strip as much meat as we can from the thing. I know, sounds disgusting. It is serious hunter-gatherer work, and not for the faint of heart. When we've carved and pulled as much meat away as we can get, we bag it up for later use and put the whole pile of bones into a stock pot with the Part 1 items. Then we add a bunch of celery, some onions halved but not peeled, a handful of garlic, salt and pepper. We cover it all with water, set it on a high heat until it starts to boil, then turn it down and let it simmer for several hours. This part is super easy, no baby-sitting or watching the pot. Just let it do its thing. This can also be done the next day if it's late and you need to go to bed.
Part 3 Once your stock is ready, (at least 4 hours later) pour it through a strainer into a large bowl. With a fork, pull off any remaining meat you can get, and retrieve any garlic or onion pieces you may want (they should be out of their skins now). You should have LOTS of stock and could freeze half of it for later and use half for now. Once you've divided it up, pour your stock back into the pot (at least 6 cups) and add any chopped veggies (carrots, potatoes, anything else) you want, as well as the turkey meat, beans and spices. The veggies should only need 20 minutes on a medium boil to cook. When they are tender your soup is done.
Part 4 Serve soup piping hot in the following fashion - Lay down hot cooked rice on the bottom of a soup bowl. follow that with a sprinkle of cheese and a few generous ladles of soup. Now add all the fresh cut veggies and finally top with corn tortilla chips. This is NOT your Grandma's turkey soup. It's SO savory and tasty you will want to have it every time you have leftover poultry bones to grapple with.

Why Giving Matters

This is an article by a Catholic economist, sociologist and author Arthur C. Brooks that inspired me a couple of years ago.  It is about why giving matters and I actually first saw it as a forum address at BYU.  You can listen to the audio here while you are doing little Holiday chores today.  I guarantee you'll be inspired.  And, despite what everyone in the Occupy Movements may say, Americans are the biggest givers in the world, beating out the next closest prosperous, giving nation by a margin of  more than 3 to one, even when those stats are corrected for income differences. 

Here are some main points in brief:

1. Many of the most wealthy people who give, don't do it because they are wealthy.  They are wealthy because they gave first.
2. Americans give more than the entire national income of Sweden.
3. 75% of American families give every year
4. Utah is the most charitable state in the nation, a fact we are not "proud" of, because that would be wrong.  But, we are pleased, right?
5. People who give to charity are 43% more likely to say they are happy than those who do not.
6. People who donate blood are 50% more likely to say they are happy.
7. Giving does not make people poorer, diminish resources or happen because it is a luxury of the rich.
8. The more government tries to step in to give to the poor and needy, the less people are inclined to help in those same causes.
9. Providing opportunities for giving to those around you is the highest form of giving.
10. Giving is a core competency of successful citizenship and a happy life. We need to think of creative ways to teach the importance of this principle.

Go read it or listen and feel grateful to be part of such an amazing movement.

Inventory

In the spirit of full disclosure, in an effort to get organized, and in fulfillment of a promise I made, here is a cursory list of what I've got to work with beyond my cash allotment in a month.  It's a lot. Here's how it fits into the "Live On What You Give" experiment. 

We accumulated this stuff over many years, giving consistently all the time, living on it as we go, replenishing here and there.  For years we've given to the level that we gathered food storage.  All that food is not just for us, we share all along the way.  Now, we are going for a new level of giving and setting our cash for food at the same amount as the cash we give to meet the needs of people around us.  And, because of the habits we established to this point we can.

So, to be clear, this experiment isn't about how little cash we can live on with nothing else.  It's about living on the same amount of cash we are willing to give away.  Anyway, we've always been happy to share all this food, however, my big "little" brother often reminds me of the need for firearms to protect our stash.  The thing is, food is fleeting and guns are part of  a different type of experiment altogether.

Freezer
1 turkey
2 roasts
15 lbs. boneless skinless chicken
15 lbs frozen veggies
5 lbs. french fries
3 lbs. onion rings
3 pastry crusts
2 doz frozen cookies
several ready-made main dishes like eggrolls, taquitos and burritos

Pantry and Cold Storage
year supply of dry milk, flour, beans, rice, sugar, oats, wheat, potato pearls, dried spinach
20 lbs pasta ( I always feel more secure when I have closer to 100 lbs., so I'm running low)
2 doz cans pasta sauce (waiting to be doctored up)
4 doz cans broth
4 doz cans tomato sauce
Lots and lots of spices
20 lbs salt
40 lbs Steven's hot chocolate mix
2 lbs Powdered Parmesan
1 doz cans of meat (I know, sounds delicious, huh)
1 doz #10 cans of various dried veggies
1/2 doz cans dried fruits
45 lbs. barley
45 lbs. popcorn
20 lbs. banana chips
6 gallons juice
4 gallons vinegar
3 gallons oil
4 doz cans corn and beans
2 doz cans chili

Fridge and Garage Storage (also known as the second fridge in the fall and winter)
25 pounds fresh produce
3 gallons milk
1 gallon egg nog
10 lbs. assorted cheeses
2 lbs sour cream
3 lbs cream cheese
4 dozen eggs
More sauces and condiments than I can count

What is in your food storage?

Day 2 - Lots-O-Leftovers

With Thanksgiving fast approaching, the need to be in too many places at once, and the desire to clear out the fridge, I've decided that low-prep leftovers are in order all week, except for the big day itself.

I'm proud to post that the roast I made Sunday actually made it through three meals, just like the olden days when we had much smaller children.  Of course, Bren has been gone doing a big musical production at school and Caleb has a touch of the stomach flu, so I know it's not a fair comparison to what we usually do.  Still, here's what the dinner menu looks like so far:

• the first day we ate a roast - with carrots, potatoes and onions
• yesterday it was shredded beef tacos - with cheese, sour cream and spinach salsa
• tonight we had cajun beef stew over rice - with the broth and veggies I had set aside from Sunday.

And, each dish was different enough that no one even balked at leftovers.  Yay!

Morning Madness and Leftover Oatmeal

Mornings at my house have such great potential.  I get up before everyone, make a hot breakfast, wake everyone, and wait....Some days it's an idyllic scene.  All the kids and their Dad show up in their jammies, or ready for the day, blankets in tow.  The fire is going, hot chocolate is served in little cups with lids and straws to prevent the sleepy spills that are inevitable when 4 out of 6 of us are drinking with our eyes closed.  Usually there's also eggs, breakfast potatoes, hot cereal, toast or fruit (ONE of the above).  We pray, read a few verses of scripture, the biggest of the kids leaves.  All is right at the dawn of the day.

Then there are days like today, when madness is more a reference to my frustration than to the chaos of getting four kids and a husband out the door in the morning.

"Brennan, you are going to miss the bus.  Breakfast is getting cold and EVERYONE is waiting for you."
I shout through the bathroom door for the third time.

"Well, for some reason, my alarm didn't go off," he answers back. I won't go into the details of the rest of the conversation. He makes it down in time for a quick nod to heaven and dashes out the door.  "Sorry, Mom.  No time for breakfast.  Love you guys." Slam.  I don't think he meant that as an insult.

Now I'm left with two sleeping kids and three of us eating the steel cut oats that took 40 minutes to prepare.  There's a trick to it, and they are hardy, but not hard to make, you just have to watch your heat or they will boil over, no matter how big your pan.   I think there is a life metaphor there.  Anyway,   I'll give details on that business in a separate post.  Needless to say, with one of our biggest eater gone, there were lots of leftovers.

Google what to do with leftover oatmeal and one of the first recipes you come to is for Leftover Oatmeal Cookies.  I made these.  They were not great.  When I tasted them what I thought was this, "These poor little ugly cookies really just want to be muffins."  So, I add some extra sugar, a little more cinnamon, vanilla and a cup of milk to my remaining batter and pour it into muffin tins.  They turned out delicious.  How do I know?  Because when Bren tried them he said, "Mm." 

Here are some other reactions, "Can I have another one, Mom?" Caleb asked.

"Yeah, go for it."

Four bites later, "Can I have another one?" he asks again.

"Last one for now," I say.

When the girls are eating I ask, "So, Hannah, you like those muffins?"

"Yes, can I have another one?"

"Uh huh.  How about you KC, are they good?" I ask.

"Yeah, they're so good," she says, then with a slightly suspicious tone. "Why?"

"Because I made them with leftover oatmeal from this morning.  What do you think."

"I think you shouldn't tell anyone that until after they've tried them, cause that's just disgusting to think about."

"Can I quote you on that?"

"Yes, as long as you get it right."

I hope I did.  When Don came home he saw the cookies first.

"What are these?" he asked picking one up.

"Those are not as good as the muffins."

He disregarded what I said thinking I was being modest or picky.  He took a big bite and said, "Your crazy.  These are great.  I'm glad you guys don't like them because I'm going to eat all the rest of these."

He never even made it to the muffins.

So, here's the recipe on both items, in case you want to try them.  This is as best as I can record it, considering I used a third of the batter to make yucky (in my opinion) cookies.

Leftover Oatmeal Cookies
2 c. sifted flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 c. sugar
2/3 c. butter
2 eggs
1 1/2 c. cooked steel cut oats

Sift dry ingredients together. Add butter, sugar and eggs and beat until creamy (about 2 minutes). Stir in oatmeal. Drop from teaspoon onto greased baking sheets.

Bake in a preheated 375°F oven for 10minutes.
Yield: 4 dozen.

Leftover Oatmeal Muffins
2 c. sifted flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 1/2 c. sugar
2/3 c. butter
2 eggs
1 c. milk
1 1/2 c. cooked steel cut oats

Sift dry ingredients together. Add butter, sugar and eggs and beat until creamy (about 2 minutes). Stir in oatmeal. Drop from teaspoon onto greased baking sheets.

Bake in a preheated 350°F oven for 15minutes.
Yield: 2 Dozen +

Month 2 - Day 1

Today I took our cash out of the bank,  $250.  I left $50 in the bank to cover our Bountiful Baskets for the next month.  I went to Costco and raided the dairy shelves.  I like to call that place the Hundred Dollar Store, as in the antithesis to the Dollar Store, because it's tough to get out of there without giving up at least a hundred dollars.  Thankfully, today, I did it for $67.

So, now I have $183 in cash, and a lot of food in my house.  Saturday's $15 Basket o' Bounty provided us with about 15 lbs of fresh produce.  Add to that a well stocked pantry and a freezer full of food and you won't be worried about us this Holiday Season. 

Tonight's dinner was simple and delicious.  We ate red meat two days in a row, which rarely happens for two reasons:

1. We don't generally have red meat in the house because it is more expensive and less healthy than other meats, and
2. When we do have it, we tend to eat it ALL gone in one meal.

However, when I went to donate blood last week I was DENIED because my hemoglobin was low.  Because I want to try again tomorrow, the phlebotomist recommended red meat, spinach and a few other key foods to beef up my red blood cell count.  Thankfully, I happened to have a large roast in the freezer.  And, yesterday I was smart about stretching the meal.

I'm sure lots of you have already stumbled upon the concept of portioning out certain foods before you bring it to the table, but I hadn't.  Plus, we have company almost every Sunday and we generally eat most of what is prepared.  But, as I was looking at this big piece of meat, and knowing it was just the six of us, it occurred to me that if I filled one serving plate, and put the rest aside, no one would really notice.  When I brought the plate to the table, no one did notice and everyone ate their fill.  I even had a little left over on the plate to add to the other I had set aside.

So, tonight's meal was shredded beef tacos with fresh spinach salsa.  Take that Mr. Blood Draw Man.  I better pass that darn hemoglobin test tomorrow or it's going to really make me mad.

Here's the recipe on the salsa.  I figure everyone who wants to know already knows how to make a roast in a crock pot, and if not, there are entire websites devoted to that sort of advice so I'll spare all my vegetarian friends the gory details about that.  Here's a feel-good veggie recipe instead.  Also, in the winter when tomatoes from the store taste disgusting, I omit them and use spinach as the main bulk in this salsa.

Fresh Spinach Salsa

1/2 medium onion, finely diced
3 roma tomatoes, diced
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
1 jalepeno, finely diced
2 large handfuls spinach, finely chopped
2 Tbs. lime juice
1 tsp salt

Count Your Blessings

It’s the Sabbath and all is quiet in my house. My husband, Don, is long gone for a full day of service and all the kids are still peacefully sleeping in their beds. I have one hour to write. At the very beginning of this round of experimentation, one friend commented that he knew this plan would “change our lives.” Well, I have to say honestly, that I am a pretty stubborn soul, and real change is hard for me. So, I’m still waiting to see the life-changing impact in myself. But, we did it.  This month we lived on what we gave, and there are a number of small and simple blessings, as well as major interventions, which I count as miracles as a direct result of our experiment, especially the last one on the list to follow. Here are highlights from my list:

A Ride – Don has a degenerative eye disease.  He is legally blind, and seven years ago he lost his drivers license because of it. Since then, we have witnessed many miracles relating specifically to transportation. Don’t get me wrong. Aside from driving a car, he is probably one of the most mobile and independent blind guys you’ll ever meet. He rides miles and miles on his bike, runs marathons and is more athletic than most men I know. He just can’t drive. This August he began a new job, far away. He had a ride to work from the beginning, but coming home was another story. Most days Bren and I would go get him. Bren’s 15, driving on a permit, and thrilled to be on the road. I, however, always felt torn between getting my husband home and meeting all the afterschool and early evening needs of the kids. The drive was beautiful but took at least an hour and a half round trip. The day we began this experiment, the very day we agreed to take it on, a new ride presented itself and he now enjoys door-to-door service to and from work. I am SO grateful for co-workers who care and I hope the extra gas money blesses them as much as the ride blesses us.

A Flat Tire in the Driveway – After a weekend of camping as a family in the middle of nowhere, Don and I got up early to go to a mountain resort where he had to give a presentation. Thankfully, we were up and out the door 20 minutes earlier than we needed to be. As I pulled out of the drive we could feel that something wasn’t right. I turned around and pulled back in to find a flat tire. The miracle is that I had driven an easy fifty miles back and forth down a deserted dirt road over the weekend and this flat waited for our car to be in our driveway before it gave us any problems.

Don was anxious to get up the mountain to his presentation, “Well, maybe it’s time for you to learn to drive Bren’s car.”

Alarm arose in me, “Are you serious? I know I need to learn to drive a stick, but I promise you, now is not the time. We will not get there.”
He was serious, “Mariah, you can do it.”
I held fast, “I know I can, but not now. You cannot miss this presentation because your wife could not pull it together under the pressure of a manual transmission and a deadline. Please, let’s change the tire. We have plenty of time.”

Not waiting for his response, I said a quick prayer, jumped out of the driver’s seat, opened the back and went for the spare tire. He took his jacket off, got the jack and went to work. In heals and a skirt I brought him the spare, on his knees in his suit he put it in place. In under twenty minutes we had the job done. We said a prayer of thanks and enjoyed a beautiful fall drive up the canyon. He walked in to his convention just as they were getting ready to announce him.

Sickness and Health – This month several sicknesses have come and gone through our house. And, while we have good medical coverage, we hate to go to the doctor. Between waiting to be seen, paying co-pays and filling prescriptions, the whole undertaking cn be quite costly, even with decent insurance. No one had to go to the doctor and, though some sicknesses lingered longer than I prefer, everyone is well and whole again.

Gifts from Grandma’s Farm – One day we came home to find a freezer basket full of ground venison (when it’s ground, you mix it with a little beef and it is great in tacos, marinara sauce, chili and other highly seasoned dishes). Grandma and Grandpa had also brought a box full of potatoes, apples and onions.

Gifts from Heba – Our honorary Egyptian family member shares so much with us. From recipes to her favorite foods from Costco, she has helped a lot. She is amazed by the abundance we enjoy in the US and wants to partake of it all. She gets antsy if we have fewer than four gallons of milk or five dozen eggs in the fridge. I am overwhelmed by her generosity and her desire to always see the fridge full of the right stuff.

Inspiration - I’ve had several small epiphanies on how to keep my family close this season when we are all going so many disparate directions. I'll elaborate on them all another time if anyone is interested. They are:

• The Thankful Things Jar
• Meal Time Helpers
• Candle Time
• Short and Sweet Traditions

I came from a home rich with weekly and seasonal family tradition. I married into a family where tradition isn’t in the details of WHAT we do when we get together, their tradition is just BEING together. So, in this home I’ve made with my husband, I often feel like the primary guardian of all things sentimental. What can I say, left to my own foolish machinations I overly-romanticize scenes of hearth and home and am inclined to perpetuate them whenever possible. And, it’s not that Don isn’t supportive and creative when it comes to making family memories, he absolutely is. But this year, I’m thrilled to watch my older daughter jump on the Nostalgia BandWagon with me, drink deep from a cup of cheer and catch the sap before it starts pouring to thick. She’s my new check for overdoing it.

I count it a rich blessing to have another someone to share the work and fun of family traditions with. KC made a goal this season to spend ten hours in the kitchen with me learning the ins and outs of bringing holiday, and everyday, meals to the table. From menu planning, budgeting, shopping, and preparation she plans to be my partner in the high and holy work of nourishing our family at the dinner table. Wahoo! I told you I was going to get sappy.

Grateful Girls and Boys – On Hannah’s birthday, after all the gifts were given, cupcakes were devoured and everyone was in bed for the night, I found a note from Hannah on my bed. It summarized her grateful feelings of the day:
“To My Family. I am so glad to be in this family. I love you. Love – Hannah.”

This from the girl of great expectations that can rarely be met to the level of her dreams or fully realized as she imagined them. For her, this token of gratitude was huge. No wishes that things had been different, no talk of what she wanted and didn’t receive, no mention of anything lacking. Her note epitomizes the spirit in my house, among all of us this month and I am grateful for that feeling above all else.