Ah, soup night! I made the broth Monday from the turkey carcass and refrigerated it in a big old pickle jar. Tonight I skimmed off the fat that had solidified. I remember the first time I made turkey broth. I pulled it out of the frig the next night to make soup and got very worried. The broth was like jelly! Chicken broth had never done that to me so I was sure I’d done something wrong. I’ve since come to learn that turkey broth solidifies more easily and that the jelly-like texture is a sign of good broth!

I pulled out a few soup recipes, including a minestrone soup recipe my sister had given me, a Fannie Farmer recipe, and my 12 Months of Monastery Soups. I love cookbooks organized by seasons and this one has been superior so far. I love making soups and it’s given me all kinds of fun ideas. Tonight I started out with the Tuscany Minestrone, with a few variations. Some of the variations are because I started out by satueeing onions, carrots, and celery in some butter while I read the various recipes. I had added some thinly sliced kale and spinach and covered the pot to cook the greens before I found a recipe I wanted to use…Well, use as inspiration anyway. The major differences were that I added celery and used turkey broth instead of chicken broth and the kale rather than just spinach because I needed to cook the kale I’d bought before it went bad.

So what I ended up with was essentially:

2 Tbs butter
a few sliced carrots
a sliced stalk of celery
some chopped garlic

saute this a few minutes, then add:

thinly sliced kale
thinly sliced spinach

Cover and cook 5 minutes or so, till the greens wilt. Then add:

sliced green beans (I used frozen)
julienned red pepper (fresh from our garden!)
6 cups turkey broth
2 cups wine (said the recipe. I only used about 1 cup because that finished off the bottle)
1/2 cup sliced black olives (this is a new one for me in soups)
some parsley, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper

Cover and simmer on low for 1 hour.

After an hour I am to add 1/2 cup raw rice and cook until the rice is done, another 20 minutes or so. I haven’t done that yet because I’m up here typing this while waiting for the hour. Serve with some grated Romano or Parmesan cheese.

I can say that the soup is absolutely gorgeous to look at with the green beans and greens, the orange carrots, the red peppers, and the black olives! A veritable rainbow of colors. And it smells heavenly so far. The black olives and the red peppers really stand out from my normal soups, which tend to be orange/green/beige.

If you like soups, the Monastery book will be a great prod for your imagination. I’ve only made half a dozen or so by purely following the recipe but the combinations are certainly a spark for my imagination. Most of them are actually vegetarian, but I tend to use chicken broth for almost every soup I make. And having it organized by month makes you think about using different vegetables. Highly recommended!