Rainbow Turkey Soup

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!

Turkey Enchiladas with Homemade Enchilada Sauce

Just in time for Thanksgiving here in the US. I roasted a turkey on Sunday, sort of a pre-holiday feast since I won't be hosting turkey day this year. Nothing fancy about the roasting I did--just an herbed butter rubbed all over. Made some broth from the carcass yesterday, of course, and will make some turkey soup in the next day or so. But tonight I made turkey enchiladas, sort of a family tradition. The only problem was that when I grabbed the can of enchilada sauce from the pantry, I saw that I'd accidentally bought "hot." My kids don't do "hot" so I was at a momentary quandary: Should I try it anyway? Or should I freeze the diced turkey and wait till I could get to the store? Then I remembered seeing a recipe for enchilada sauce in Not Just Beans. I monkeyed with it just a bit, being partial to a bit more garlic flavor and a bit worried about the spiciness.

15 oz tomato sauce
1/2 tsp oregano
1.5 tsp garlic powder (or less to taste)
3/4 tsp chili powder (more to taste if you like)
1 tsp onion powder (or more to taste)
1/2 tsp or less salt (I used a bit less)
1/4 tsp cumin

Mix it all up and heat. I ended up adding a bit of water to it because it was pretty thick.

Put a bit of sauce in a baking dish. Dip corn tortillas in the sauce to soften them, lay some diced turkey and grated cheddar cheese on them, roll them up, and lay in the baking dish. Cover with the rest of the sauce and some extra grated cheese. Cover and bake at 350 for 30 minutes or so.

Stracciatelle or "Rag Soup"

I still have some spinach from the big bag I bought at Costco. We had chicken the other night, so I had made broth from the bones and scraps, figuring on making soup. One of my daughters is on half-days at school this week so I thought welcoming her home with a nice bowl of warm soup would hit the spot. I started out making their simple favorite, which we've come to call "Frog's Eyes Soup" due to the little tiny pasta: it's essentially chicken broth, sliced carrots, tiny pastas, parsley, and some Parmesan cheese. Haven't yet met a kid that wouldn't eat that!


But when I started to make this I saw that big bag of spinach starting at me from the shelf and thought I'd add some spinach. I sliced it into tiny strips and added it to the broth that was simmering. Then I spied Dom DeLuis's cookbook and thumbed through it. I don't know whether it's his commentary or pictures or recipes, but so far my kids have loved everything I've made from that. I saw a recipe for soup with spinach and tiny meatballs. I didn't have tiny meatballs but pulled some regular sized ones out of the freezer and added those, then threw in some sliced celery for good measure. When everything was cooked, I mixed together two eggs and poured them slowly into the broth while it simmered, stirring at the same time to make "rags" from the eggs. Dom called it stracciatelle or "rag soup" but similar recipes I've seen call it "Wedding Soup." I'm not sure what we'll call it but my daughter ate two big bowls of it for lunch and pronounced it "great!"

Cream of Spinach

I bought a big bag of fresh spinach the other day because I love spinach salads but there is a LOT of spinach in a bag! So I just made the most wonderful cream of spinach, to use some more of it up.


20 oz frozen chopped spinach cooked, and drained (or equivalent fresh)
3 Tbs butter
1/2 cup diced celery
3 Tbs diced onion
3 Tbs flour
?¼ tsp salt
1 cup milk or broth or 1/2 of each
3 more Tbs butter or oil
1/2 tsp garlic salt
salt and pepper to taste

Cook the spinach. If you're using fresh, put about 1/2 cup of water and the spinach in a pan. Bring to a boil and then turn down the heat. Simmer for a few minutes, covered, stirring now and then until the spinach is wilted and cooked. If you're using frozen, follow the directions. Drain the spinach well, whether you used fresh or frozen.

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Make a cream of celery soup. If you're in a hurry, just skip this step and warm up a can of store-bought.

Melt the 3 Tbs butter in a saucepan over medium low heat and sautee the celery and onion in the butter until soft.

Stir in the flour and salt and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

Using a wire whisk, slowly add the milk or broth and cook until smooth and thick. (If you heat the milk or broth first, it is easier to avoid lumps.)

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To the soup, add the additional butter or oil, garlic salt, salt and pepper and stir with a whisk until smooth.

Combine with the cooked spinach and heat through.