Last year I purchased two Popeye’s frozen turkeys. My plan was to fry one for Thanksgiving and the other for Christmas. We fried the one for Thanksgiving and it must have been very good because there wasn’t a lot left. The hostess for our Thanksgiving Day dinner was not familiar with saving the carcass, so she threw it out before I could stop her.
I don’t know why we didn’t do the second turkey for Christmas last year. But I still had that turkey in my deep freezer. So even though it was a year old, I defrosted it, and took it to Thanksgiving dinner. The fellas fried the turkey last year. This year I made sure that I did it. Once the oil was at cooking temperature, I carefully lowered the bird into the hot oil in stages. It bubbled, but the oil never overflowed. And let me tell you, that was one good-smelling turkey while it was cooking. It was as delicious as it smelled once done. And as expected, I was left with a carcass and one leg. Once dinner was over, everybody knew I was taking home the remnants.
I have several Facebook friends who also took their leftover turkey and turned it into either turkey broth or stock. What’s the difference between the two? Stock is normally made from bones, and broth is made from meat. I opted to make the stock. After about a half hour of cooking on a low flame, it was easy to remove the meat and return the skin and bones back to the pot. I let that stock simmer for about six hours. All I know is that I’m going to make me a pan of dressing, and I’m going to have the most flavorful liquid to put in it.
I opted to use part of the stock to make turkey-carcass soup. And boy, between making the stock and the soup, my house began smelling like Thanksgiving Day. Even more wonderful was the amount of meat that had came off that bird. It was literally astonishing.
Because I was raised by my mother who lived through the Great Depression, she knew how to be thrifty when it came to food preparation and making her food budget stretch. And she passed that down to me. But as I watch food prices spiraling out of control, I wonder how many young people know how to maximize their food budget.
Making soup is a very filling meal that does not require a lot of meat. It’s also a good way to use up a lot of different things in the refrigerator. I added noodles to my soup as a stretcher. The pasta helps make the soup a more filling meal.
As I put the soup into individual storage bags to keep in the freezer, I know that it will come in handy on days that I don’t feel like cooking.
Every household should have a deep freezer so that items when they go on sale can be stocked up. It’s the only way we’re going to beat these rising food costs.
Arlene Jones, a resident of the Austin neighborhood in Chicago, writes a weekly column for Austin Weekly News, a Growing Community Media publication.