A few words for the dearly departed... or how to make soup from scraps

the aftermath...

Wow...what time is it? That sure was a great meal. Really? Was I asleep that long.? Is it 4th quarter already! Gee 12 nothing huh? These are the musings from a  tryptophan stupor. What is tryptophan? Actually it is a naturally occurring amino acid that is found in turkey. And truth be told there really isn't enough of it in turkey to make you sleepy. The reason most of us sleep after eating on thanksgiving is the reason we fall asleep after eating on any day; we eat like we are storing fat for the winter! But that's another blog entirely.
Back to the bird. Now that everyone has eaten and you are left putting the food away and  cleaning the kitchen all alone( and muttering to yourself. Mutter..mutter.. I sound like Yosimite Sam when I mutter..rasm..rasm...lily livered..two bit..long horned...HAHA!( If you were born after 1980 you have no idea what I'm talking about!) So you're cleaning up and looking at the pieces you know no one is going to eat and wondering what on earth you are going to do with them? Well, you my dear are going to make soup! Yes you can do this. Forget all of those folks who try to add mystery where there is none. It's not hard and you don't need any special skill. They're just trying to scare you!  Now before you tackle making soup, try to get everything else put away. Wipe your counters down and then attack the bird. Now remember, once you can make this soup, you'll be able to make any soup out of almost any combination of ingredients, because they all start out the same.(Well almost) Pretty tall words I know, and I mean to back them up. Are you ready?
You will need:
Sparkling clean hands and..
-1 turkey, chicken, duck (poultry) carcass. In other words what you have left after dinner is over. It's called a carcass.
-Onion
-garlic
-Salt
-oil
-carrots, celery, potato, whatever veggies you feel like cutting up and throwing in the pot
-and your imagination!
Okay..round one
Start taking the meat off the bones. There is no science to this. Just grab a piece and  pull all the meat off of it.
Throw the pieces of turkey in the pot. Take the meat off the turkey back. ( in other words turn the bird over and pick the meat off.) Making this soup is not a glamorous job. You won't win any prizes for beauty. In fact, you'll pretty much look like a halloween version of June Cleaver with your apron and big knife! But who cares as long as the soup gets done right?
Keep taking the meat off the bones and don't forget the pieces in the pan. No skin, just meat. Now if you have a lot of tiny pieces don't bother with them. Just let them be part of the broth.
What you're going for is a fair amount of light meat and dark meat, you probably won't fill the pot, but no worries just keep going. No questionable pieces please. If you wouldn't eat it than toss it.(as in throw it away)
So now you are going to take all the bones (hereafter to be known as "the carcass") that are left and put them in a pot large enough to hold them. All of those scraps are going to be used. Put a colander in the sink in a large bowl, now dump all of whats left from the turkey pan in the colander. This can be a total mess if you are not careful. I have had the whole thing fall on the counter, or on the floor! (ugh!) Just make sure you have a good idea of where the pot is and where the sink is. In case you haven't figured this out, this soup making thing is a solitary endeavor. Don't start it unless you have time to finish it, or you will be overwhelmed. And don't have any chatty Kathy's hanging around in the kitchen while you are trying to do this. This does take some concentration and you just don't have the time to talk about how you got that turkey so tender so, If you're still entertaining guests, wait until they all leave..I'm stepping down off my soapbox now!
P.S. if you don't want to do all of this work than you can just put all the food in the fridge and go to bed. I like that idea too! Also, clean up is way easier if you use aluminum baking pans for EVERYTHING)
Now back to our regularly scheduled programing..
Your colander is now full of just... stuff, dump the whole thing in the garbage. Not the broth, just the stuff in the colander. Remember the pot with the carcass?  Put this on the stove and fill it halfway with water and two chicken cubes. (Don't waste your good broth on this, you really just want a hint of flavor) Cover and turn the flame to medium and let it come to a boil. Once it comes to a boil turn your flame down to low and let it simmer. You are going to add this to the broth you just poured out of the pan which is in the bottom of the sink. (But not yet...I know trust me, there's a method to my madness) Depending on how much liquid you put in the pan when you roasted your turkey, you may or may not have more broth. Whatever, more broth is a good thing, but we can work with less broth too. Cover this bowl and put it aside. This is the start of your soup.
Here's what we are going for: 
The secret to any good soup is good broth. You can add stuff to it but creating it takes flavor from a source. Like bones or meat or vegetables. We are building a broth.
So..
-The bones and carcass need to be on the stove in a medium pot with water to cover and 2 chicken broth cubes. You are not going for super strong flavor here because the bones are already cooked, you just want to use whats left with no waste. Boosting it with a few cubes helps.
-The broth  from turkey pan needs to be in a covered bowl until it is needed. This is like found gold! It is what gives the soup it's homemade flavor because well.. it is homemade.You are going to use this in the next step.
-The pan that the turkey was cooked in needs to be washed and put away and everything cleaned up.Or if you used a disposable aluminum pan just throw the pan away!! It's not very green I know. Okay now, go get a cup tea, and put your bunny slippers and sweats on. Your  turkey carcass needs to simmer for about 1 hr.
Round two.
So far we have used the colander a pot and a bowl. Grab another pot, last one I promise! Put about 1 tablespoon of oil and 1 tablespoon of butter in it and turn your flame on medium. You should be smelling  the carcass cooking by now.
Once the butter is melted, Use your imagination. You can put in red pepper, parsley, or whatever your heart desires. Flavor it anyway you like with whatever spices you want to add.  At this point I add celery, garlic,salt, onion powder, pepper, potatoes if I want. No rules just guidelines remember? So, take a big spoon and dip some of the carcass broth in the pot. This helps the veggies in the pot not to stick or burn on the bottom. Turn your flame down and get your bowl of broth, the one from the turkey pan, pour it in, taste,correct seasonings and simmer for about 1 hour. Long enough to let your potatoes cook.  Now you have soup! That's all it is.. good broth and veggies. If you need more flavor go ahead and add a bouillon cube.
What about the broth from the carcass?
Well...turn your carcass broth off, and let it cool. Give it a taste. watery, but not water right? Good. It's just meant to correct your pot. It's not the soup. When you want to correct the seasonings in your pot of soup you don't want water and you don't want full broth yet. Full broth will overwhelm the flavor and water will..well water it down. You just want something  to correct the pot and add balance. Now that you know why we have the carcass broth you can choose to skip this step entirely and still have a pretty mean pot of homemade soup. Go for it. No rules, just guidelines remember? :-) Once you are done correcting your seasoning you can toss the carcass broth. OR if you are like me you can use it to boil chicken wings (bony pieces make better broth) and veggies and make more broth! yeah. Hey the more broth you have the more soup you have for later. Make a lot and use it for everything except like...pudding!
Alright now, stir your soup and taste it. It probably needs more of everything. Trust your instincts here. I can't tell you what it should taste like. But you'll know. If you still have thanksgiving veggies leftover, you know like corn or peas you can add them at this point. You could put noodles in right now too. But if you decide to put noodles in be mindful that they have a tendency to soak up a lot of liquid and get mushy..there's no other way to describe it. SO...if you want to put noodles in there's an alternative way you can do it.  Cook your noodles separately, not in the soup. I know it's so tempting to cook them in the soup but you will lose all of that yummy broth you worked so hard for. (Well maybe not all but you get the general idea). You can make enough noodles to refill the pot if you need to. People tend to eat all the noodles and leave the broth when they get soup! So there you have it. You've just made soup! Yeah..do the happy dance! You are incredible!!
Extras..

The nuts and bolts of good soup...

Good soup starts out with a good chicken, turkey, beef or vegetable broth. So, once you've got the broth down you can do anything! The more time you take crafting the broth the better your soup will be. So when you make broth make a lot of it and freeze the rest.
You don't need to tie up the whole kitchen when you want to make soup. You can start a quick soup with broth from a can or cubes. (cubes yes cubes! heehee) The thing to remember is that the cubes have a lot of salt and you may have to doctor the broth up a little to give it that homemade flavor. I find that if I'm going to make a soup with canned broth or cubes I try to stick with a cream soup or bean soup. (split pea works too!) because then the broth isn't the main attraction. So I might make a potato soup which is....leftover mashed potatoes stirred into your wonderful broth with a little pepper, and milk. Beyond that you can add whatever you like. (Ham? Bacon? oh yeah this is getting good right?) CHEESE?? hmmm..
or you could make a vegetable barley soup which is your wonderful broth with about 1/2 cup of barley added to it. Adding turkey makes it a turkey barley soup. What's barley? It's a grain. High protein and yummy. You can find it in the dried bean section. Cook it just like rice. I would cook it separately in some salted water or remember the carcass broth? Use it to cook the barley in your rice cooker..ahem. Anyway twice as much liquid as barley. (1 cup pearl barley to 2 cups water or liquid)
Feel better about this soup thing?
What about beef broth or veggie broth? Beef broth is cooking a roast with a fair amount of liquid, some lipton beefy onion dry soup mix, seasonings, cut up carrot, celery, potato and whatever else you want to add AND an oven bag. You can use the same kind you used for the turkey. Cook it on 325 for like 2 hours. Or crock pot it. No bag needed, just put everything in a crockpot and go to work. 8 hours later you have a delectable roast. The liquid in the pot is your gold!. Take it and add it to a smaller pot in which you have cooked some onion,celery and garlic down in some butta and a little oil.Throw in the cut up beef and some peas and carrots. Now a word about veggies that live in broth. They tend to lose their flavor. Here's a tip if you have time. Roast them in a 400 degree oven for about 15-30 minutes. Peas, carrots, potatoes all do well if you roast them in a little garlic and oil.  Even the canned stuff. Stir them about halfway through the cooking process. Then add them to your pot.  It makes a world of difference. You don't have to do this, only if you want to give it a try. Veggie broth is cooking stock veggies, Onion, carrot, parsley, garlic.  And whatever else. If you look in the vegetable section of the grocery store you can find stock vegetables in a styrofoam package. I get these and just keep them in the fridge. They are really handy to put in my broth to give it some muscle. Sometimes they have parsnips ( fancy carrots!) and turnips in the package. Just rinse these and put them in a pot. Or better yet roast them first and put them in a pot with veggie broth from a carton. The reason is the vegetable broth from the carton has so much more flavor than you can get from just veggies and your limited amount of time. Simmer this on the stove for about 1 1/2hours and then pour it into a colander in a bowl. The liquid you get will be what you build your soup with.
How to thicken your soup.
Add about 2 tablespoons of flour to the pot where you frying your onions garlic and celery in butter. The trick is to have equal amounts of flour to oil. In other words two tablespoons of oil to tablespoons of flour. Let the veggies cook down a bit, then sprinkle in your flour and stir. Eventually the flour with mesh with the oil and it will look like a uniform paste. At this point slowly stir in about 1 1/2 cups of hot broth keep stirring until it's all together than add more hot broth. (No more milk) Until you get it to where you want it to be. Correct your seasonings add whatever else you want to the pot and there you go!
Split pea
Peas cooked in good chicken broth and blended till smooth. Add in some ham pieces and you have split pea soup.
So now that the mystery is gone, go make some soup!