Stone Soup from Turkey Stock

Okay, it’s been nearly a week and everyone has a turkey carcass in the fridge, bones picked over and tendons standing out. Garbage day is coming up and you always mean to make stock but never get around to it. Let this be the year you actually do it. I swear, it takes five minutes of effort.

Take the carcass and chop the bones into pieces small enough to toss into your slow cooker. Add an onion that you cut in half, a bay leaf, some limp parsley or parsley stems, and a carrot. I use the carrots from the cruidite platter. Also, if you have any leftover white wine, add a cup or so. Cover everything with water, put on the lid, and turn on low. Come back 12 hours later. Stock!

I add a splash of white wine when I’m using the stock. It brightens up the flavors quite a bit.

That’s the leanest sort of stock, frankly, and though it’s good, it is a little thin. If you have a little bit of energy, money, and time, go to the local grocery store and check out all the turkey and turkey parts on sale. Cheap. Grab a package of wings or legs and throw those into the stock, too, and you’ll get a much richer stock.

Now, if you’re going to make the stock into soup right away, and if you happen to have some gravy left, then you are in the unique position of combing the two and making a fine, rich, dark soup.

Seriously. I know it sounds weird but really, when you think about it, it’s just fond and a roux and more stock. I often use fond and a roux in my soups and stews. Just make whatever soup you want — I like barley and mushroom but beans or pasta are fine, too — and reserve a couple cups of stock. Then, when you’re done, warm the gravy and slowly whisk in some of the reserved stock. It will thin the gravy enough to be whisked into the soup and you’ll have a really delicious, layered, thick, rich soup on your hands.

The only trick to adding gravy to soup is that gravy, especially gravy from a brined bird, is usually salty, so you want to be careful about seasoning.

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Menu Planning

Like Jen, I blogged too much and have been taking a break. But I mentioned, lo those many weeks ago, that I was going to start doing menu planning. I even bought a notebook just for that! (That doesn’t mean anything, to be honest. I like to buy notebooks and will do so at the slightest provocation.)

So this morning, I sat down to make my menu plan. It’s kinda cheating, since it’s Thanksgiving week and I won’t be here for two days, but you have to start somewhere.

I have decided to only plan dinners. Breakfast is always the same and lunch is usually just leftover dinner.

Monday: Ravioli from Dave’s Fresh with mustard-thyme Brussels sprouts.
Tuesday: Beans and greens with bacon
Wednesday: Squash soup and fresh bread
Thursday: Thanksgiving dinner at my folks’ place
Friday: Chili at Barb’s place
Saturday: Leftovers from Thanksgiving
Sunday: Pizza. Homemade if I’ve got the energy, take out if I don’t.

Let’s see how well that works out.

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Thoughts on too much blogging

So what did I learn from two weeks of attempting to record what I did in the kitchen?  Mostly I learned that that is way more blogging than I have the energy for.  Hence my disappearance immediately afterward.  But I also got an idea of just how much energy I’m wasting when I don’t plan ahead.  This is sort of depressing, because I know I’m not good at planning and it’s going to be a lot of work to get better.  I’m tired, I don’t want more work.  Yes, this work will save me energy in the long run, but I’m tired now.  Whine whine whine. 🙂

The other thing it made me think about is how much easier it is to behave responsibly when someone’s watching me.  I don’t think this is just me, I think it’s at least a lot of people, possibly everyone.  You remember when your neighbors knew all your business, from what you bought to who you talked to?  No?  Neither do I.  But it used to be, if not exactly like that, closer than it is now.  Most people don’t know their grocers, and even if they do they can always stop in a different store if they have a guilty craving.  People’s social groups are very segregated by interest, and most of the people you talk to have no idea how you eat, or how you spend your time, or anything else you don’t specifically tell them.  Probably my life is more fragmented this way than a lot of people’s, but I think the trend is there.  And in a lot of ways this is a good thing.  I have people to talk with about all my different geeky interests, and I don’t bore them too much usually.  And I like the way my house feels very private and safe, and I don’t have to worry about whether the spatulas are a tripping hazard.  The chances of unexpected people showing up at my door are slim, to say the least.  But at the same time, this means that on Thursdays I often don’t brush my hair at all.  It means that on Fridays I often don’t make dinner at all, because I know Matt won’t be home until late, and the kids and I can find something to eat.  It means I can let the dishes pile up until they bother Matt and he washes them.  In short, when no one is watching me I get very lazy.  Perhaps when the kids get older I’ll have less trouble with that, or perhaps not.  In the meantime, I guess I have to watch myself. 🙂

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Days 13 & 14

So yesterday we were going to the zoo, and then to a relative’s house for dinner.  I won’t talk about everything that went wrong with that, because very little of it involved food.  Breakfast was normal for the people who were awake for it.  I sliced most of a loaf of bread for lunch, giving people a wide variety of options for sandwiches: peanut butter, almond butter, or sunbutter.  I had no food in the house, because I hadn’t been thinking about that meal.  Oops.  But bread and nut butters I always have, for precisely that reason.  One person wanted jelly as well, and one person wanted honey with the almond butter.  I’ll have to remember that.  Add to the bag an apple per person, some green peppers, some roasted pumpkin seeds, and various bottles of water, and you have more lunch than anyone actually ate.  My sandwich was Nutella, because I needed it.

I’d said I’d bring bread to dinner, and that was strange too.  I’d made the dough the previous day and let it rise, forgetting to put sweet in the dough.  So it took forever to rise, and I didn’t have forever.  So the bread wasn’t all the way risen when I had to bake it.  But you know, it was fine.  Not perfect, but fine.  And the car smelled like fresh-baked bread all the way to the zoo.

We left the guests at the other relative’s house for a few days, so now I get a break.  I toasted frozen waffles for breakfast (I make many batches at once, and freeze them), and we ate pasta and assorted leftovers for lunch.  Dinner’s at my parents’ house, and I’m bringing the other half of the pie I made on Friday.  It would be a cooking-free day for me (Matt made the pasta), except that we’re out of bread.  I do have slices of bread in the freezer for emergencies, but I really like having bread all the time.  So I made a sponge last night, and today added the rest of the ingredients.  Then I sat down to type this while the mixer kneaded.  That part failed, because the dough was stiffer than usual and I was making two loaves at once, and the mixer gave up.  So I finished it by hand.  I remembered the honey this time.

I’m exhausted now, so I’m likely to take it easy this coming week.  Lots of single-dish, slow cooking meals.  Our guests are coming back for one day next week, so I’ll have to think about that dinner.  But whatever it is, it’ll be easy.  And anyway, Halloween is coming!  Must get ready!

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Day 12, the ‘relaxing’ day

So the plan was, today I quickly throw the pie together, and make a quick stir-fry.  And that was it.  Oh, and roasting the pumpkin seeds.  You know how plans go when there are lots of people around.

I ended up deciding I wanted to do the bread dough and first rise this afternoon (to bring to dinner tomorrow.  Second rise in the fridge tonight, bake it tomorrow.  Well, that’s all well and good, but I forgot to put any honey in the dough, and just realized it now.  So that’s why it’s not getting pouffy.  It’s rising, just not the way it would have with sugar of some sort.  Thinking about it, I know it’ll be fine, but JUST IN CASE I’m going to make another batch of dough, which will have its first rise in the fridge tonight, and if we’re around enough tomorrow to bake it, I will.  Note: I don’t usually behave this way, this is the effect of cooking for extended in-law family, who talk about my cooking so I feel like I have to live up to the talk.  Sigh.

This morning, for reasons I completely fail to understand, I made waffles for breakfast.  Waffles with brown sugar, tons of vanilla, crystallized ginger, walnuts, and chocolate in them.  I don’t serve them on plates, because I think putting syrup on them might be lethal.  They’re very good, but slightly time-consuming, and I thought we were going to carve pumpkins this morning.

Nathaniel was too keyed up to nap, so I didn’t have time to just work.  Putting the pie together took far longer than it should have, because he was helping a lot.  Including stirring the pudding on the stove.  I think I leapt about 4 feet to stop that.  Later he discovered the egg beater, which is a hand tool he had never noticed before, which has moving parts.

Cutting the chicken took forever too, and I loathe raw chicken.  If I ever become vegetarian, it’ll be an excuse to never touch raw chicken again.  I actually had managed to defrost most of it to exactly the way I like it: still frozen, but soft enough to cut.  I should’ve used the wok, but was too lazy to get it out, and my skillet wasn’t really big enough.

I just noticed that I’ve stopped saying when I did what.  There’s a reason for that… I have no idea.  When I have guests, and therefore more cooking to do, what ends up happening is that I just am in and out of the kitchen all day.  Sometimes in more, sometimes out more.  And the kitchen becomes a social zone.  Almost everyone seems to be comfortable chatting in a kitchen.  I cook, they hang out, sometimes I ask them to do something, sometimes they offer.  We talk about the cooking, then we talk about the family, and cooking, and our childhoods (often as they related to food, or to people who made us food), and then about whatever happens to come up.  When people talk in the kitchen, they talk largely about home, and things related to home and homes.  When people talk elsewhere, they’re more likely to talk about logistics, sports, movies, health issues… all of which can be worthy topics.  But personally, I like talking in the kitchen best, because people seem happiest there.

So today I made bread while talking to my MIL’s husband about kids, bread, family traditions, and pickles.  I made the pudding for the pie while talking to him as well, while the little one ran around under our feet and learned as much as an 18 month old can about cooking.  I talked to my MIL while making the stir-fry, until I had her set the table.  I talked to the kids on and off too, of course, as they wandered through the kitchen or asked me to go look at something elsewhere.  Nathaniel needed to use the potty when I had raw chicken all over my hands.  I tried to talk him through taking his pants off.  He sat down, carefully removed both socks, and peed.  Close, though!  Maybe I should’ve washed my hands instead. 😉  I realized at some point that I could cook the granola and pumpkin seeds at the same temperature, so I did them at the same time.  I need more baking sheets, apparently.

Life happens in the kitchen, when you’re really using the kitchen.

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Day 11, quickly

Breakfast:  granola and various dairy products.

Lunch: leftovers etc, including turkey sandwiches, sunbutter sandwiches, onion soup, cannelini beans straight from the can, and one of our slowly ripening tomatoes.

Dinner: Beef stew, mashed potatoes, and bread & butter.  Due to various happy accidents, I ended up feeding 6 adults and 2 kids, in (roughly) two shifts.  It was almost all eaten, with just enough left over to make me sure that no one went hungry.  The kids both had seconds, so I’ll be making more beef stew.  I was glad of the grandparents, as I realized when we got home at 4:30 that we had no carrots.  I was sure we had carrots.  Then I remembered I hadn’t picked up the CSA box, and I was sure it would have carrots.  So I left the kids with the grandparents, picked up CSA, which had no carrots.  Left kids with grandparents again while I went to the store for carrots, and came home with carrots, onions, mushrooms, and apples.  I’m not great at the whole planning thing.  Anyway, the stew got done.  I’d browned the meat at lunchtime, so I just had to throw in beer and veggies after the trip to the store.  Mashed potatoes, again, are quick.  I sewed for most of the cooking time.  Then during the family half of dinner, I tossed some cookie dough in the oven, so we had fresh cookies for dessert.  I lean toward cookie recipes which can be kept for a month or more in the fridge.  Which is a surprising number of them, really.

I still haven’t made the granola, and it’s getting really low.  But we’ll be home tomorrow, carving pumpkins.  So I’ll make it then.  Really, I will…

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Lessons Learned: Looking Back… and Forward

So, I started this little project (and cajoled Jen and Abbe into participating, too) because I was curious. How much time and energy and forethought did it take for me to do my cooking-from-scratch-with-mostly-locally-sourced-food routine? All the moms I know (except my two sisters in arms here) think that it’s insane! Clearly, I’m demented to spend that much time and energy in the kitchen.

I even thought so, too. I figured it must not seem like such a chore to me because I enjoy cooking.

But as I kept track of everything I was cooking, planning, buying, etc., my mind kept circling around to the quote I started this project off with: “Spending an hour a day making dinner is…just not realistic if all the adults in the household work outside the home. And if they don’t like cooking, it’s just oppression.”

Okay, I agree that if you don’t like cooking, it’s opression. I don’t like housework so even just a weekly clean in the bathroom feels like torture. But…. I don’t think I ever spent an hour cooking all at once except for the big feast for Pumpkin Day and the great applesauce/jelly preserve.

Instead, I’d wander into the kitchen, stir together a biga and dump some beans in the water to soak and wander back out five minutes later. A few hours later, I’d put the bread ingredients in the Kitchen Aid and turn it on and go read a few chapters until the dough was kneaded.

This is not to say that I didn’t occasionally spend a good chunk of time in the kitchen — chopping veggies usually is good for several NPR stories, about 15 minutes. But I really wasn’t chained to the stove like my ancestresses. Part of that is just technology: slow cookers, the Kitchen Aid, and a well-stocked freezer really make a world of difference.

(Jen and I, someday, will do dueling posts about Kitchen Aids. You’ll be entertained, I promise.)

It also helped that I made big batches of things and we ate leftovers. Leftovers, as Jen pointed out earlier, are the least amount of cooking possible. Just reheat and eat. It’s like Trader Joe’s only it tastes like I want it to taste.

I also want to admit that I picked October to do this log because October is the best cooking month. My CSA box overflowth with the good stuff and it’s not too hot so long and slow braises are easy and appropriate. Also, I don’t have to think about the holidays yet so there’s none of that “oh, god, I am sitting down. I must make a batch of cookies!” I picked the sweet spot and I know it. In August, there are plenty of weeks where I don’t cook at all because of the heat. And in January, there are plenty of weeks where we don’t get nearly enough vegetables.

Also, I think I may need to seriously consider a more thoughtful approach to menu planning. The nights I found the least stressful were the nights when I knew exactly what I was going to make. The nights that I panicked were because I had no clue what to make.

I‘ve talked about this before — it was an art that my Aunts Thelma and Gail mastered. I usually try to have a sort of rhythm but it often falls apart. But a recent post on one of my favorite locavore blogs, Fields and Fire, had a lot to say about it and she has me thinking hard about it. Maybe setting a firm menu on a two-week rotation, with lots of wiggle room of course, would be the thing to do.

Part of this is because of the last thing I noticed writing the blog. Thinking a head is vital.

Modern convenience foods have gotten us used to the idea that we can walk into the kitchen at 5 and have dinner on the table by 6. Or even 5:30. Or, hell, with a microwave, by 5:05. We’ve been trained to laziness by the freezer case.

In fact, if you want to cook from scratch, you have to start way earlier than merely one hour ahead. Sometimes you have to think a whole day ahead, or several days. There’s shopping to do and prep.

And if I know what I’m cooking ahead of time, I can really spend a lot less time cooking (and shopping). Beans and whole grains — always tops on nutritionists’ lists of foods we should eat — take time to soak and then cook. Locally sourced ingredients take planning to buy. Frozen caches of food take time to defrost.

So, my final words to you, my hypothetical reader. You can do from-scratch cooking without spending tons of time in the kitchen if you plan and think ahead. In fact, from-scratch cooking (with technology) is sorta easier than convenience food cooking… if you plan ahead. If you don’t, it’s a huge pain in the ass and of course you don’t want to do it.

I’ll report back on my menu planning later.

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Day 10, and the guests are here!

So this is probably where I give up this log.  Maybe not, we’ll see.

Breakfast as usual, where ‘usual’ means ‘give everyone whatever they seem to be interested in at the moment’.  I don’t remember it really, except that it involved at least one apple.  Lunch was actually sliced turkey from the deli today, along with bread and various leftovers.  Cynthia requested ‘sliced meat’ when we went shopping the other day, and I’m in the habit of agreeing with reasonable requests.  Nathaniel did not approve of the sliced turkey, and spent lunchtime salting and peppering his turkey, because he figured out how to use the pepper grinder.

In the afternoon, I sliced onions while on hold with the Mass RMV.  I tossed them in a big pot with a bit of olive oil, added some thyme and pepper, and turned the heat on low.  Onion soup is a dish which takes all afternoon to cook, but once you’ve sliced the onions you never need to be there for more than 30 seconds.  You just walk by every 15-30 minutes and stir the onions, glance at the bottom and if there’s a bunch of brown stuck to the pot, add some white wine.  When everything in the pot is brown and carmelley (that’s my new word), add a little more wine and a bunch of broth.  I like vegetable best, beef is ‘standard’ I think, and chicken is also very good.  Then turn the heat up a little so it can simmer for a while.  I don’t do all that work with broiling individual servings, I just put bread in a bowl, sliced cheddar on the bread, and dump the soup over it all.  The onions stay on the bread, the broth fills the bowl and starts to sink into the bread, and the hot soup melts the cheese nicely.  I gave the kids chicken soup because it was easier and I was trying to finish cleaning the house.

I did remember to make the bread today (good thing too, because the last loaf is gone now.)  I also made the crust for the chocolate vanilla banana pie.  I didn’t make the granola, but I did at least get some ingredients out and put them on the counter.  I also stacked my green tomatoes carefully on wire cooling racks so they won’t rot.  My mom apparently has a good recipe for green tomato mincemeat, which I might try instead of pickles… or maybe I’ll not get around to doing anything, and just see how many ripen.

One thing I keep forgetting to mention is all the food I don’t cook.  The kids eat lots of that.  Bread, peppers, tomatoes, apples, crackers, bananas, dried fruit, (dried pasta,) canned beans, pecans…  The kitchen is a room they use too, and I really only tell them not to eat within about half an hour of dinner.  If they’re hungry right before lunch, they just have lunch early.  Sometimes this means they don’t eat much dinner, but usually it’s not a problem.  I this also frees me to make whatever I want to make, even if I know the kids won’t eat it.  I try not to do this often, mostly, but really I just don’t worry much about it.  I’m very… casual.  Let’s call it casual. 😉

So now I have granola for breakfasts, bread, lentil and onion soups (and a little turkey) for lunches, and plans for a slow-cooker meal (the beef stew), and a quick stir-fry for dinners.  That leaves me flexible and able to entertain the guests (and able to leave the house with them, too!)  I also have a partially-made pie, and cookie dough in the fridge.  All set for company!

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Day 9, I think

Granola for breakfast, with yogurt and jam.  Nathaniel ate the whole bowl with his fingers.  Lunch was the rest of the tortellini (I got the big bag, and only cooked half last night.)  I had to cook some backup pasta as well, because the kids were all about lunch.  After lunch, I set about prepping the cranberry sauce I needed to make.

Here’s how you should make cranberry sauce:  Buy cranberries.  Get home, open bags, rinse the berries, and spend 2 or 3 minutes looking for stems and soft berries.  Follow favorite recipe.  (I like the whole berry recipe on the Ocean Spray bags.)

Here’s how I do it.  Buy cranberries.  Get home, leave bags on counter for at least half a day.  Put bags in fridge, and leave them there for 1-3 weeks, while berries rot.  Take them out, open bags, rinse, and spend at least 45 minutes removing the quarter of the berries which have gone soft.  Follow recipe.  I do this every time.  It’s not that I never learn, it’s that I buy them when I see them in the fall, and don’t think about when I have time.  Sigh.  However, now my cranberry sauce is made and canned (though I may make more later.)  It’s even easier than jelly!

For various reasons, I didn’t get home until 6:00 today.  Dinner time is 6:30, and the pork chops which were supposed to be defrosting were still one large chunk of ice.  I tried to figure out microwave defrosting, I guess I succeeded because they only got slightly cooked in there.  I chopped some potatoes (from my garden!) while the pork was thawing.  Mashed potatoes can be very quick, if you chop the potatoes small.  Cynthia went and found the potato masher for me.  I thought about vegetables, and threw up my hands.  The pork went in an oiled skillet with a lot of salt and pepper on it, on pretty high heat.  I looked in the freezer for vegetables, decided that I had piles of vegetables, and nothing I was willing to deal with cooking at that moment.  Whatever, it won’t kill us.  After flipping the chops, I mashed the potatoes with butter, cream, and way too much salt and pepper.  Happy happy potatoes.  Dinner was a few minutes late, but not many.  It would’ve been on time if the meat had thawed like it was supposed to. 😉

Today I decided to make chocolate vanilla banana pie while we have people here to help us eat it.  Most people know this as banana cream pie, I think, but Cynthia invented it for herself, and gave it a name herself, and I had never heard of it.  So we call it chocolate vanilla banana pie, and it is one of our family’s very favorite desserts.  As a bonus, you can make the vanilla pudding ahead of time, and the crust, make the actual pie assembly really fast and easy.

My failure today: I did not go the farmers’ market, even though I needed apples and parsnips and green beans.  I bought them at Stop & Shop, knowing they would be both inferior.  I was just so tired today, and Nathaniel completely failed to nap, and was incredibly tired and and and.  I thought we’d just drive instead of walking, but then it was time for dance class… oh well.  I’m still working this into my schedule and my life, and it’s not a perfect fit yet.  I ate one of the apples after dinner, because I felt weirdly veggie-less.  It is indeed inferior, but hey, it’s still an apple.

I also started a sponge this evening, because I need to make more bread tomorrow, to be ready for travel-weary guests in the evening.  We’ll see whether I remember to actually make the bread this time.

And the granola!  I still need to make a batch of granola, and also move a frozen lump of chicken to the fridge.  Maybe if I re-read this tomorrow it’ll remind me.

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Day 8, actually cooking again!

… but not these.  Not today.

Breakfast this morning was frozen bagels.  I buy frozen bagels because to me, they’re not anywhere near worth making, with the boiling and the baking and the ritual chants and who knows what else it takes to get them to come out right.  But they are worth keeping in the freezer for the times when someone doesn’t want anything else.  So we had bagels.

Lunch was cottage cheese and pasta.  Yeah, I know.  I spent 90 minutes trying to put Nathaniel to sleep, and then realized we had 30 minutes before we had to leave for school.  So I looked in the fridge and pantry for anything fast (that wasn’t bagels).  I found Cynthia and asked whether she wanted cottage cheese or pasta for lunch, and she said “Both!”  So we had both.  The cottage cheese really needed eating anyway.

After lunch we dropped her off, I put Nathaniel to sleep for real, and I went to survey the garden.  It isn’t really a garden, it’s a one foot wide strip of dirt between the two driveways that I hurriedly dumped a bunch of sprouting plants in, far too late in the spring.  The plants were mostly tomatoes, and I always forget about the rest, so I knew I needed to pick everything before a frost hit.  So I pulled up a bunch of tiny carrots, gazed fondly at the patch where I’d recently dug out the potatoes, and picked all the tomatoes, ripe or not.  Mostly not.  Some may ripen indoors, but really I think I need to pickle most of them.  I hope I like pickled green tomatoes.

At about 4:30, after we retrieved Cynthia from school, I started part one of dinner prep.  Pick a squash, remove seeds (refrigerate for later, I hope that works with squash seeds), slice it so it’ll cook faster, dump it in a baking dish with coriander and olive oil, put foil over, and stick it in the oven at 350.  What’s green in the fridge?  Kale!  I like kale.  Chop kale, put in pan with a little water, put on stove.  Don’t turn it on, just leave it there until I need it.  Put sausage in a skillet, turn it on fairly low to cook it slowly.  The plan is, cook it now, slice it and then heat up the slices right before dinner.  I got tortellini at the store because I really wanted it, so fill a pot with water and leave that on the stove too.  It’s about 5:15 now, and I can go off and do whatever else needs doing.

Just before 6:00, I’m back in the kitchen.  Take the foil off the squash but leave it in the oven.  Turn the heat on under the water and kale.  Realize the sausages are still only half done.  Slice them anyway, they’ll cook faster sliced.  The slicing is a little messy, but not a problem.  Add balsamic vinegar to kale, taste, decide to never do that again.  Oh well.  Cook pasta, get the squash out, spend more energy getting the kids to set the table than it would’ve taken to set it myself (but it’s the principle!), drain pasta, Matt’s home, and it’s dinner time.  I took a reasonable looking amount on my plate, and went back for seconds.  And thirds.  And fourths.  So did everyone else.  Well, Nathaniel didn’t, but his tummy is small.  We ate all the kale, but only because I didn’t make much.

You can have a lot of dishes on the table if they’re all easy, and require work at different times.  Squash is great for that, because it cooks for so long.

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