The Only Thing Going to Waste is the "Gobble"

On the evening of Turkey Day, we were stuffed with leftovers and a little tired after cooking, cleaning and the letdown after all the excitement of the big day with family.  Time to find an easy chair and relax, right?  Not exactly.  First there is a bit more work to do.  After lunch and during clean-up, we carve all the remaining meat of the two birds - one a baked turkey and the other a fried one.

The meat goes into the fridge for leftovers and the bones, skin, cartilage, onions, carrots, and bits of small meat goes into a big stock pot and water is poured to cover the contents.  A cover is put on the pot and it is boiled all afternoon long.  In the late evening, we turned off the stove and let it sit.  In the morning, the contents of the pot was still warm.

Remnants of the Gobbler

The contents of the pot was poured through a sieve to strain out the non-liquids. The photo above shows those "non-liquids."  The dogs really appreciated eating on this for about three days.  As for the liquid, well, that is some good turkey stock.

Straining through a sieve

The turkey stock was nice and rich and we wanted to be able to use it for being the base for soups this winter or gravies, or, if you really want to make your rice more flavorful, cook it in turkey stock instead of water.  Wow! Does that ever make a big difference.

There are many things you can do with turkey stock

We put the pot of turkey stock in the fridge and cool it down fully for about half a day.

Turkey stock

Once it has cooled, the turkey stock will settle out with the fat rising to the top.  The bottom congeals like turkey flavored jell-o.  We skim the fat off the top and that goes into the pile of bones and skin for the dogs.  They really enjoy that.  The remaining turkey stock goes into quart jars and is frozen in the deep freeze for use later.  Not much gets wasted on the turkeys.  Obviously, we do this with every chicken we eat as well.  Turkey stock is a flavorful, healthy item that we enjoy long after the rest of the Thanksgiving turkey is gone.