Left over recipe #1 turkey stew

In order to make use of this recipe, start off with the carcass of the turkey from the previous recipe I used to make the turkey, 

Ingredients:

1/2 the main carcass (the part with most of the herbs rubbed on it)
- All the veggie stuffing left over.
- leg bones
- wing bones
- McLib's Southern Dumplings or other noodle/dumplings
- Crock Pot

There were just too many parts of the leftover carcass that I couldn't waste.  During prep, the turkey cavity was rubbed with a wonderful array of herbs: parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, salt and some pepper.  It was also stuffed with plenty of onions, celery, carrots and oranges. I just couldn't throw it away.

I took the carcass, stripped of most of the giant chunks of meat.  I broke the carcass in half.  One half was used in this recipe.  The other half was put in the freezer.  If there doesn't seem to be a lot of herbs hanging on the bones, you might want to add a bit more to the soup.

I put several cups of water in a crock pot, loaded the pot with the carcass, including the leg bones and wings.  then I added all the stuffing veggies.

Near the end of the cooking I added some dumpling noodles (McLib's Southern Dumplings) with some extra water.

There are a few things to watch out. I used the wings so you can imagine the short quills that I found in the soup.  There were also a few small bones.  I tried to pick them all out, but I missed a few. So just be careful.

It was a great stew/soup.  The family loved it.

Orange and Fennel Salad

We learned this recipe from an Italian friend of ours.  Pretty simple:

1) Fennel bulb
2) Orange slices
3) Olive oil
4) Salt and pepper to taste.

Just slice it up and mist together.  That's it!  And it's delicious.

Here's a recipe online that is similar.

Juicy Thanksgiving Turkey

I didn't waste a lot of time trying to find the perfect turkey recipe.  This was at the top of the search engine list.

I pretty much followed the recipe.  The only difference was the use of champagne. I didn't have any so I used a white, sweet wine.  The meat closer the stuffing absorbed some of the herb flavors.  Very nice.

My turkey was pretty big (as usual, it didn't look nearly so big at the grocery store!!)  and it took a but longer to cook.  We ended up eating about 9pm!  Good thing we were hungry.

As far as side dishes, we had the traditional sides.  Corn on the cob, green bean casserole and a fennel and orange salad.