Let's Make Soup . . .

I canned an entire turkey.

It was a heritage turkey on sale after Christmas and Thanksgiving.

We didn't get any real turkey during the holidays - we were busy dragging crap around the country.

When I saw this one on sale at the Good Food Store, I bought it without thinking.

Just knew that I wouldn't be seeing anymore of them until Thanksgiving next year.

Regular CAFO (commercial animal feeding operation) turkeys can be had year round.

Not these babies.

Anyway, I had no clue what to do with Turkey, so I stuck him in the freezer and pondered.

If I simply baked, I would be looking at 20#s of luscious turkey and be happy for about 1 minute.

A turkey in the oven is so much more than just the actual roasted bird

it is stuffing

and gravy

and cranberries

and family

and family

and family

Yeah, so that was just not an option with Leo and I since Tony was on the road and there was no family in sight.

So I pressure canned it.

It took 2 days and I ended up with 16 pints of chunked meat with broth and 12 more pints of scraps and slivers with broth for Leo.

Not bad, but what am I going to do with it now?

I made some fabulous Spicy Turkey Noodle soup - that's what.

Mmmmmmm

And

Tony helped me make the noodles with the pasta machine.

Even better.

Did I mention that it is still really cold outside?

That soup was awesome and we didn't even notice the cold.

Here is the link to the recipe that I started from - mostly used the spice combo here and then riffed from there.