Thanksgiving -- The Addiction

[jducoeur]

So dinner at Richenza's was mondo yummy (goose -- mmm), and most excellent company. But msmemory and I have found ourselves missing one of the most important parts of the Thanksgiving tradition: the leftovers.

So I've just finished chopping bread and onions; she's cutting up the celery while we wait for the turkey to defrost enough to pull the "what-what"s out of it. Tonight is the Simplified Turkey Dinner -- a cute 11lb. bird (only with turkey could 11 pounds be described as "cute") and some more Green Bean Casserole. Tomorrow begins the Turkey Sandwiches, the Turkey Chili, and of course, the all-important Turkey Jello...

-- Justin
Must... get... stuffing... fix...

Comments

[tpau]

turkey jello??

[jducoeur]

Recipe for Turkey Jello:

Take 1 leftover turkey carcass, ideally with a fair amount of Stuff still on it. Put in just enough water to cover it. Boil for a Long Time.

When everything falls apart, fish it all out of the liquid with a strainer. (Do not pour out the liquid -- it's the whole point!) Separate the Nasty Bits from the Yummy Bits, and save the latter in Ziploc baggies.

You now have a pot full of liquid. Boil this until you're bored boiling, generally at least another hour or two to let it reduce a fair bit. Let cool a bit, then pour into appropriate-sized containers. (A quart or two each.) Refrigerate.

Once it's all nice and cold, take out of the fridge and peel the fat off the top. If you boiled it enough, you now have Turkey Jello -- cold, solid turkey stock concentrate, suitable for soups, stews or whatever else poultry stock is good for, with a texture that only an eight-year-old could love. Keep refrigerated. (Probably freezes pretty well, but it never lasts long enough to bother...)

[tpau]

heh. you can also put garlick and meat bits into it, and egg halves (hard boiled) pour into plates and refrigirate. is very good to eat (or at least the beef version is). although te beef version works best if you use bones and tails and hooves i nthe original boiling. my mom used to make it.
when you said turkey jello all i could think of was turkey flavoured jell-o jigglers :)

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

Whee, green bean casserole. I tried pretending I didn't like it when I was in denial about my White Trash Origins, but I realized this year it's something I'll never completely be able to live without. I shouldn't be ashamed of my comfort food....

-becky (whose fridge is full of leftover turkey, mashed potatos, baked potatos, pumpkin pie... and who only left the turkey carcass behind because it wouldn't fit in the box of Stuff to Cart Home).

[jducoeur]

I actually didn't grow up with Green Bean Casserole -- Caitlin introduced me to it when we started doing our own Thanksgivings. But I've grown extremely fond of it. (French Fried Onion topping -- mmm.) And I'm eternally amused by the number of hits that particular page in our recipe book gets at this time each year...

Okay, I'm curious. Let's pull up the statistics. The top hits on the recipes this month were (in order of popularity):

• Green Bean Casserole (382 hits)
  
• Bourbon Pecan Pie (333 hits)
  
• Cranberry Waldorf (332 hits)
  
• Creamed Onions (305 hits)
  
• High Temperature Turkey (279 hits)
  

Yeah, that's about what I'd expect...

-- Justin
Serving the Thanksgiving Needs of the Web for -- oh, at least a few years now...

[tpau]

now i will have to go and look up _what_ a green bean casserole actually is... i am still trying to figure uit what is actually traditional food for thanksgivingand what is n't. so far i ahve gathered it is turkey and apple pie.

Re:

[jducoeur]

Well, aside from the Cranberry Waldorf, the above is pretty much the core of our standard Thanksgiving dinner. (Plus mashed potatoes, which require no particular cleverness, and bog-standard Bread Stuffing, which isn't chic these days. And sometimes Apple Crisp in place of, or supplementing, the Pecan Pie...)

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

It's one can of cream of mushroom soup, two cans of julienned green beans, and a can of French's fried onion bits, baked in a casserole dish. Most everyone else at my mom's Thanksgiving table loves it. I find it revolting-looking, and won't eat it. But then, I'm notoriously picky about vegetables, and won't eat most of them, and the others I won't eat unless they're raw. I'm getting better about it, but not enough to eat green bean casserole.

On the other hand, if you like it, you can have my share.