Making Turkey Broth

If you plan to freeze any of your turkey leftovers, you will need to make turkey broth.  By adding two cups of broth to two cups of turkey, you will fill a sandwich-sized ziploc bag and preserve your turkey for over a year.  Making broth is easy to do, and the money you save by not buying broth at the store will pay for the turkey!

As Sister Jackson says, "That store-bought broth is thin and flavorless--they make it by running 40 gallons of water over a turkey from 50 feet in the air--and costs $1.36-$1.65 per pound.   You can get 14-16 pounds of broth from one large turkey and it is thicker, tastier and healthier."

To get the most broth out of your bird, use a covered roasting pan.  Those with a tight fitting lid are best, but some tightly secured tin foil can work too.  Remove the neck and giblets.  Keep the neck to throw into your broth pot with your turkey bones.  Roast your bird breast side down.  You can tell it's cooked when the legs and wings move easily, the broth runs clear, and a meat thermometer reaches 180 degrees.

This will not give you the beautiful browned turkey everyone imagines themselves carving Norman Rockwell style.  Your birds will be moist and delicious, but will be pale, not golden brown.  It's okay.  Nobody really likes waiting for the turkey to be carved anyway.  And if you take off all the meat yourself, you don't end up throwing out that slightly chewed on turkey leg.  Better yet, fill a couple of crock pots with the meat and a cup or so of broth, and it will stay moist and piping hot while you finish the rest of your feast preparations.  In fact, you can roast and deal with your turkey first thing in the morning and have your oven free for all the other baking you want to do!

Dealing with Drippings

If you have covered your roast, you will have lots of nice broth in the bottom of your pan.  If you do not use all your turkey drippings for gravy, you can either refrigerate it--lumps and all--and add it to your bone broth later, or you can prepare it for freezing.

If you plan to freeze the drippings for gravy and flavorful broth, strain your drippings into a container, cover, and keep it in the fridge.  As it cools the fat will rise to the top.  Once the fat solidifies, you can scrape it off.  Then follow the directions for freezing broth below.

Dealing with Leftovers

Putting away leftovers is always epic at the end of a Thanksgiving dinner, surpassed only by doing all the dishes.  But you can make freezing your meat easier by thinking ahead.  Here are 3 options depending your your fridge size:

• You can put all your meat into large ziploc bags or other containers, then measure out the meat you want to freeze later on (this is great if you aren't sure how much you want to freeze yet); 
• You can put the 2 cups of turkey into each sandwich-sized ziploc bag now and add the broth later (since you haven't made the broth yet); 
• You can put your whole turkey in the fridge until you are ready to deal with it.

Do not put any cooked turkey into the freezer until you have added the broth.  Your turkey will dry out, frost over and be generally yucky by next month.

• Use sandwich-sized ziploc bags for your turkey you plan to freeze.  These are the ideal size for most of Sister Jackson's turkey recipes. 
• Write on the bag before you fill it (it's easier that way): "2 c. cooked turkey, 2 c. broth" and the date.
• Measure 2 cups of meat per sandwich-sized ziploc bag, and keep it refrigerated until your broth is done and completely cool.

How to Make Turkey Broth

1. Debone your turkey.
2. Set aside all good meat.
3. Break open the rib cage and remove any nasty looking bird parts (I think those might be kidneys?) or cooked blood that are still inside.  These and the giblets are the only parts you don't really want in your broth.
4. Put all the skin, bones, gristle, neck (if you saved it) and broth into a large soup or stock pot.
• If you are doing this before your meal, throw all this stuff in a large bowl or plastic bag that won't leak, and refrigerate it until you have a couple hours to finish the broth.
5. Add water to cover.  
• It takes 16-20 cups for a 22 lb turkey--that's about how much broth you'll get, but don't measure the water.  Just mash down all the bones and stuff, then add water until it's just covered.
6. Add optional seasonings: 
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 2 tsp. fresh garlic or 1 tsp. dry
• 1-2 Tbls. Vinegar (this pulls the nutrients from the bones and will cook out).
7. Heat to a boil.
8. Reduce to simmer for 1 hour.
9. Strain broth and cool to room temperature.
10. Refrigerate until the fat hardens (I was tired of the process at this point and was happy to clean up and finish my broth the next day.)
11. Skim the fat from the broth.
12. Reheat until it just liquefies (the gelatin and awesome nutrients make the broth thick when it's cold).
13. Add the broth to your bags of turkey (2 cups for sandwich-size).
14. Squeeze as you close to make sure the broth covers all the turkey and that there is no air left in the bag.  You can freeze your turkey now!
15. Freeze the remaining broth in a variety of sizes:
• Snack (1 1/3 cups) for gravy, stir fry and stuffing
• Sandwich (3 cups) for gravy, small soups
• Quart (5-6 cups) large soups

Photos to follow...  I need to finish my pies.

Time for Turkeys

After spending 6 hours in Sister Bobbie Jackson's turkey classes, I think I'm ready for Thanksgiving.  For those of you who couldn't spend the time or didn't know about the classes, let me distill the basic idea for you.

Bobbie and Harold Jackson are living in Palmer, AK, for 6 months on a service mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  They are serving in the Bishop's Storehouse, LDS Employment Center, and Sister Jackson is teaching classes on provident living.  

With 5 freezers filled with fruits, vegetables, cooked meals and meats, Sister Jackson could probably live for a year without going to the grocery store.  Her 3 power generators stand by for unexpected outages.  

Sister Jackson shares so many insights on how to save money on groceries, live within your means, teach your children and organize your life that the uncommitted bystander could become overwhelmed.  But her classes on preserving and freezing food can help even the most casual observer save money and eat better. 

I am committed to doing all those things, but like most people in my generation and many of my parents' generation, I really don't know how.

Lucky for all of us that Sister Jackson is committed to making her money-saving techniques and recipes available to everyone, and for free!  Lucky for you, I am going to help her do it.  The trouble is that her 1,000 turkey recipes will not be uploaded in time to make the most of your Thanksgiving leftovers.  Sorry to say, these blog posts are all you get--for now.

With 2 days left before Thanksgiving, I wanted to review some of Sister Jackson's turkey basics, hopefully to inspire you to take advantage of the sales and get a few extra birds, and, if nothing else, help you to get the most out of Thursday's turkey. 

So what is the big deal about turkey?

Turkeys are grown for this time of year.  You can buy them for as little as $0.49/lb, or get them free if you spend the requisite amount on other groceries.  If you stock up on turkeys the week before Thanksgiving every year, you won't have to buy skinless boneless chicken at $4 per pound.  Turkey can be substituted in any chicken recipe, you just need to know how to preserve them for future use.  Turkey drippings and bone broth are full of essential nutrients and make excellent gravies and soup bases.

How many turkeys should you buy?

Sister Jackson would get 15 or so.  But don't be afraid.  Get as many turkeys as you can fit in your freezer.  Few of us have much freezer space, even if we have an extra freezer or two they are probably full this year's catch, (at best), or freezer-burned bargains and that ground caribou your coworker gave you 3 years ago, (at worst).  If you learn how to take care of your turkey "leftovers," they'll last longer and taste better.

Easy Freezey

Sister Jackson preserves all of her turkey in the freezer, either cooked or raw.  We'll post more on freezers and freezing later.  We'll upload detailed information on what to do with all those frozen turkeys you are buying.  Keep them frozen and have patience.  Sister Jackson will teach more classes in January, but the classes and turkey tips won't help you unless you buy extra cheap turkeys while you can.

For now, you need to know that the key to preserving food in the freezer is to get rid of the air in your bags (and you don't need to run out and buy a vacuum sealer to do it).  If you aren't going to eat all your Thanksgiving turkey within a few days and plan to freeze it, make a few preparations first.  Get some resealable sandwich bags for the meat and make your own broth from your turkey bones (instructions to follow).  Fill the bags with turkey and broth, then sqeeze out all the air.  With a little effort, your leftovers will still taste good through next November.