So, I’m awake. I woke up around 3am and decided it was a great time to start making turkey soup in my brand new crock pot! The crock pot cookbook I got with it had a recipe for turkey soup and I more or less followed it, except I think I filled the crock pot a little too high. The instructions for the crock pot said to fill it 3/4 of the way full and I think I’m more like ALL the way full.
Sooooo I guess we’ll see what happens!
I started making the soup at 3:38am, see?
I started with a sweet potato first because the cookbook said to put your root vegetables at the bottom so they cook better. Honestly, I think sweet potatoes are actually pretty gross, but they’re good for you so that’s why I decided to throw it in.
Cutting sweet potatoes is a fucking pain in the ass which is why I only used one. We have really crappy knives and they just don’t mesh well with sweet potatoes. I actually had to use TWO knives to get the sweet potato peeled and chopped!
Next I cut up potatoes. Pretty uneventful. I used red potatoes because I think they look nicer, but really it doesn’t matter what kind of potatoes you use I don’t think, I just like to have really colourful food when I can help it. I don’t peel potatoes because I’m convinced that most of their nutritional content is found in the skins, so I just chopped them up. I didn’t end up using all 4 though, just 3, but really, I probably should have only used 2.
I almost forgot to add onions! I was getting the carrots out of the fridge and saw the onions at the bottom of the crisper drawer, so I got them out and started chopping. Truth be told, I’d rather have had red onions, but we always just get normal, everyday, ho-hum, run-of-the-mill cooking onions because they’re only like, $1 a bag when they go on sale.
I looooooove carrots. Blake and Madison have a thing against cooked carrots, which I totally do not understand, but Wes and I like them a lot and they’re cheap so I always put them in soups and stews. Again, when they go on sale, they’re only about $1.50 a bag and I’ll also use them grated up for Hospital Salad. Carrots weren’t on sale this week, I don’t think, but I didn’t check the flyer so who knows…aren’t they beautiful though? Look at those rings! Nature wasn’t fucking around when it made the carrot.
Now for the gross part, or at least I think so. I hate the smell of left over turkey so when I opened the container we had it in and it hit me like a wall, I literally almost threw up and had to leave the room. Something strange about the whole pancreatitis/being in the hospital for a few months thing is that ever since I got sick, my sense of smell has been like, a super power. I can be in the living room and smell Blake cutting CUCUMBERS, which of course have barely any scent, in the kitchen.
Anyway, the smell of the turkey was gross so I had to wait until the air cleared a bit before dealing with it.
Once the air was clear, I just grabbed pieces and cut them up and threw them in the crock pot. One thing I love about turkey soup/stew is how stringy the meat gets when it’s really tender and that’s how the meat was this time. It’s going to be phenomenal when the soup is finished cooking!
We had a LOT of leftover meat.
And finally, spices…the recipe was like, thyme and fresh parsley. Well, I don’t have fresh parsley but I did have thyme so I put in about a teaspoon of that, along with a teaspoon of sage and a teaspoon of garlic powder. Then I threw in some cayenne pepper for good measure. Oh yeah and I threw in a can of diced tomatoes (with the liquid), as well as the gravy that Blake made because why the hell not?
I stirred it around a little bit just to make sure I could with it being that full and I could so we’re all good. I set the cook time for 10 hours and I got finished around 4:30am so it’ll be ready at 2:30pm tomorrow afternoon, just in time for my afternoon meds. I’m verrrrrry excited! It’s like, this is my magic cauldron and I’m brewing up some super nutritional food for my hungry family. Look ma, I’m cooking!
When I was in grade 4, I had this really amazing teacher named Mrs. Lewis. One day she came in and had us all sit at the front of the portable on a rug she’d brought in from home, with throw pillows all around and she told us the story of Stone Soup. She told us the story very slowly and in the beginning, when she got to the part about the stone, she produced a medium-sized stone and she placed it in the crock pot. Then she filled the crock pot with water and as she told us the rest of the story, she would add ingredients to it, like potatoes and carrots and onions and a can of corn and eventually, when she got to the part about the meat, she started browning ground beef in an electric frying pan and she added that too. Then some salt and pepper and maybe some other stuff too. Near the end of the day, we were all given a bowl of soup with some crusty bread and butter and it was probably the most delicious soup I’ve ever tasted and it’s one of my favourite childhood memories. I’d really like to make Stone Soup with Wes.
This same teacher taught us about Medieval times and we had a Medieval feast at the end of the unit. We put all of our desks around the edges of the room in a circle and we put garbage bags down on the floor. We drank mulled cider (from her magic crock pot!) and ate Kentucky Fried Chicken, throwing the bones on the floor in the middle of the room. Some people were serfs and we had a king and queen and prince and the whole royalty deal (we drew names from a hat) and a couple of people were dogs and we all dressed up to the best of our ability. It was awesome. (Oh and I was a serf, for the record.)
This same teacher also sent me to Literary Guild, which is this neat workshop thing where every teacher in the area chooses one student to go to it and you go there (a school hosts it) and you share your story and discuss it with others and you eat food and then there’s a guest speaker. The first time I went (I went in grade 4 and again in grade 6), the guest speaker was ROBERT MUNSCH! The world’s greatest children’s author!
Anyway, Mrs. Lewis was fantastic and I hope she’s doing well.
Now I think, since it’s 5:30am, that I’m going to go back to bed. I’m a little uneasy about going to bed with an appliance plugged in and turned on, but that’s what they’re meant for so I guess I should just “trust and allow”.
Goodnight!
