Ah, soup night! I made the broth Monday from the turkey carcass and refrigerated it in a big old pickle jar. Tonight I skimmed off the fat that had solidified. I remember the first time I made turkey broth. I pulled it out of the fridge the next night to make soup and got very worried. The broth was like jelly! Chicken broth had never done that to me so I was sure I’d done something wrong. I’ve since come to learn that turkey broth solidifies more easily and that the jelly like texture is a sign of good broth!
I pulled out a few soup recipes, including a minestrone soup recipe my sister had given me, a Fannie Farmer recipe, and my 12 Months of Monastery Soups. I love cookbooks organized by seasons and this one has been superior so far. I love making soups and it’s given me all kinds of fun ideas. Tonight I started out with the Tuscany Minestrone, with a few variations. Some of the variations are because I started out by sauteing onions, carrots, and celery in some butter while I read the various recipes. I had added some thinly sliced kale and spinach and covered the pot to cook the greens before I found a recipe I wanted to use…Well, use as inspiration anyway. The major differences were that I added celery and used turkey broth instead of chicken broth and the kale rather than just spinach because I needed to cook the kale I’d bought before it went bad.
I didn’t give quantities in the recipe because it’s a great soup to use up bits of whatever you’ve got that needs using up.
Rainbow Turkey Soup
Ingredients
- 2 Tbs butter
- a few sliced carrots
- a sliced stalk of celery
- some chopped garlic
- thinly sliced kale
- thinly sliced spinach
- sliced green beans I used frozen
- julienned red pepper fresh from our garden!
- 6 cups turkey broth
- 1-2 cups wine
- 1/2 cup sliced black olives
- some parsley, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper
- 1/2 cup raw rice
- Grated Romano or Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Heat the butter and saute the carrots, celery and garlic a few minutes, until softened. Add the kale and spinach. Cover and cook 5 minutes, until the greens wilt.
- Add the green beans, red pepper, olives, broth, wine, herbs and seasonings.
- Cover and simmer on low for 1 hour.
- After an hour add the rice and cook until the rice is done, another 20 minutes or so.
- Serve with some grated Romano or Parmesan cheese.
The soup is absolutely gorgeous to look at with the green beans and greens, the orange carrots, the red peppers, and the black olives! A veritable rainbow of colors. And it smells heavenly. The black olives and the red peppers really stand out from my normal soups, which tend to be orange/green/beige.
If you like soups, the Monastery book will be a great prod for your imagination. I’ve only made half a dozen or so by purely following the recipe but the combinations are certainly a spark for my imagination. Most of them are actually vegetarian, but I tend to use chicken broth for almost every soup I make. And having it organized by month makes you think about using different vegetables. Highly recommended!
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