soup stock | Shades Of Lavender

It is the day after Thanksgiving and you have finally picked all the meat off those turkey bones. Now what? Put them in the trash and hope the raccoons don’t get them? NO!!! Those bones are packed full of vitamins and they still have a use. Bone Broth! Take all the bones, skin, turkey neck, whatever you have left over from that bird after you pick the meat off and put it in the crock pot. To the bones add a couple washed carrots, an onion, some celery, and maybe a glove of garlic or two. Cover the whole thing with water and turn it on high. Let it cook for at least 24 hours. Normally, I will let my broth cook for 36 hours. Then I run the broth through a gravy separator to filter out all the bones, left over veggies and to separate off the fat. Lastly, I freeze the stock or pressure can it in canning jars. Preserving the goodness of Thanksgiving to use throughout the year.

This turkey stock or bone broth is an amazing nectar. When someone in our family is not feeling well, I will make their favorite soup with this broth. It is the base of my potato soup, taco soup, chicken/turkey pot pie, turkey and rice soup, even sausage and kale soup. My husband and I will drink it plain like tea when we do not feel well. You can feel the nutrition being absorbed when you drink it.

Our turkeys have spent 6 months eating grass, bugs, and soaking in sunshine. Below is one of our turkeys helping me harvest tomatoes in the garden. They are packed with vitamins and I want to respect their life by not letting any of those vitamins go to waste.

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We have had a wonderful tomato season. Our tomato plants are 6 feet tall and we are picking tomatoes everyday. In the past we have only grown enough tomatoes for sandwiches and salads, the kids would eat them faster than I could save enough to can them. Today, I finally had enough tomatoes that I needed to can them or they would go bad, we just could not eat them all. I was finally going to make salsa from the tomatoes, peppers, garlic and herbs that I grew on my property. I was so excited. My mother-in-law and I spend the morning processing produce. I did not chop the tomatoes small enough and I chopped the peppers and the onions too small, we ended up with every watery salsa. 9 jars of very watery salsa, I was so disappointed. Finally here I was canning my own produce and I messed it up.

Instead of throwing away all these tomatoes that we worked so hard to grow, we water bathed canned the tomato mixture and I will just use it as a soup base. It will work great in chili, tortilla soup and vegetable soup. I hope that my tomato plants continue to grow and produce more tomatoes so we can get another chance to make salsa. When I create the perfect salsa recipe I will make sure to post it.

Here are some pictures of my amazing tomato plants. A little rabbit poop goes a long way, it certainly helped these plants grow big and strong.