The Family Table: Leftover turkey can become whatever you want
The hustle and bustle of Thanksgiving Day will soon be behind us; and if you’re lucky, there will be leftovers in your fridge.
With those leftovers brings the debate about how to use them. Sure, you could be a purist, and recreate actual turkey day dinner until they’re all used up; however, I like the idea of reinventing mine. I’ve done everything from pot pies to potato pancakes, turned turkey bones into soup, and (with some additions) made leftover cranberry sauce into an ice cream topping.
I’m hoping there will be some extras to pilfer from my mother-in-law’s delicious yearly dinner, and believe that as we pull out our tree over the weekend and start the process of decorating our home for Christmas, a pot of tortilla soup to keep us warm sounds just right.
The recipe below, my traditional soup, can easily be modified to use up what you might have in your fridge. If you have leftover, neutrally-flavored vegetables, instead of sauteing them at the outset, chop them and toss them in at the end to warm them through with the soup. If you’re using leftover shredded turkey, don’t toss it with the spices you’d use on the uncooked chicken. Instead, as you saute the onion and garlic, add the spice then so it has some time to mellow out in the stock.
Even if you don’t have any leftovers, tossing this together from scratch is equally simple and delicious, and worth a go as the temperatures drop.
In between the eating, drinking and merry making of tomorrow’s Food Christmas (a former co-worker’s nickname for Thanksgiving), I hope everyone takes the time to reflect on the many things for which there are to be thankful.
May each of you have a lovely day, full of family, friends and love.
Jennifer Garofalo is the 蘑菇视频’s news managing editor. 蘑菇视频 her at jgarofalo@heraldstandard.com.
1 onion, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
3, 32 oz. boxes of chicken (or turkey) broth
4 carrots, peeled and diced
2 small yellow squash or zucchini, diced
1 small can diced green chilies or 1 fresh jalapeno, finely diced
3 large skinless, boneless chicken breasts (or 2-3 cups cooked, shredded turkey)
1 small, ripe avocado, pitted and finely chopped
3-4 garden onions, chopped, including some of the green
fresh cilantro or parsley
shredded Monterey Jack cheese
4-6 tortillas or a couple of handfulls of tortilla chips
Salt and pepper
Sprinkle chili powder, cumin, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper on the chicken breasts and cook them in a skillet until done.
Shred with a fork or cut into small pieces, and set aside. Next, heat oil in a soup pot and cook onion and garlic over medium heat until softened. Add in tomatoes and a pinch of salt and cook about 5 minutes more. Add in stock, carrots and squash.
Simmer covered for about 30 minutes.
While the soup simmers, cut the tortillas into wedges chips, spray them with cooking spray and season with salt. Bake in a 350 oven for 10-12 minutes. Keep an eye on them; they have a tendency to burn quickly.
Add in chicken, chilies/jalapeno into the soup and continue to cook another 5 minutes. (If you want the taste to be more mellow, use the canned chilis; if you want the bite, use the fresh jalapeno.)
Once the soup is done, ladle it into bowls and add in some chopped avocado, tortilla strips, parsley/cilantro and green onion as topping.