What can you get from a 23 lb. turkey?

Besides 23 lbs. of turkey?

The other week, the hubs and I got a turkey on sale and instead of roasting it up, we used it to make ground turkey. Since we can fly through ground turkey in our house like it's going out of style, we opted to see how this fared price wise.

Well, a 23 lb. turkey will get you the following:

11 lbs. of ground turkey

the equivalent of 22 cans of turkey stock - now nicely frozen in 1 cup servings in my freezer, wrapped in parchment and ready for use!

1 large batch of turkey noodle soup with probably another 1/2 lb. to 1 lb. of turkey in it from stewing the remaining pieces of the bird.

Oh yea, despite the effort, it was SO worth it.

For what we paid and what we got, it turns out to about a buck a pound for ground turkey and then not to mention the stock! we fly through boxes of stock in our house, so it's going to be so nice to have a supply at the ready in the deep freeze!!

If you have a meat grinder, a vacuum sealer, some time to kill and ample freezer space, I recommend you try making a turkey go the extra mile for you this season!

Turkey For Me, Turkey For You....

What's on your Thanksgiving Day menu?

This year, Thanksgiving will be quiet at the Realistic Eats household. It's just the hubs and I this year, no friends, no family... nice and quiet. The day will start with a spin class for me and then some relaxing with the parade, Bond Marathon, and quite possibly some cinnamon rolls! (What, I said I was going to spin first - the bike is already reserved!!) And since we're both still watching what we eat very carefully, I've considered everything for the meal with the utmost care.

Tonight on the way home, the hubs picked up our turkey from our local farmer. While it was quite a bit pricier than I would have liked, I'm hoping it's worthy of the price - the legs alone are HUGE and I can't wait to delve in on Thursday. And it does make me happy to know that: 1. my turkey is antibiotic and hormone free 2. is free range 3. supports a local farmer and business 4. that I got to take a trip to the farm about about a month ago and see the turkeys, and all of the other animals. Seriously the piggies and horses were my favorite things there! The ducks were pretty awesome too - especially the fancy ducks with toupes - sort of like these that I saw at the IN State Fair this summer.

This year's menu:

Roast Turkey - still deciding how I want to prepare it

Green Bean Casserole with my homemade cream of mushroom soup which I'll also add a bit of flour too so it thickens in the oven a bit. Contemplating the crock pot again this year for the casserole.

Sourdough, apple & mushroom stuffing using the hub's homemade sourdough bread. Although I am going to omit the egg and baking of the stuffing and just serve it from the stovetop.

MAYBE some rosemary and sage roasted butternut squash.

Crustless Pumpkin Pie, maybe following Hungry Girl's recipe for at least the topping.

Turkey for you... Turkey for me....

Sometimes I feel like with all of the options of turkey products out there on the market it's like the scene from Forest Gump where Bubba is listing off all of the different things you can do with shrimp....

Turkey Legs
Turkey Breasts
Whole Turkey
Fried Turkey
Turkey Sausage
Turkey Meatballs
Ground Turkey
Turkey Ham
Turkey Bacon

The list is endless.

Last night I made a Jenny-O turkey ham I had in the freezer.

Place turkey ham flat side down in a small pyrex pan, place about 1/3 cup OJ in the pan. Mix 1/2 cup brown sugar with 2T water in a mixing cup and pour over the ham. Cover and bake at 350 for about an hour. I also put some sweet potatoes in the oven with it and it was just a tasty easy meal! All done while I was on the treadmill.

What more can a girl ask for.

Turkey Wild Rice Casserole

I needed something to do with some of fthe leftover turkey from Turkey Day so I came across this recipe in my old grade school cook book - yet again this book is proving to be the best addition to my recipe entrouage.

Adam LOVED this reciep, he's still raving about it 3 days later and can't wait to eat the leftovers tomorrow night. I thought it was good - but a little heavy.

Turkey & Wild Rice Casserole

1 cup wild rice (I actually doubled this to 2 cups uncooked - using the Trader Joe's brown and wild rice mix and I'm glad I used the 2 cups uncooked, it would have been way too little rice for all of the meat mixture to follow)

1T olive oil and cooking spray

1 lb. fresh sliced mushrooms

2 carrots sliced

3 stalks of celery sliced

1/2 onion chopped

2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

3 cups cooked turkey diced

1/2 cups slivered almonds

3 cups chicken stock - reduced sodium and fat

1 1/2 cups light cream

2 T sherry or lemon juice

1/4 cup dried cranberries

Cook rice according to package directions. let cool.

In a large skillet or dutch oven heat oil/pam and sautee all of the vegetables until tender. Then add all of the remaining ingredients and simmer until slightly thickened. The one thing I did add here was about 2 tsp of dried sage for some flavor and that really helped.

Spray a casserole dish - you'll need a large 13x9 or something, and preheat your oven to 350. Place rice in bottom of casserole and then top with the meat mixture. Cover and bake for 20 minutes and then uncover and and cook another 10-15 minutes until thickened.