Turkey Soup - Our Best Ever

Well, I don't ordinarily get all rapturous about turkey soup. I routinely make a soup after Thanksgiving because that's what you're supposed to do with that carcass and all the odd bits leftover, right? But, I have to honestly say that mostly what I made was boring, bland soup - eaten because one doesn't want to waste food, of course, but not because it was something to look forward to. I am happy to report that we managed to put together something much better this year.

Maybe the key difference is the"we", since this soup was ultimately a three-person effort. While we were still at the beach, Jeff did all the work of cleaning the meat off the bones, getting the stock going and adding a variety of vegetables that were on hand. It cooked quite a while there, then we brought it home with us. Grady took the next steps, adding carrots, a few mushrooms and some rice to part and had it for dinner one evening when the rest of us were all doing something else. Finally, on another evening, I took the remaining of the original stock, put a few more things into it and finally had a really good tasting, not boring, turkey soup. Here is the final version:

Turkey Soup

stock from Thanksgiving turkey bones cooked for a really good long time (free range, fresh, hormone-free turkey from not-so-local California)
carrots (CSA)
onions, garlic, shitakes, kale (Farmer's Market)
chanterelles (Oregon grown, New Seasons)
a good helping of leftover mashed potatoes (yellow fins - Farmer's Market)
the last of the leftover turkey white meat
a cup of rice
white wine (a sauvignon blanc, but I can't remember where it was from)



Of course, being a good Irish Catholic girl, my guess would be that the mashed potatoes were the magic ingredient to make this one so much better. What can't be improved with a little helping of mashed potatoes?!