Making Full Use of the Thanksgiving Turkey

This year's Thanksgiving meal was a feast for two.  We cooked up a 15 pound turkey with all of our favorite sides, including an apple pie and a pumpkin pie made from scratch.  The turkey was by far my favorite part of the whole meal.  The first bite was well worth the wait.

The turkey was thawed for several days in the fridge.  The night before I cooked it, I set it in a pot of brine which helped flavor and add moisture to the meat.  The brine was a mix of chicken stock, water, salt and herbs.  The next morning it was rinsed and dried before I put it in the pan.  I smeared herb butter on the meat under the skin to help the skin get nice and crispy.  Inside the cavity of the turkey I stuffed chopped vegetables to help add more moisture and flavor to the meat as it roasted.  When it was done it, looked, smelled and tasted delicious.

We each ate a leg with our main course.  The breasts were carved into slices for sandwiches and all the other meat was picked from the bones and set aside for future soups, stews and pies.  The roasted bones went into the stockpot along with the leftover roasted vegetables.  I topped the pot off with water and then put the whole thing over low heat.  The stock simmered for at least 24 hours before I let it cool down and strained the solids from the broth.  I picked through what was left of the turkey and managed to find two more cups worth of meat scraps that would be a tasty addition to soup or sandwiches.  The leftover veggie scraps went to the chickens for a tasty treat.  The stock went back on the stove to reduce a bit further.  I was left with 12 cups of gelatinous savory turkey stock and 8 cups of shredded turkey meat when the whole thing was finished.

Some of the meat and stock then became the filling of turkey pot pie.  I used potatoes, carrots, onions and celery from my garden to round out the filling, as well as part of a bag of frozen peas.  I precooked the filling while we made the crusts for the pies.  The delicious smell that filled the kitchen once again was a testament to the tastiness of this turkey.  Once the crusts were ready, they were filled with the yummy stew.

Each pie was covered with the top layer of crust and then baked at 350 F until they were golden brown.  This round of pie making resulted in two 9 inch pies and two 6 inch pies.  Another round of savory meals from this very productive turkey.

When I finally get around to using the frozen left overs from this turkey, I think I will have gotten more than twenty meals from a single bird.  It seems to me that as long as one can make efficient use of every part of the turkey, it can be a very cost effective way to have many delicious meals from one small investment.  It just takes some time, patience and a little effort to make a little food go a long way.

The Great Potato Harvest

I have been slowly harvesting my potatoes since July, but now that cold weather has come to stay it was time to get all the potatoes out of the dirt before they froze solid.  I was pleased to find that the wrinkly, sprouted potatoes I had planted back in April grew into many good sized spuds that were nicely spread throughout the beds.  I filled a box and a half with an assortment of Red Chieftain, Purple Viking and Yukon Gold Potatoes.  Many of them were bigger than my hand.  All of them looked happy and healthy.

These potatoes went into my cold storage in the dark closet of my unheated back room.  Hopefully they will keep well for several months.  I am saving the biggest ones for baking.  The smaller ones will likely wind up in my breakfasts as fried potatoes.  I also want to try dehydrating some to see how they reconstitute.  They could make a great addition to back packing meals if I like the way they turn out.  I also intend to save a few of each kind for replanting in the spring.  I have been replanting saved potatoes for several years now and they seem to be doing better every year.  I have literally harvested over a hundred pounds of potatoes for the price of a few pounds of seed potatoes that I bought years ago.  Aside from the effort of planting and harvesting, these potatoes are virtually free.

Saving Seeds

This year I have decided to get a little more serious about my seed saving efforts.  Seed saving isn't terribly complicated for most plants and every crop will go to seed eventually if given the right conditions.  There are things to consider like cross pollination with unwanted varieties, but for the most part I keep things simple enough that it really isn't much trouble for me.  It also helps that I never liked pulling finished or overgrown crops so many things go to seed purely out of neglect on my part.  Because of this I didn't even need to plant lettuce, radishes, dill or cilantro this year.  All of those crops reseeded themselves without any help from me. 

One of the most important notes about seed saving is that whatever seed you collect should be as mature as possible.  Seed collected before it has "ripened" will likely not germinate, so I try to leave fruits on the plants as long as possible before I harvest them for seed.  Another thing you want to be sure is that you are collecting seed from heirloom, open pollinated varieties.  This will ensure that your plants will produce offspring that are like the parent plant, unlike hybrid varieties which may produce offspring that do not have all the same traits as the parent plant. 

One of the first seeds I collected this year were from last year's overwintered spinach.  They bolted early in the heat of summer and were heavy with seed by July.  When the plants were good and dry I simply went down the row with a bowl and knocked off the seed heads with my fingers.  I laid out the collected seeds on a paper towel for a few days to let them dry out a little more and then put them in a jar for storage.

Later in summer the lettuce bolted and a few weeks later they had produced hundreds of flowers.  The tiny yellow flowers gave way to tiny tufts of cottony seed parachutes ready to carry the lettuce seeds to their next destination.  I went through and gathered seeds from the different varieties and separated the cotton from the seeds before storing them away in jars.

I was surprised to find that I had also let some turnips get away from me and they made plenty of little seed pods while I wasn't paying attention.  I gathered the pods after they had dried on the plant and one by one cracked them open to remove the little round black seeds.

Some plants like tomatoes need an extra step in their seed saving process.  Fortunately tomatoes are one of those crops that you get to eat and save seeds from at the same time.  I always try to save seeds from the nicest looking tomatoes that ripen the earliest.  To save the seeds I first scoop them all into a jar and cover the seeds with water.  Tomato seeds have a protective casing that needs to come off before the seed can grow.  Soaking them in water for a few days helps to break down that casing.  Also, any infertile seeds will float on water, so it is also a good way to separate them from the fertile seeds which sink to the bottom of the jar.  After soaking them I give them one last good shake in the jar and then rinse off all the extra debris.  They then get spread on a towel to dry for a few days before finally getting stored in jars.

Cucumbers follow a similar process to tomatoes, but cucumbers should be well beyond the eating stage if you are saving seed from them.  I leave the nicest shaped fruit on the healthiest plants until they are yellow and firm.  To harvest the seeds I cut them in half and scoop out the seeds into a jar.  There I put them through the same soak and rinse cycle that the tomatoes went through before laying them out to dry.

This year I also had some carrots that went to seed unintentionally, but once I noticed they were growing seed heads I decided it was best to let them finish what they started.  Carrots are usually biennial which means that they will produce seed in their second year, but I think I had a couple carrots get ahead of themselves this year and they went to seed in their first year.  I harvested the seeds heads after the first frost when the plants had begun to dry out and brought the seeds inside to dry out further.

There are things that I won't be saving seed from mostly because they cross pollinate too readily and I grew multiple varieties in my garden this year.  Peppers are one of those things.  I grew varieties of sweet bell peppers and spicy jalapenos that would produce unpredictable offspring that could have a mixture of traits.  Another crop I don't save seeds from are my summer squash.  I grew three different kinds this year and their offspring would probably be a funky mixture of all of them if I grew them out next year.

The seeds I have saved will hopefully germinate well for me next spring.  By saving my own seed I am helping to preserve some genetic diversity in these crops while also acclimating them to my specific climate.  I can swap these seeds with other local gardeners and together we can help these heirloom varieties continue to thrive.  

Corn Harvest

This year's corn crop did very well.  The plants grew strong and tall in the summer heat and survived a few very windy days.  Now overnight temps are dipping into the 30's regularly and it is time to reap what I have sown. Many of the plants were taller than me and most had two or three ears on each stalk.  Unwrapping each ear felt like opening gifts because ear each of corn was a splash of color and the variations were endless.

This year I planted an open pollinated, heirloom variety called Glass Gem.  They can be used for popping or grinding into cornmeal.  I plan on saving seeds from the healthiest, most colorful ears for replanting next year.  The rest will become snacks for me and the chickens.  I am interested to see what the cornmeal looks like from these colorful kernels.

The two 20 foot beds that I had planted filled two boxes with these colorful ears.  Right now I am laying them out to dry in my back room because many of them were a little damp from the good rains we have been getting for the past couple of weeks.  When they are dry enough I will remove the seeds from the cobs and store them in jars until I want to use them.  

Fall Garlic Planting

Many frosts have come and gone since the first killing frost of the season and few things are growing out in the garden now.  The only greenery that remains are my brassicas: broccoli, turnips and rutabagas, and my umbels: carrots, parsnips and celery.  I also need to finish digging my potatoes before the really cold weather comes.  In the mean time I am using this break from harvesting to clean up the beds a bit and to prepare them for next year.  I am also thinking ahead to spring planting and deciding what I want to plant and where.

First on the list every year is Garlic.  Garlic is the one thing that I plant in the fall.  It is a very cold tolerant plant and being a bulb, it does best when it is planted after the first frost in an area.  The bulbs will send up shoots when the weather warms in spring and they will be one of the first crops I can harvest in the coming year.  I always choose my largest, healthiest bulbs for planting to ensure that I get good sized heads next year.

I use only the largest cloves off of each head  and this year my tally was 90 cloves planted in a three by ten foot bed.  I like to give garlic some space because the mature plants can really spread their leaves by the end of the season.  I usually try to space them about six inches apart in a grid.

The garlic were planted in the bed that was formerly occupied by a variety of summer squash.  I raked the dead plant matter out of the bed and pulled any weeds that I could find.  I did a rudimentary turning of the soil with a shovel, then mixed in a bag full of leaves with a hoe.  In turning over the garden I came across tons of fat and happy earthworms.  I think my soil is getting healthier every year and the abundance of worms is great evidence of that.

I planted my garlic bulbs a couple of inches deep in this bed and gently back filled the holes.  I laid the irrigation lines back across the bed so they will be available for watering during warm, dry spells.  I will also mulch this bed in with straw to help protect the bulbs from the deep cold of winter.  In a few months, the dark green shoots will emerge from their winter slumber and launch themselves into another growing season.