Turkey Day at the PIT!

Hi all, Happy Thanksgiving! I'm a bit late to the party, I know, but hey, it's still November! (Until it's actually December, we won't even mention that other holiday my kids are strangely obsessing about :)

If you've been around the blog a long time, you know that I am a total foodie. And also that we believe very strongly in sourcing our own proteins, through hunting and fishing. And what would Thanksgiving be without turkey? Wild turkey, that would be, just like the first Thanksgiving.

Yours truly, with Eagle Eye and a wild turkey, destined for the dinner table. (I know my attire is so fashionable, isn't it? But it was warm!)

Wild turkeys all cleaned up for dinner. They look just like a big chicken or domestic turkey, but without the giant over-sized breast. The drumsticks are a bit tougher and gamier than domestic, but the white meat is virtually indistinguishable. These turkeys spent their whole lives roaming the woods and foraging for food- no hormones, antibiotics or industrial farms. They can run and fly and I always give thanks for the opportunity to take one of these birds for the table. It is not a simple thing to harvest one, in any sense of the word,  but it is the best way to eat a turkey, IMHO.

My mom taking the stuffing out of the bird (in a vintage apron!) She was getting ready to make the gravy. I do everything else for the meal, but no one makes better gravy than Mom. Sometimes it's best to just leave that to the professionals! As I type this post, I have the turkey carcass simmering in a stock pot for soup.

I set the table with the best dishes, crystal and silver; it's just about the only time I ever use that stuff. I also used my "new" autumn tablecloth. It's not the greatest picture of me, but I wore a salmon-colored knit set. Plenty of stretch in that fabric for turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, Cope's corn, broccoli, cranberries, pumpkin and apple pie!

Happy Holidays from the gang at Chez QT!

Halloween 2011

Wha....?????

You might have heard about the freak snowstorm we had on October 29th. I think we probably got about 6-8 inches of snow, obviously not a normal occurrence for this time of year. I can remember seeing flurries in late October but nothing like this:

Yes, my kids went sledding on Saturday and trick-or-treating on Monday.

Sunday we went to a kids' pumpkin carving event .

 It was held at my sister-in-law's club, which featured this cool original 1940s dartboard.

Then it was on to Grandma's for more pumpkin carving. Jayson grew these pumpkins in his garden all by himslef, so it was special to turn it into a jack-o-lantern.

Tinkerbelle and Davy Crockett ready to go out trick-or-treating. The Davy Crockett costume is deadstock 1950s, picked up for a few bucks at a thrift store. It's still plenty big for my son, but in a few years it will make its way to my Etsy store. He was a big hit with all the older neighbors- they both cleaned up on the candy!

And looking forward to the next holiday on the calendar, yours truly bagged a wild turkey last week. I love the idea of providing Thanksgiving dinner for my family. It kind of makes me laugh when I hear all this talk about "heritage birds" vs. supermarket birds. Really, wild turkeys (and venison) are what the Pilgrims ate at the original Thanksgiving. That is our real "heritage", and wild turkeys should be more celebrated than they are. 

What's for dinner, honey?

Yesterday I made the most delicious soup.

We had a wild turkey for dinner on New Year's. It was shot by my husband- for those of you that have never eaten game, I highly recommend it. Not only is it all those things that people pay all kinds of money for (all-natural, organic, free-range, hormone-free, etc.) but it also allows you to see and understand how an animal lived and died to feed your family. I think that so many people take this for granted anymore, that they don't think of meat (or vegetables for that matter) as something that is part of a larger ecosystem; it is just consumption. But when you hunt, fish and forage as we do, not only is the food better quality, but you know where you are as part of the food chain and you pay much closer attention to the process of dressing, preparing and cooking food.

And by the way, a wild turkey tastes just like domestic turkey but with more dark meat, since it actually ran, walked, and flew for miles, unlike so-called free-range birds.

So, since this turkey died to feed our family, I never waste a bit of it. I saved the bones and made a stock. I froze about half of the stock in 1 c. portions to use later and had about 8 cups left to make a Vietnamese-inspired noodle soup.

To the stock I added 1 stalk of lemongrass, about six slices of fresh ginger, about 2 T. of soy sauce, some sliced scallions (from my garden) and a bundle of cellophane noodles. I added some of the cooked turkey meat back in and then salt & pepper to taste. What a delicious and healthy meal that is, and (except for the noodles) I know where every bit of it originated. I know the ground that turkey walked, I grew the vegetables for the stock- try to beat that, Martha Stewart.