For the broth:

• 1 turkey carcass with some meat still attached, quartered
• 2-3 quarts water
• Vegetable trimmings (carrot and potato peels, celery bottoms and leaves, onion ends and peels, etc.) or:
  • 1 onion chopped roughly
  • 2 celery stalks, broken in half or thirds
  • 2 carrots, chopped roughly
• 4-5 whole black peppercorns
• salt to taste

Add the turkey carcass, trimming (or vegetables), peppercorns and salt to the pot of water. You may also add any fat or gelatinous material to the pot and bring it to a boil. Boil for 1-2 hours until you have a rich, flavorful broth. Drain the broth through a fine-meshed strainer or a colander lined with cheesecloth or, if nothing else, just a colander. Pick all the meat from the bones and save them for the next part of the recipe. Make sure to let the bones cool first, though.

For the soup:

• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2-3 carrots, chopped
• 2-3 ribs of celery, chopped
• 1/4 c flour
• 2-3 medium potatoes, chopped
• 1 can of diced tomatoes, drained (or 1-2 medium tomatoes, diced)
• 1 can corn, drained (or 1 c fresh or frozen)
• 1 can peas, drained (or 1 c fresh or frozen)
• turkey broth (see above)
• 1 pint heavy cream
• 1 c milk
• turkey meat, picked from the bones, chopped
• 1 tbsp fresh or 1/2 tbsp dried rosemary
• salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

In the same pan you made the broth in, melt the butter. When the foaming subsides, add the onions, celery and carrots, and saute them until translucent. Add the flour and continue to saute until the flour turns brown, about 1 minute. Add the rest of the vegetables and broth and simmer until the potatoes are tender. Add the remaining ingredients and let it simmer a few minutes until it is thick.

• 6 cups crumbled cornbread (to be cooked prior to this)
• 4 apples (cooking apples)
• 2 sprigs parsley
• 2 sprigs sage
• 2 sprigs rosemary
• 2 sprigs thyme
• 4 stalks celery
• 1 large yellow onion (2 small onions will work)
• 3/4 cup Half and Half
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 eggs
• 5 links Colosimo’s red wine sausage
• 8 tablespoons butter (this is a whole stick)
• 4 cloves garlic

Melt one stick of butter in a frying pan and soften your peeled cored diced apples and place these aside.

The purpose of the sausage is to help make a base for the stuffing. We can do this by slicing each sausage in half, then scraping the meat from the casing. Discard the case.  Brown the sausage like you would with ground beef. After the sausage is browned, add the sliced celery and onion. Cook until slightly tender.

Using your fingers, scrape the leaves from your sprigs of herbs and chop them finely before adding to the mixture.

Take your crumbled cornbread and mix with the apples. Blend the eggs with half and half then add to the cornbread mixture. Knead gently. Once this is all blended, mix with the sausage mixture by hand.  Make sure that things are moist enough to form into balls.

Roll into balls slightly smaller than your fist. You’ll only get one shot at shaping these correctly. Place into muffin cups in a muffin tin and bake at 375 for 20 – 30 minutes. For extra pizazz you can garnish each serving with a pecan or parsley or whatever you think would be good.

I may or may not edit this post in the near future for better readability.

Using some of the vegetables I obtained from the farm, I decided to roast them. I had some fresh carrots that were still tiny so I just rinsed them and tossed them into a quart pan with some celery sliced into one inch strips and some oil. After everything is covered in oil toss in your oregano, salt, pepper and cashews then bake at 425 degrees for about fifteen to twenty minutes. That should be all. If you try this, let me know what you think.

The carrots end up just slightly soft and firm while the celery gives them a good structure. I used oil instead of butter because it just tastes better that way for some reason. I was going to garnish with parsley but I couldn’t find my parsley so I was a bit disappointed. I may even try it with a couple tablespoons of half-and-half spooned on top.

Totally did not intend for that to come out the way it did but it happened so this will be a short post.

I had some celery that was getting ready to go out the door. To give meaning to its existence, I started frying some in butter. I used about two stalks of celery and one tablespoon of butter. I didn’t have a plan in mind. Sometimes I just start cooking an ingredient and make up my mind as I go. Maybe I can call it Jazz Cooking.

The smell of the celery cooking inspired me as I was pecking through my cupboard. Shallots would go nicely with whatever was going to happen with the celery. At this point I was really getting hungry so I decided to boil some shell macaroni while the celery and shallots were softening. I didn’t think that a capful of vermouth would hurt at all. Along with the vermouth I added about two cloves of garlic. Garlic and shallots go good together. Especially on noodles, which were about done boiling.

I wanted something smooth and creamy so I added just enough milk to barely cover my ingredients, minus the shells. Whenever I have something creamy I always crave black pepper so I liberally shared my pepper grinder with the ‘sauce’ that was now forming. If I had white pepper I think I would have used that for this meal instead of black.

Now it was just a simple matter of tossing the shells with the yummy sauce I had just cooked. I got about three servings out of this meal and it was worth it. Especially when I topped it with some asiago.

We had three items:

• Brazilian Baked Trout
• Macaroni and Cheese
• Creamy Celery

The recipe for the trout was taken from a cook book called Cooking With Wine from the editors of Sunset Magazine and Sunset Books. It was delicious. I’m sure the recipe called for skin-off, but I really enjoy cooking fish with skin and all.

Macaroni and Cheese was from the same. Just some shells tossed with cheese melted with Chablis. The best part was crumbling the Cheddar Beer Kettle Chips on top.

Creamy Celery was found in my Google Reader through my Amateur Gourmet feed. This consisted of thinly sliced celery softened in butter, tossed in flour, gradually added milk and then peppered and dashed with a bit of brandy as a substitute for sherry.

*update-got the pics figured out. Now I need to get the borders right.

–More details to come as soon as I figure out how to share the pictures.