A Hearty Turkey-Beef-Vegetable Soup

1# turkey thigh

½# beef steak

1 med. purple onion

5-6 lg. cloves of garlic

2T Tuscan flavored olive oil

2t fresh ground black pepper

1T fresh ground garlic sea salt

½ sm. head purple cabbage

2 med. carrots - julienned 

2 stalks celery - chopped

2 med.-lg. tomatoes

6 sm. red potatoes

1 sweet potato

vegetable scraps (and sprout water)

for homemade vegetable-bone broth

Pull the skin off the turkey and trim all the fat off the little steaks.  Cut the steaks in cubes, cut as much of the turkey off the bone as you can.  Put the meat in a 5qt. pot with about ⅓ of the onion and garlic, finely diced.  Add oil and seasonings then saute' simmer until the meat is browning and sizzling.

Meanwhile, in a 3qt. pot, put all the vegetable scraps you've been collecting and freezing (shown here in an almost full gallon size bag) and fill the pot with cold filtered water.  Simmer, covered, a couple hours.

While this is doing it's soup thing, add the chopped vegetables to the pot.  When I have tomatoes that are almost over-ripe, I put them in the freezer.  When I need some for soup or stew, instead of using canned, I'll put a couple in a bowl to partially thaw.  As they thaw, the skins slip right off.  When they're to this point they're still frozen, similar to a popsicle and are very easy to chop.

When the turkey-vegetable bone broth has cooked for a couple hours, strain it several times into a big bowl, using a finer strainer each time.  Mine turned quite dark due to the beet greens, stems, purple onion and purple cabbage.  Good for a hearty dark meat or root vegetable soup.  Add as much broth (and sprout water - if you have it) to the pot, as you need.  I only needed 2-3 cups, which left me with another full quart for soup or chili another day.

This made about 3-4 quarts of really healthy, flavorful soup.  Perfect for a WAY below 0°F day here at the tip of Lake Superior in Duluth, MN.  Stay warm all you Northern Hemisphere people! . . . Lin