Turkey Rice Vegetable Soup

It's another soup day here. . .

Yesterday I bought an almost 4# roasted turkey breast. This morning, I cut off a pound and waited for soup inspiration to happen. I started in the usual way by lightly browning the following aromatics and rice. This time in some ghee. I've made my own ghee a couple times, but haven't made our bought any recently. Then I bought a big tub of it yesterday.

4 stalks celery

1 giant carrot

1 sm. onion

1 lg. garlic clove

1 lg. purple shallot

2T ghee, butter or EVOO

3/4c golden rose brown rice

Sauté these together, stirring occasionally while prepping the vegetables listed below. After the first group has sautéed enough to need a cup or two of water, add the remaining ingredients below.

1 sm.-med. green cabbage 

1/2 lg. long-skinny red bell pepper

4 roma tomatoes - peeled* +

2-3T turkey Better Than Bouillon

1 bunch of beet greens sliced-chopped 

5-7c cold fresh water in total

Simmer gently, stir occasionally for another 20 minutes or until the rice is done the way you like it. . .Lin

*tomato skins contain flavonoids, which impart a bitter flavor. they don't break down in cooking so, to me, they add a sort of nasty plastic bag texture. additionally the skins are high in lectin, an undesirable protein that can create digestive issues and inflammation. it's so worth all this 'trouble' though, since the cooking process develops the lycopene in tomatoes. lycopene is a very beneficial antioxidant, similar to betacarotene, that can protect our cells from damage.

+Martha Stewart has the simplest video showing this process. If your tomatoes aren't ripe, you'll need to leave them in the rapidly boiling water just a little longer, maybe 20 seconds total.

Roasted Spatchcocked Chicken and Vegetables

It's a cool 55° rainy day today and I seem to be fighting a cold, which may be winning at the moment. I'm going to hit it hard, with some good healthy roasted chicken and vegetables.

4T each: EVOO and butter

1t each: garlic and herb seasoning

 ~ bell pepper and garlic seasoning

 ~ orange ginger spice

Melt the butter in a large glass bowl. Add the oil and these, or any of your favorite seasonings - Cajun, Lemon Pepper, Italian would all be good choices. I started with just the first two, but the bitterness of the peppers, herbs and garlic needed to be balanced with a little sweetness. The orange ginger spice has sugar.

Scrub and cut the vegetables into chunks, add them to the bowl and stir to be sure everything is coated.

3 big carrots

3 stalks of celery

1 big purple onion

2 big red skinned potatoes

1 4# Just Bare whole young chicken

To spatchcock the chicken, follow these simple instructions. (I don't skewer mine, but I do put the backbone in the center of the roasting pan, under the chicken, so it also gets roasted and flavorful for a future soup.) Clean away any tiny bone fragments, then put the chicken, cut side down, in the pan and pour the buttered-oiled-seasoned vegetables over it, arranging them around the sides of the pan. Using a rubber spatula, scrape the bowl and put the butter mixture on the chicken skin.

Preheat the oven to 375° then bake, covered, for 40 minutes.

At the end of this time, your house will be scented by Pure Heavenly Comfort Food 😊 The second photo was taken at this time.

Move the vegetables around, poke the chicken to release some juices and baste everything. There will be a lot of liquid. Uncover and return it to the oven, increasing the temperature to 400° for another 20 minutes. Baste once toward the end of this time and cover the wingtips with foil, if needed, so they don't burn. The vegetables were done, so they went back in the big bowl and were covered. Using my turkey-chicken baster, I removed 2c of liquid for gravies or soups, basted the chicken using the last of the pan drippings then returned it, uncovered, to the oven for another 10 minutes to brown up.

After that time, I wanted it even browner, so I poured about a cup of water over the chicken, moved it around the pan, basted it with these drippings and continued roasting another 10 minutes. So after an hour and 20 minutes, it was done the way I like it. To be sure yours is fully cooked, poke the center of one breast with a fork, if it pulls out easily - it's done!

I drizzled some of the pan drippings over everything on my plate, and right now. . .It's What's For Dinner! . .Lin