Smoky Turkey and Kale Soup

I thought it was about time I do a post that shows we eat something other than cookies, breads and waffles around here. Lately I feel like Buddy the Elf with the four main food groups – candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup. Well, we do in fact eat veggies, fruit and meat.

My husband’s coworker from Brazil is traveling in the US and he brought his wife along with him for her first trip to the States. We spent time with them while in Brazil and they always showed us the best hospitality so we decided to return the favor and invite them to our new house for dinner. We recreated a Thanksgiving/holiday meal with turkey, cranberries, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, Brussels sprouts and holiday cookies.

Flash back to about 2 months ago…

I ordered our turkey from a friend here who has a small homestead. She had about a dozen turkeys – natural, free range on her property and organic. They were processed by an Amish community nearby.

Great, right? I knew the source of our turkey. I think I even met it. It might have been the one that pecked me on the butt the day I went to visit her alpaca. I’m not kidding!

The problem? The processed turkey weighed 34lbs! Yes, 34!

I could barely carry it to the car. We thawed it in a foam cooler in the guest bath tub, and then we got up at 6:00am on Sunday to battle it.

Honestly if you were keeping score, the turkey won.

We finally decided we had to do our best to cut it into pieces. We managed to get two breasts, the wings and the legs. I cut off other random pieces and made turkey stock out of them. The rest went to the grill.

Nothing like grilling in the winter.

We weren’t sure how tough the meat would be with such a large turkey so my husband had the idea to baste the breast in beer and butter in a pan on the grill. We added about a 7 lb turkey breast with 1 bottle of ale, 1 stick of unsalted butter and 1 sliced onion to a pan. It cooked on our ceramic grill for about 90 minutes at 300 to 350 degrees F.

As you can imagine, we’ll be eating turkey for a while. To lighten things up before our feasts this weekend, I decided to make some soup with the leftover turkey.

If you have smoked turkey, it adds such a complex flavor that makes the soup. I cut some breast meat and then I also placed a turkey leg in the soup to reheat for about 5 minutes, removed it and cut off some of the meat to add back to the soup.

You can do this with any leftover pieces, or you can simply add cooked and shredded or chopped turkey meat at the end.

Smoky Turkey and Kale Soup

2 tbsp olive oil
2 large carrots, peeled and sliced
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
10 button mushrooms sliced
½ tsp poultry seasoning
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp black pepper
¼ tsp crushed red pepper
7 cups turkey stock
5 cups kale, chopped
Cooked turkey leg or wing (if you have one leftover)
2 cups cooked turkey meat, shredded or cubed

Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot and add the carrot, onion and garlic. Cook over medium heat for about 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms, cook for 2 minutes more. Stir in the poultry seasoning, salt, black pepper and red pepper.

Add the turkey stock and stir in the kale. Increase the heat slightly and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and if using, place the turkey leg or wing in the soup. Partially cover and simmer for about 5 minutes.

Remove the turkey pieces, continue to simmer the soup. Allow the leg or wing to cool slightly to touch and cut off any meat. Add this meat and the additional cooked turkey meat to the soup. Continue to cook until the turkey is heated through and the vegetables are tender, about 3 to 5 more minutes.

Serves 6 to 8