Changing the Thanksgiving Holiday© and Turkey Soup with Danish Dumplings©

Every year as Halloween approaches, I realize how fast the year has flown, and I start looking forward to celebrating the holidays. As always, I find myself hoping that friends and family find themselves in good health and able to celebrate with loved ones. It seems that every year they sneak up on us more quickly than the last (the holidays, not the loved ones).But I guess that’s part of the aging process. Time passes more and more quickly.

The weeks and months fly by, and before you know it, another year is behind you. I think that is why I am a firm believer in making every minute count—you never know how many more you have left. When I turned fifty, I told my sons and their families that the extravagant Christmases were over. The best gift I could give to them, and that they could give to me, was time. Time spent together is not something you can buy. It is not something that will break and be discarded with yesterday’s trash. It is, however, something that can live on in memories, and photographs, to be cherished forever.

The holiday that I treasure the most is Thanksgiving. While there is so much to be thankful for all year ‘round, it just seems to me that Thanksgiving Day gets lost in the hectic craziness of the Christmas season. This time of year the earth is alive with color and fragrance; and all we have to do is sit back and drink it all in and be reminded of the beauty of the world. However, that is primarily in September and October. The meaning and purpose of celebrating Thanksgiving Day gets lost in the hectic craziness of the Christmas season. You can’t walk into a store in September any more without seeing displays of Christmas decorations, hearing Christmas music, and listening to people brag that they have already finished their Christmas shopping. Thanksgiving Day has actually become Christmas Bargains Day Eve. Instead, shoppers lose site of the purpose of Thanksgiving Day, anxiously anticipating the bargains and good buys they will find at the opening of stores in the wee hours of the Friday morning after.  This year, stores even started opening at 8 o'clock in the evening, to enable shoppers to beat the Black Friday rush.  My grandson had to be at work at 11:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving because his store opened at midnight.  He worked until 4 p.m. the next day.  What ever happened to letting the employees have a day off to share with their families, for which I am sure they are grateful.

Perhaps we should move Thanksgiving to another month, June for example. June is a much better month for a Thanksgiving celebration. We can be thankful that we and other elderly family members and friends have made it through the winter in good health. We can be thankful for the graduations and weddings of our loved ones, the joy of watching children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren thrive in the sunshine and fresh air, and for the birth of babies after difficult or seemingly never-ending winter pregnancies. We can be thankful for the warmth and beauty that surrounds us after a bleak, cold winter, and for the miracle of the land bearing fruits and vegetables when only a few months ago it looked so barren we thought nothing would ever blossom and grow again. Yes, I think June is an excellent choice for celebrating Thanksgiving. Don’t be surprised if you smell the aroma of turkey coming from my kitchen or grill in that month.

No matter in what month you choose to celebrate Thanksgiving, don't let that turkey carcass go to waste.  Turkey Soup with Danish Dumplings tastes just as good in the summer as it does in November.  I can't recall where I originally found this recipe.  I know that it was back in the 1970s though, and it was probably in some magazine.  It called for turnips and bay leaf and tomatoes, and that just didn't sound good to me. Also, I like a lot of parsley. So, of course, I altered it to my taste.  Let me know what you think.  And if you do celebrate in June, you'll have fresh parsley from the garden to use in it!

©2012 Kathy Striggow

Turkey Soup with Danish Dumplings



 

Ingredients                                       

1 meaty Turkey Carcass 
12 cups chicken stock  OR
12 cups water with 1/2 cup chicken broth base
1 large onion, chopped
4 stalks celery, sliced (2 cups)
2 medium parsnips, sliced or diced
2 medium carrots, sliced or diced
1/2 cup snipped parsley (or more to taste)
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 recipe Danish Dumplings

Directions

1.   In a large soup pot, combine carcass, water and chicken stock.  Bring to boil then simmer 1 1/2 hours, or until meat falls freely from the bones.  Place on a plate and allow to cool.
2.   When the turkey is cool enough to handle, remove meat from bones and set it aside, together with any juices that have drained.
3.   Add the onion, celery, parsnips and carrots to the stock.  Bring to a boil.
4.   Reduce the heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.
5.   Return the meat to the broth. Taste to determine if the stock is properly seasoned.  If necessary, add additional stock (or dry stock base) and salt.
6.  Add the parsley and stir well to incorporate.
7.   Reduce the heat and simmer for another 15 minutes.  In the meantime, make the Danish Dumplings.
7.   Drop the dumpling dough by tablespoons on top of the bubbling soup.
8.   Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Do not lift lid until 20 minutes have passed.  Remove from heat.
9.   Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 8-12.

Danish Dumplings:
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup butter
½  c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt 
2 large eggs
2 Tbsp. snipped parsley

1.   In a medium saucepan combine water and margarine; bring to boil.
2.   Add flour, baking powder and salt all at once, stirring vigorously.
3.   Cook, stirring constantly until mixture forms a ball. Remove from heat and cool slightly.
4.   Add eggs, one at a time beating after each until smooth.
5.   Add parsley. Drop by tablespoons into bubbling soup. You should be able to make 12 dumplings of this size.  If you like smaller dumplings, use a teaspoon  instead of a tablespoon. 
 6.   Cover the pot and simmer for 20 minutes.  Then enjoy!

Welcome to The Cook in Me©

I created this blog to document and share with my grandchildren and friends some of the recipes I've created over the past 40 years. I'm kind of thinking of it as my cooking legacy to my family.  I've found that with every good recipe, there is a story.  I want to share those stories too.  I know that my grandchildren, and probably even my children, are unaware of  these stories.  They're just something you don't think to share unless the need arises.  I hope that some of you readers (if there are any readers) will share some of your stories with me.  All of life's stories tell us something about ourselves. One of the most important things I've learned during my life, through the good experiences and the not-so-good ones, is that I cannot survive without a sense of humor.   Some of my best stories today happened at a time when I thought I was in the middle of a catastrophic event.  There I was at the time, clutching the pearls, thinking that there was no way out of a crisis situation, when in fact it's the humorous side of the incident that I always remember.  It's better to recall the humor in the story, than to relive the fear and anxiety that the circumstances elicited.  I'm sure it prolongs your life.

Sometimes I think I missed my calling and should have embarked on a career that I knew I would love.  That would have been cooking or writing.   But being a single mom with two elementary school boys was not conducive to the hours that a culinary career or free lance writer career requires. And I didn't think I would be able to financially support my family as an apprentice chef. I didn't think, I KNEW I wouldn't be able to support my boys as a writer.  I wasn't actually sure I could write well.  And I didn't have the time to find out.  So I opted for an entirely different profession.  But I love to cook, and I love to write, and I knew I could still do both while pursuing  gainful employment.   I believe cooking is one of the ways that even we emotionally guarded, seemingly uninspired people can express love and artistic creativity.  I love entertaining family and friends.  I love making a knock out meal for friends, family, and even strangers.   To me, there is nothing more satisfying.  I don't care if I eat it or not.  That's not where the satisfaction lies.  It's in the process.  Once I  had a dinner party for a few friends when I was on an all liquid diet.  It didn't faze me at all.  They probably thought I was crazy, but they wouldn't be the first ones.  They enjoyed the meal, though!

I'm creating this blog at this time of year because the holidays evoke such wonderful memories, many of which are related to, or accompanied by food. I know that we all have our traditional holiday meals.  But if you're like I am, there's always something new and different to try--not better, just different.  I learned to cook from my GrandmaLasak (my mother's mother).  I also married into a family with two wonderful cooks from which I greatly benefited by observation:  my husband's maternal grandmother (Annie Myers), and my mother-in-law (Alma). My grandmother was from what is now the Czech Republic. She was actually either Moravian or Slavic. She immigrated to this country in the early 1920s when she was a young woman. I had to watch her closely to learn her foods. None of her recipes were written on paper, and when she said a cup of flour, she meant a heaping cup in one of her coffee mugs (probably about 12 oz.). I learned to make bread and pastries by watching her knead the dough for what seemed like hours. I can't knead a loaf of bread today without thinking of her. And the simple aroma of yeast dough immediately evokes Saturday morning memories.


Every Saturday morning she awakened about 4 a.m. in order to make her bread and pastries. They had to be ready before she and my grandpa went to the farmer's market to buy the chicken grandpa would slaughter for Sunday dinner. And oh, the pastries. I would be sleeping in the feather bed, tightly tucked beneath the feather comforter with my head on the goose down pillow, and by 7 a.m., the heavenly aroma of yeast pastries wafted under my door and tickled my taste buds. What a breakfast I would have! Buchta, little buchta, kolachke, breads, noodles as thin as a straight pin. If it was a Moravian or Slavic, she made it expertly. Whether it was stuffed with poppy seed or plum fillings, covered in powdered sugar (angel wings), or sugared with cinnamon, it was on that table every Saturday morning. My grandmother passed away when I was only 19 years ago. I regret that I didn't pay closer attention during my teenage years because I would give anything today to be able to replicate my grandmother's cooking. I've searched through cookbook after cookbook, but those recipes of hers, whether in reality or just in my own mind, aren't there.

Unfortunately, my mother did not embrace her heritage. As a child, her parents spoke only Czech at home, and my mother primarily learned English at school. She was taunted by classmates because they thought she was Polish (the similarities in Eastern European dialects are sometimes hard to identify to the untrained ear), and apparently in Northwest Ohio pre-World War II, the poles were not highly regarded. My father also didn't embrace my mother's heritage. His mother was also a good cook, and my father wanted my mother to cook like his mother. Consequently, mom did not make the wonderful ethnic dishes that my grandmother did. I loved my mother, but as cooking goes, she was a plain cook. She didn't like to use spices. She didn't try new things--dad didn't like it. We had wonderful times around the dinner table however, despite what the meal was--meatloaf, pork chops, ham and bean soup, and the standard Sunday dinner meal--pot roast. I have many stories that revolve around spaghetti & meatballs, or cook outs, and I'm sure we'll hit on those.

So, sit back, grab a cup of coffee, and plan to peruse my life as a cook.  If anything strikes you as familiar, or evokes a memory, please let me hear from you.  I'd love to hear your stories.

©2012 by Kathy Striggow