Once upon a time there was a turkey....

This started out as a plan for a roast chicken dinner, one of Hubby's favourite meals, and heck, the children are up for any meal that is an excuse for mashed potatoes and gravy.

I went to the store to get a roasting chicken....
who. do. they. think. they. are. kidding???

I think we got bigger birds from the hatchery! They certainly didn't match up with what we grew back on the farm, nor did they have any chance of feeding our family of 8, not to mention leftovers. The whole point of roasting a chicken or turkey is leftovers!

I headed over to the frozen turkey section. Seems there is a sale on turkeys after a holiday, for 6 dollars more I got a turkey instead of a petite hen. I bought 2, the freezer has/had room.

Day one: the basic roast turkey, loved it. Put it in the oven and I disappeared to the library with orders for the children to start to make mashed potatoes and carrots at 5, I came back and did the gravy and stuffing then.

After supper it was short work to pull the good meat off the bones to be set aside for further meals. The carcass was put in my big pot with an onion, a couple carrots, and celery scraps to cook down for stock. After it had cooked down for a couple hours I strained out all the bits. They went into a bowl in the fridge. The stock went out to the back porch to cool.

Day two: Half of the leftover good meat made a lovely "Creamy Turkey Curry" served on noodles.

Day three: Brought in the pot of stock and skimmed off the hardened fat. Poured some stock into containers for the freezer. (For all those annoying recipes that call for stock when I never have any.) I started heating the remaining stock, adding onion, carrots, potatoes, and celery. Picked through the 'bits in a bowl' pulling out anything edible to add to the pot. I believe the term the teenager used was Erg-worthy, as in ick. Grandma however would have been proud. This pot of soup should serve us 2 or 3 meals.

Day four: turkey hashbrown casserole. yet more soup.

Day five: soup

Day six: soup

Day seven: Children in turkey revolt; threatening to sprout feathers.

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Now I'd love to buy my poultry locally especially turkeys. There are restrictions to our raising chickens here at the house, as in not allowed even one pet hen. So I'm looking to buy locally raised instead. How hard can it be to source 2 turkeys per year? D.A.M.N. hard from the luck I've been having. I do hear that one farmer is looking into raising chickens, I'm family so I'm on the short list for potential customers. YEAH! But those turkeys are a problem. Ideas??