Eat This MF Turkey Soup

Look at the bones!

Maybe I should have used a stock photo. There is a whole thing about making food look good for the camera that has nothing to do with how it tastes. But that is one tasty bowl of soup you’re looking at. And it came out of the freezer a couple of days ago too. I made an assload after Canadian Thanksgiving last month and froze some because there are days you don’t wanna fucking cook and frozen soup + microwave to the rescue.

Side note: Thawed out soup tastes just as good, but my lamb stew (I’ll post that here on Substack one day) is not good for freezing. The potatoes turn to mush and so you basically have to commit to eating it until it’s gone.

Anyfuckingway, it’s story time.

If you actually want the recipe fine scroll down but I’ve been told people read these for the stories and not the recipes and that makes sense because my skill as a storyteller far outweighs my culinary capacities. I had to do a bit of thinking on this one. Like, what makes a good soup story? I realized it was staring me in the face but you’re gonna say what the fuck does this have to do with soup. Trust that I will get there.

My kids went to a religious preschool.

I know. Anyone familiar with my regular slagging of religion is probably saying what the fuck, James?

I don’t know the fuck. Wasn’t my decision. I worked full time and my wife worked part time and the place was nearby and well recommended and so whatever they learned some letters and numbers and shit and also got a bit of a dose of God in the process. Neither kid is the least bit religious now. My son is probably even more anti-religion than I am.

But we had to go the Christmas pageants, with little kids singing about how awesome God is. Blarf.

♫ Glory! Glory! Glory to God! Glory in the highest! ♫

That was stuck in my head for fucking days. I was lamenting it to my work / workout buddy as we were walking to the gym at lunchtime. He’d gone to a religious school as a kid and told me a story about some teacher saying, “Church is God’s gift to you.” He replied with, “If Church is this wonderful gift, why is it so boring?” “Go to the office,” she told him.

My kind of guy. The few times I was exposed to religion my impression was that this was corny and boring. But we had to see the little kids sing, and I told my friend about the song and said the fuck is that glory in the highest shit about.

“God gets high,” he said. “Dude smokes a lot of pot.”

“Constantly fucking baked,” I agreed. And why not? He made the stuff, didn’t he? Hell, Robin Williams did a bit in the 80s about God being high when he made the platypus.

Okay now I have to talk about Craig. Craig is my best friend. Craig gets plenty of mention in my motherfucking turkey dinner recipe, and this turkey soup recipe is mostly stolen from him as well. Speaking of, perhaps you’ve never made soup before and are anxious. Well I am one ADHD anxious motherfucker and this is the only soup I’ve ever made and it isn’t that hard and it always turns out fine, so chill. You got this.

Back to Craig. He looked after our kids a lot. A whole lot. So much so that they ended up calling him, and I shit you not, “Nanny.” Not just occasionally, but all the time. It was his name and he loved it. It was only when my son was an adult that he asked Nanny if it was okay to call him Craig in front of his friends.  

The fuck does this have to do with soup? Welp, each year the kids in the religious preschool put forth their favorite family recipe to be put in a cookbook. I still have all the cookbooks. One year, my son selected the turkey soup. Except he didn’t name it turkey soup. In the book it’s called “Nanny Soup.”

So here is how you make your Motherfucking Nanny Soup.

Step 1: Make the Motherfucking Turkey Dinner.

Step 2: Eat the Motherfucking Turkey Dinner.

Step 3: Save the carcass and hopefully don’t be too hungover to cook the next day.

Okay this is always a balancing act, which is why I prefer to err on the side of a big ass turkey because sandwiches. You want lots of turkey in your soup, but you also want sandwiches. I also like to make a fuckton of gravy, because you need that for the sandwiches and for the soup. Yeah, we’re putting gravy in soup. Trust me. And to hell with what your cardiologist says.

The next step is to avoid the Black Friday bullshit and stay home and make soup, starting with stripping the shit out of the carcass. Every bit of edible meat comes off and goes in a separate bowl. Every inedible bit of gristle and skin and whatnot goes into the big ass pot. You have a big ass pot, right? It needs to be bigly big.

Don’t do this next part while your wife is expecting to sleep in because as good as the soup tastes you’re not getting laid if you do.

Get a hammer, and break the bones. The wings and drumsticks and thigh bones. Strip all the stuff off and put it on the cutting board and bash those fuckers until they break. Just one good break in the middle so they come apart. The bigger ones you’ll have to hammer a few times to get them to snap. Don’t go all Thor with Mjolnir on the fucker. You don’t want to send a shard of bone into your eye. Just a moderate whack whack whack snap! And then break it apart with your hands and put them in the pot.

I will suck the marrow from your bones! I will carve your femur into a flute and every time I play a tune on it your soul with writhe in bodiless agony!

Okay that got pretty dark but I’m guessing there aren’t too many vegans reading this right now.

So, everything carbon-based bit that you’re not gonna eat goes into the soup pot. Shake a goodly amount of poultry seasoning in there and fill near to the top with water. Bring that shit to a boil, and then cover it and reduce the burner down to the lowest temp. Let simmer for two hours.

This is the part where you might fuck it up, so pay attention. You’re gonna read this next part and say hey James how fucking stupid do you think I am and I’m gonna say I don’t think you’re stupid at all but sometimes I am stupid and I’ve come close to fucking this up more than once.

Get the biggest bowl you got, and put it in the sink.

I REPEAT: Get the biggest bowl you got. Don’t forget the fucking bowl. THEN, and only then, put a colander in the bowl, and pour the contents of the pot into the colander. You’re gonna need oven mitts cuz that shit will be ouchy.

Yeah one time I forgot the stupid bowl and about a quarter of the soup stock went through the colander and down the drain before I realized what a dipshit I am. Fuck me and fuck my brain.

Hoist the colander out and hold it above the bowl as all the brothy goodness drains out. Set the colander aside and compost that shit. Pour the broth back into the pot. I guess I should give a list of other ingredients now because people always look for that shit. This doesn’t all go in at the same time, but in addition to the bird body and the poultry seasoning, here is what you’re gonna need:

·       Carrots

·       Onion

·       Celery

·       Salt and Pepper

·       That chicken flavored OXO shit – quite a bit

·       Shell pasta makes the best noodles. I forgot to get shell pasta last time and had to use rotini or fusilli I don’t know I can’t tell the fucking difference look at the picture and you tell me.

·       Oh, yeah some leftover gravy

I’m assuming this is a big ass pot and it was a sizeable bird. So for starters you’re gonna put in a chopped onion. A fairly large one. Don’t get too carried away on the carrots. Just a few is enough. And most of an entire bunch of celery all chopped up.

Then add a goodly amount of the chicken OXO stuff, but don’t overdo it. You can add more later. Maybe dash a bit more poultry seasoning in there, and some salt and pepper too. Again, you can always add more salt later, but you can’t un-salt that shit.

Also, add in a big glop of the leftover gravy. At least half a cup. Sofa king good.

Return to a boil and cover again and simmer on lowest heat for another 30 minutes.

Add the turkey and the shell pasta. How much shell pasta? I dunno. A fair bit, but you also don’t want it to be pasta fucking soup. This isn’t rocket surgery. You figure it out.

But as far as the turkey goes, the more the better. No one ever complained about too much turkey in their turkey nanny soup. So long as you save some for sandwiches.  

Return to a boil one more time and cover and simmer for a final 30 minutes.

Now you remove from heat and uncover and let it cool to the point that you can taste test it without having a nuclear meltdown in your mouth. You want it at eating temperature to finalize the seasoning, because if you try and season that shit while it’s still screaming hot then all you can taste is pain and you’ll oversalt it or put too much chicken flavoring in. Still, you’re probably going to want a fair bit of that chicken flavoring.

When you think it’s close, put some in a bowl and taste test that shit again. Then you’ll know if it needs anything extra. I tend to under-salt a bit and then just dash some into the bowl because I like my food salty but not everyone else does.

There ya go. Eat a bunch and put some into those fancy glasslock containers and freeze that shit for a day when your boss was a total cock and you don’t feel like cooking but you also don’t wanna order pizza for the forty-eleventh time.

Happy fucking ‘Murican thanksgiving please buy my sweary ass history book ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY SH!T WENT DOWN it makes an awesome gift n’ shit. And don’t forget to subscribe too, because more recipes are coming and you don’t wanna miss ‘em.