Today worked out very well. It was nice and warm this morning, so I braved the Hillsdale Mall for an hour or so. There were lines at both Macy's and the Gap, but all in all it was a pretty painless experience, and I got what I was looking for without too much stress. About an hour after I got home, the rain started to fall, making me feel very good about my sense of timing.
My other project for the day was making a batch of stock from the turkey carcass and the collection of chicken wing tips that's been gathering in our freezer since the last time I made stock. We had so much base, I ended up making two pots' worth. The house smelled wonderful as the pots simmered away.
As I was straining out the flotsam, I found myself channeling my long-since-deceased grandmother. Grandma Bernice, an immigrant child of the Depression, didn't let much go to waste on a chicken. She would even crack chicken bones in her teeth to suck out the marrow. So as I ladled out bones, mirepoix, and chunks of turkey flesh, I found myself setting the larger pieces aside in a little dish -- after all, why throw out perfectly good meat?
Of course, after simmering in the stock pot for 3 hours, the meat was dry and flavorless, which I discovered after it had cooled off. If Scott weren't on his diet, I could have goosed the turkey up with some cheese and turned it into a casserole, but that's out for a few more weeks. So into the bin it went. Still, I had a hard time forcing myself to throw it away, and even now, I feel a little guilty for wasting all that meat.
Which is ridiculous, because the turkey wasn't wasted at all. I have at least a gallon of yummy stock cooling in a water bath right now, and that stock will go into making a bunch of great dinners in days to come.
