Yesterday saw me cooking the biggest turkey I have ever bought. I got it from Sainsburys at 1/3 of the pre-christmas price (£12.50 instead of £39) , and set myself the task of converting this beast into as many filling, calorie counted meals as possible. First I slow cooked the whole thing - minus the giblets- for 10 hours, yes 10 hours. With a small bath of water to the side and the turkey resting on 2lb of thickly sliced onion, a very succulent bird was obtained. I did not bard or baste the bird either, just covered with a triple thickness of foil and the oven set at 150C. It was also fortunate that I have a huge oven as the bird nearly touched the top ( from the lowest rack possible) !!
So from this one turkey I have obtained 2 x roast turkey dinners for 6 people (12 meals), tomato based curry (6 meals), rissotto ( 6 meals), stroganoff (6 meals), a box of sliced turkey breast that will fill around 4 big rolls/wraps, 24 'pasties' made with the spring roll pastry I use for samosas, etc.., I also used the neck to make a pan of wonderful soup (4 portions), then the rest of the 'giblets' ( liver etc.. ) I boiled up in a little water and then along with the set fat gathered from the stock from roasting the bird, made the dog some lovely biscuits. I scraped every last bit of usable meat from the carcass and this has given 4 meals for the dog and cat ( i will give them some dry biscuit with it to avoid too much richness).
I think I did rather well for my £12.50! The freezer now has 18 complete main meals, 11 complete lighter meals, the meat part of a Sunday dinner for 6 and a whole mountain of uncooked dog biscuits, to be baked a few at a time when the oven is on. The breast for todays dinner is already pre sliced and in a dish ready to pour over a good gravy and to simply warm through ( this keeps it truly tender). Katie (cat) and Alfie have already had 2 meals each, and tonight will have their 3rd leaving the last tomorrow morning. I am one very happy cook, spending a delightful few hours doing what I love to do most and knowing that it has produced so many meals from 60kcals - 350kcals. The best thing of all, proving that to eat healthily really can be far cheaper than eating junk.
😍😋🍗🍵🍛😛😃
As a bit of P.S. if anyone is interested in the doggy biscuits for your beloved pooch, here is the recipe. Half the weight fat to wheat flour ( I had 130g of turkey fat, so 260g flour), 2 tablespoons dried parsley, whatever meat you want to use blitzed finely ( I had 120g turkey giblets meat once took off all the bones). Mix all together and moisten with enough stock to give a soft rolling dough. Cut out your shapes and place on a baking sheet covered in non stick baking parchment. I then bake one tray at 160C for 45minutes, the other tray(s) I open freeze uncooked, then bag once frozen for future baking. Once the cooked biscuits are cold, put in an airtight tub, they will keep for about a week. Alfie gets just one each day, he is exercised well though so this treat is fine. 🐶🐓🐾
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