Poomaworld
Mummified Turkey Remains? Yum!
As the sated guests left my in-laws' house last Thursday, each held in tow leftover stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and cake, depending on who pounced earliest. My own pouncing was plenty early, but I wanted just one thing: the carcass that had been a 24 lb bird, and was now looking more like a turkey-colored model for a new Aliens movie.
Do you have turkey relics still in the fridge? There's still time to do the best thing possible with what's left: make soup.
1. Put the whole thing in a pot: bones, meat, skin, doodads, everything. Break it up by hand if you need to, in order to make it fit. Use a big enough pot so that you can cover the bones with (cold) water, with maybe 1 inch more water above the bones.
2. Bring to a boil. As the pot approaches boiling point, you might start seeing some foamy scum accumulate on top. Skim this off with a spoon, and discard. After your pot is boiling in earnest, turn heat down to medium-low.
3. Add:
one peeled onion, quartered
two peeled carrots. Cut the carrots lengthwise, so that the maximum flavor is released; then chop into smaller pieces.
one stalk of celery. Cut off the bottommost part of the celery, split the stalk lengthwise, and likewise chop up, including the leafy top.
1 tbsp dried parsley
1 teasp whole coriander seeds
1/2 teasp allspice
Simmer on medium low for at least 90 minutes, preferably 2-3 hours. Drain the soup into another pot, and discard the bones. Hard-core types can pick the meat off the bones and add to the soup, along with the chopped veggies. Depends on your aesthetic, and how hungry/broke/cheap you are.
Cover the pot and let it sit for an hour or so, unheated, on your stove to cool down. Then, place the pot in your fridge. If there's still residual heat in the pot, wait longer--don't put a hot pot on your cold fridge's glass shelf! Leave the pot in the fridge overnight.
Next day, take the pot out of the fridge. All of the fat from your turkey should now be congealed on the top of the pot. Skim it off.
Voila! You now have a couple quarts of nutritious, and yummy soup. Freeze some for later, and sever the rest with noodles or rice as the foundation for a great winter meal.
Do you have turkey relics still in the fridge? There's still time to do the best thing possible with what's left: make soup.
1. Put the whole thing in a pot: bones, meat, skin, doodads, everything. Break it up by hand if you need to, in order to make it fit. Use a big enough pot so that you can cover the bones with (cold) water, with maybe 1 inch more water above the bones.
2. Bring to a boil. As the pot approaches boiling point, you might start seeing some foamy scum accumulate on top. Skim this off with a spoon, and discard. After your pot is boiling in earnest, turn heat down to medium-low.
3. Add:
one peeled onion, quartered
two peeled carrots. Cut the carrots lengthwise, so that the maximum flavor is released; then chop into smaller pieces.
one stalk of celery. Cut off the bottommost part of the celery, split the stalk lengthwise, and likewise chop up, including the leafy top.
1 tbsp dried parsley
1 teasp whole coriander seeds
1/2 teasp allspice
Simmer on medium low for at least 90 minutes, preferably 2-3 hours. Drain the soup into another pot, and discard the bones. Hard-core types can pick the meat off the bones and add to the soup, along with the chopped veggies. Depends on your aesthetic, and how hungry/broke/cheap you are.
Cover the pot and let it sit for an hour or so, unheated, on your stove to cool down. Then, place the pot in your fridge. If there's still residual heat in the pot, wait longer--don't put a hot pot on your cold fridge's glass shelf! Leave the pot in the fridge overnight.
Next day, take the pot out of the fridge. All of the fat from your turkey should now be congealed on the top of the pot. Skim it off.
Voila! You now have a couple quarts of nutritious, and yummy soup. Freeze some for later, and sever the rest with noodles or rice as the foundation for a great winter meal.
Cook a whole chicken for fun and value
Did you buy a whole chicken and plunk it in the freezer? Good. Unless I'm cooking a bird the same day I buy it, I put it in the freezer. Schedules change, meal plans are derailed, and a dozen things can interfere with giving a whole chicken the TLC it needs to become a wonderful dinner. If the blessed day has arrived to cook chicken for dinner, here's how.
Make sure you have handy:
--a sharp knife
--cutting board
--one orange, or one onion
--can of cooking spray
If you froze the bird, place the rock-solid thing in a Pyrex dish the MORNING OF THE DAY BEFORE you want to cook it. This will give it enough time to thaw completely, and safely. DO NOT thaw frozen meat on the kitchen counter. Doing so gives bacteria a free and fertile playground.
Once thawed (or if you just brought it home from the supermarket), open the package in the sink, and pour the juices out. Take all the doodads out of the bird's cavity. I'm not much for chicken organs and usually just toss these, but heart and liver can be cut up and later added to gravy if you like. Take a large zip lock bag, toss the chicken neck into the bag, and the bag into the freezer. You now have a repository for chicken bones and parts. (You'll be using this later.)
Make sure you have handy:
--a sharp knife
--cutting board
--one orange, or one onion
--can of cooking spray
If you froze the bird, place the rock-solid thing in a Pyrex dish the MORNING OF THE DAY BEFORE you want to cook it. This will give it enough time to thaw completely, and safely. DO NOT thaw frozen meat on the kitchen counter. Doing so gives bacteria a free and fertile playground.
Once thawed (or if you just brought it home from the supermarket), open the package in the sink, and pour the juices out. Take all the doodads out of the bird's cavity. I'm not much for chicken organs and usually just toss these, but heart and liver can be cut up and later added to gravy if you like. Take a large zip lock bag, toss the chicken neck into the bag, and the bag into the freezer. You now have a repository for chicken bones and parts. (You'll be using this later.)
Use that Freezer
I'll try to explore other dimensions of the POOMA Principle as time goes by, but let's start with the kitchen. Devotees of the POOMA Principle know that you should have the stuff you need on hand, to maximize choice. But, if you just rush out to the store and buy everything, there's bound to be a lot of waste (and avoidable expense).
So, to work with the best range of options, and at the best price, start with your freezer. You know, that thing that you currently keep ice cubes, microwaveable junk, and vodka in. Microwave some junk for lunch so that you don't go shopping hungry, and head to the supermarket. Your objective is to find things that will freeze well, and are on sale. (Vegetarians and those with dietary restrictions, patience. This outing is for the carnivores.)
Head for the meat cases. Meat that has to be thoroughly cooked is the best option for freezing. This includes chicken (whole or pieces), pork (in nearly all its glorious forms), and beef stew meat. A good steak is a treat if it's on sale, but best used right away--steak that's been frozen and thawed won't be as juicy and flavorful. Ditto for ground beef if you're going to make hamburgers: frozen patties will cook up as charred sawdust. Make burgers from fresh ground beef.
Here's what to watch for on sale:
* whole chickens: these keep real well in the freezer, and are usually better priced than cut-up chicken.
* pork chops/pork loin: these are often on sale. Whole boneless pork loins are often on sale at incredibly low prices, and feed the family first class fare for a pittance.
* pork ribs: baby-back ribs have less fat, but wait until they're on sale.
* Turkey breast: usually already frozen, fantastic value. Cook once and nosh on it all week.
* ground beef or poultry: freeze these for making chili or nachos.
That should be good for a start. DON'T BUY IT IF IT'S NOT A GOOD PRICE. Even if you want to impress your girlfriend. She'll be a lot more impressed when you cook something great all by your lonesome. Bring your goodies home, plunk them in the freezer, and wait a day, week, month or three before you use it. That's The POOMA Way.
So, to work with the best range of options, and at the best price, start with your freezer. You know, that thing that you currently keep ice cubes, microwaveable junk, and vodka in. Microwave some junk for lunch so that you don't go shopping hungry, and head to the supermarket. Your objective is to find things that will freeze well, and are on sale. (Vegetarians and those with dietary restrictions, patience. This outing is for the carnivores.)
Head for the meat cases. Meat that has to be thoroughly cooked is the best option for freezing. This includes chicken (whole or pieces), pork (in nearly all its glorious forms), and beef stew meat. A good steak is a treat if it's on sale, but best used right away--steak that's been frozen and thawed won't be as juicy and flavorful. Ditto for ground beef if you're going to make hamburgers: frozen patties will cook up as charred sawdust. Make burgers from fresh ground beef.
Here's what to watch for on sale:
* whole chickens: these keep real well in the freezer, and are usually better priced than cut-up chicken.
* pork chops/pork loin: these are often on sale. Whole boneless pork loins are often on sale at incredibly low prices, and feed the family first class fare for a pittance.
* pork ribs: baby-back ribs have less fat, but wait until they're on sale.
* Turkey breast: usually already frozen, fantastic value. Cook once and nosh on it all week.
* ground beef or poultry: freeze these for making chili or nachos.
That should be good for a start. DON'T BUY IT IF IT'S NOT A GOOD PRICE. Even if you want to impress your girlfriend. She'll be a lot more impressed when you cook something great all by your lonesome. Bring your goodies home, plunk them in the freezer, and wait a day, week, month or three before you use it. That's The POOMA Way.
The POOMA Principle
This is an ongoing experiment in life in the kitchen, and beyond. I am a divorced dad who loves to cook, and enjoys the good things in life. With Depression-era parents, I was brought up to try to wring as much out of a dollar as I can. So, I am appalled by awful food in restaurants, at ridiculous prices; take-out glop; indifferent or downright hostile service; and all manner of efforts to pry money from my fists without giving some value in return.
But look, I'm a busy guy. Between jobs, kids, a budding new business, and the myriad small pleasures life has to offer, I don't have time to research every spending opportunity to find the best deal. I can't cruise every store to see what's on sale. And I don't want to waste my time. So, over time I found that I adapted, using the POOMA Principle (Pulled Out Of Mid Air, polite form). The POOMA Principle states, in essence:
* Work with what you have, or can easily get. If cooking, use up what's in the fridge. If it's on sale, buy two and put one in the freezer for later.
* Trust your own instincts. Pursue life's good things as you perceive them. A good yardstick: if you heard about it on TV, you can probably do without it.
* Be not a slave to impulse, which constricts choice and burns your clock. Don't covet The One Thing--it's invariably more expensive than readily available alternatives.
As a guideline for making delicious, cheap meals, the POOMA Principle helps you get the most out of your dollar. It frees you from avoidable wild-goose chases. You get the quiet pleasure of providing superior results for yourself and your loved ones, at a fraction of the cost that other drones pay. And a fringe benefit is that it gives off a nice right-brain-activity buzz--cooking, far from drudgery, is a pleasure that engages the parts of your brain devoted to creative activity, like painting or making music.
But look, I'm a busy guy. Between jobs, kids, a budding new business, and the myriad small pleasures life has to offer, I don't have time to research every spending opportunity to find the best deal. I can't cruise every store to see what's on sale. And I don't want to waste my time. So, over time I found that I adapted, using the POOMA Principle (Pulled Out Of Mid Air, polite form). The POOMA Principle states, in essence:
* Work with what you have, or can easily get. If cooking, use up what's in the fridge. If it's on sale, buy two and put one in the freezer for later.
* Trust your own instincts. Pursue life's good things as you perceive them. A good yardstick: if you heard about it on TV, you can probably do without it.
* Be not a slave to impulse, which constricts choice and burns your clock. Don't covet The One Thing--it's invariably more expensive than readily available alternatives.
As a guideline for making delicious, cheap meals, the POOMA Principle helps you get the most out of your dollar. It frees you from avoidable wild-goose chases. You get the quiet pleasure of providing superior results for yourself and your loved ones, at a fraction of the cost that other drones pay. And a fringe benefit is that it gives off a nice right-brain-activity buzz--cooking, far from drudgery, is a pleasure that engages the parts of your brain devoted to creative activity, like painting or making music.