Melvyn’s Turkey Soup

This is probably the most meaningful post I have made to date.  My Thanksgiving experience is pretty unique and pretty special.  The family I married into more than 25 years ago has been hosting Thanksgiving at their house for 45 years.  Now that is clearly pretty impressive.  When I tell you that nothing has changed except a growing family, I mean nothing has changed.  Let me digress for one moment about the experience.  Since my wife’s family is from Flint, Mi, all the kids moved away once they graduated college.  So Thanksgiving became the one holiday that everyone made sure they got home for.  We have people coming in from each coast.

The family now includes the next generation which is 11 more kids.  So there are 21 people in a house for at least 4 days.  Now that would be a sizable Thanksgiving in and of itself.  But the rest of the family from Detroit comes in as well.    This year, one of the children (he’s 25) came in from Italy.  He will arrive on Wednesday and leave on Saturday but no one would miss this experience.  Oh yea, the total count for our Thanksgiving meal varies each year between 50 – 55 people.

We make 3 turkeys totaling almost 70 lbs.  This post, however, is about my Father-in-laws soup.  This might be every one’s favorite dish of the evening.  The reason I am so pleased to blog about this recipe is now we will be memorializing this recipe.  I made sure to stand at his side as he made his soup so that I will never forget and be able to recreate it myself.

Recipe
Melvyn’s Turkey Soup:
Ingredients:

1. 1 bag each of carrots and celery stalks
2. 3 – 4 yellow onions 
3. 2 large turnips peeled
4. Necks, heart and giblets from your turkey
5. Most of a bunch of parsley
6. 80 – 100 oz of chicken broth
7. 2 tbsp poultry seasoning
8. 1 lb of elbow pasta
9. Pepper to taste
10. Another bag of carrots

Directions:

1. In a double boiler add the broth in the bottom container, the vegetables to the middle container and the turkey organs to the top container and bring to a boil
2. Let simmer until the vegetables are very, very soft
3. Dice up the turkey organs and blend the vegetables
4. Add broth to the blended vegetables until the desired consistency is achieved
5. Add back in the turkey organs and the whole carrots and let simmer for a long time (that is pretty scientific, isn’t it)
6. Add in the pasta (if you do not want the pasta to soak up your broth, cook separately and add when done)
7. Salt and pepper to taste.