Cutting down a turkey to make ground meat (amended)

Before you an $11. turkey.
Purchased at Easter

Watch as we make a feast for a family of four that has at least 18 meals represented. 

That is 18x4=72 meals plus left overs. All for $11 of meat.

Begin with the prep of all the supplies that will be needed at hand. This is very important for the meat must be prepared very quickly to maintain the chill needed for safe handling. The small sauce pan is for the gizzard and heart that will go to a boil to make the home style gravy later. Place paper toweling under the cutting board and have extra to keep the juices contained. As much as I try to avoid paper products this is an exception. Do NOT use your cloth towels, news paper or paper bags if you must.

Here you see the breast cut off, The leg and wing drum sticks set aside. Return to chill while working the carcass for the meat scraps to make ground turkey.

Once the carcass is cleared of all meat that is scraped as well as cut from the bones, set it aside.

All the other meat get to chilling it promptly

Set the bones and the wing tips on to boil. I only use reverse osmosis water to cook with. It is found that the tap water can really contain things (even in small parts per billion) that I do not want my family to ingest.

grind the scraps down after removing any extra skin. A tip here as much as we like very lean meats it is a must to have a very little amount of the fats/skin added in the grind to hold it together and to give it a binding agent of sorts. This will be made into a meat ball recipe, and a half of it will be pre-cooked and then all refrozen for another day.

Now with the turkey breast de-skinned they are carved into tenders. This a good summer time cut. No oven needed. The thigh is added to the boiling pot for adding back a little of the dark meat will give it a deeper savory flavor.

Tenders to freezer par-freeze. Keep them apart from each other then you can use the plastic by cutting them apart wrap the piece of meat as you cut it apart and then all goes into a freezer bag. Remove as much air as possible. That is all the by-product left it is to be tossed. I should of bagged it first but neglected to do so.

Clean all work surfaces thoroughly use care here this is where cross contamination and e-coli can occur if not careful. There is the pot with the stock cooking down. Once done a good 2-3 boiled hours it is cooled. skimmed removed from the stew pot. Meanwhile cut down the celery/carrot/onion when the pot is emptied of the stock and the bones cleaned of scrap use a gee or rue (butter with the milk whey removed) heat it well and saute the veggies well. Add a bit of flour and thicken add broth. The beginning of your soup. Go from there with your own creativity.

In oven the drum sticks, corn bread and the baked golden Yukon yellow potato. Oh those are so good even cold for a snack. They are naturally buttery. I just love them as my carb mid day.

Now make sure that the turkey is cooked to 170*F

The left over broth in the pan...cool it then de-fat it this is the concentrated base for the gravy.

Now the gravy use the finely diced gizzard and heart in the gravy I think there is another post under cooking in my lists that show the method.

Remove the bones to cool
start gravy and the broth is strained into a bowl
It is added to the gravy as it cooks and thickens
This becomes extremely concentrated in flavor boy howdy this is livin'

Rue to empty stock pot and then when hot add root veggies.
I also fine grated the last of the parsnips from the garden
Parsnips now that's the flavor of the homemade soup, use it in any poultry based soup.

Finely and I mean VERY finely dice the heart gizzard and liver (I got cheated a liver in this bird)
Now I know that just sounds nasty but this is the flavor of the gravy

Remove the meat off bone dice to medium size and toss into the stock after the the flour is added as a thickening agent, add stock to thick veggie/flour mix (all in the pot)
I added three organic carrots at a large slice for texture boiled it another 5 minutes on a high rolling boil.

Powered down by 1:10 yee haw!

Enjoy!

Wow that was the first long post in some time. It is so good to be getting back to my old self again.


The break down...

4 family meals of tenders (16 meal portions)
4 family meals of ground turkey (16 meal portions)
Meal for 4 of drum sticks (4 meal portions)
soup stock for several meals (example rice boiled in it yum)
Gravy
Large pot of soup (20 meal portions at least!)

Lots of left overs too

.15 cents a meal

all for $11 and a two hour labor of love.
Now find me a job that pays those kind of hours, free childcare too.

Find me a dishwasher too, that would be cool
:)