Here's to "making the most" posts!

Good morning! Hope everyone is doing well, especially with all this virus hulla ballo going around.  I could throw in my two cents worth, but 2 cents doesn't go as far as it used to.  Nope, instead I'll stay in a practical frame of mind.

This post has been a few days coming.  Mainly because it took a few days to get things ready.

Back around Thanksgiving I bought two rather large turkeys on sale at our neighborhood Kroger for .47 cents a lb.  There weren't a lot of great turkey sales this past year, sad to say.  This one was the best, but limited to two.  Since I was limited in quantity, I had to make the most of the ones I chose.  So I bought two ginormous turkeys.  Between 20-25 lbs.  I cooked one around Christmas and did all this then as well, but this go around I wanted to share the process.

Turkeys bought on sale can be great resources of meat, and broth.  Pus there is a side benefit for my furry friends and feathered food producers (Chickens).

This bad boy weighed in at 23+ lbs.  I placed it in the fridge to thaw for about 3 days.  Then came the day of.  Since I'm making a whole turkey anyway, turkey was on the menu for that nights dinner.  Saves me from having to do anything.  Win win.  Anyway, I put the turkey in my trusty old roasting pan and baked for almost 5 hours til done.  Once dinner was over, and the turkey had cooled, I deboned it, while placing all the bones in my crock pot.  I ended up with a huge breast in my fridge to use for sandwiches.  Plus all this other meat!

Having all the bones, giblets, etc back in the crock pot, I proceeded to add some celery (2 large stalks), some carrots,half a large onion, couple of tsp salt, and 2 tbs vinegar.  I then covered the whole shebang with water, put the lid on and set it to low.  

It cooked for over a day, maybe 30 hours?  Then I turned it off to cool.  Once cool, I strained off all the broth that had been made and placed it in the fridge for the fat to solidify on top.  The scraps were tossed to the chickens!  This morning, out came the broth.  I scraped off the fat at the top and put it in a jar to make dog treats for the fur babies.    I brought the broth to a boil and then proceeded to can 4 quarts of bone broth.  Liquid gold!  This is the stuff that make's homemade chicken noodle soup cure what ails ya.  

As a side note, these quart size jars range in age from a few years old to way older.  I've inherited jars from my mom, and my grand mama.  In fact one of these jars is a commemorative jar celebrating the bicentennial of the USA!  Can you see it?  

How bout now?  Lol.  So from a 23 pound turkey, I was able to use just about all of it.  That's the best part of stretching what you have.  Make sure you get the most bang for your buck!