I’m no foodie, but… getting the most out of a turkey roast

I think it’s fairly safe to say I’m no food blogger.

In fact, that photo above? It’s all I have for this post and why? Because dinner and Daylight Saving make strange bedfellows without studio lighting. So on this one, you’ll have to close your eyes and imagine beautifully shot food. Deal?

Earlier this week I made two things: a turkey roast in a crock pot and then turkey wild rice soup with the leftovers.

And it was awesome.

Maybe awesome is too strong a descriptive. Because as soon as we start bandying that term about in relation to roasted meat, where does the Grand Canyon stand? Really?

More accurately, it was delicious. And simple. And my son even ate it (at least the non-soup version of the meal.)

I don’t make up recipes on my own. I find them. I follow them. Goodness ensues.

So with the cooler temps of the Fall season, the crockpot and the internet are your friends.

I have recently become a fan of Stephanie O’Dea, creator of a A Year of Slow Cooking. I Googled “crock pot turkey breast” and landed on her site. This is the recipe I used and seriously? It was so simple and the turkey turned out better than a roast turkey on Thanksgiving Day.

I used a boneless Butterball turkey breast from Costco and defrosted it for a few days in the fridge.

I plopped everything into my brand new slow cooker (yes, I did make a recent upgrade), and nine hours later, I had perfectly cooked turkey.

We added some mashed potatoes and a simple veggie melange and dinner was served.

On Day 2, I took the leftover turkey and made Turkey Wild Rice Soup and it was just so dang tasty. One caveat: as I pulled out the ingredients to make the soup, I realized I didn’t have dried parsley so instead I used dried tarragon. Um, HELLO? Best choice I could have made ever. The tarragon added the perfect finishing flavor to the soup. Skip the parsley. Use the tarragon. (Also, the soup calls for 1/2 tsp. of salt. I found that too be a little on the not-enough-salt-side.)

The soup was so good and if you’re like me and watching the calories, it’s a lot of bang for the buck, coming in at around 225 calories per cup.

To make it even healthier, I didn’t buy any bread to go with it.

BOOM.

Just wanted to share a great combo.

Granted, this works well as a one-two punch for a family of about four. One of Cole’s friends joined us on Night 1 for the turkey and even after two teen-aged boys chowed down, I still had half a breast to use for the soup. Those of you with bigger families could throw an extra turkey tenderloin in if your crock pot has the room.

Here’s to simple meals that you can stretch.