We meant to post about this a bit earlier, but we’ve been battling heavy snowfall and extreme cold lately. We wanted to share the turkey stock we made from our carefully brined Thanksgiving turkey! Better late than never, I suppose!
It’s a tradition around here to make turkey stock from our Thanksgiving bird. Our bird is always a huge showcase of our growing season and the subarctic garden flavors we’ve managed to create. And it makes for an utterly amazing and flavorful stock. While turkey stock isn’t a particularly common ingredient used by home cooks, you can almost think of it like Thanksgiving flavored chicken stock.
One of the things I like about Thanksgiving is that it encourages most Americans, and even some international fans, to consume a “less commonly consumed” food source. In our estimation, food diversity is incredibly important. We know this as a fact simply because we put iodine into salt, entirely due to the deficiencies of human diets.
Growing your own is often about that very idea, the idea of growing things and consuming “different” foods, just because you can. Each season, we always try to grow something we’ve never seen or tasted before. At this point, I don’t think we could count the amount of “obscure tastes” we’ve experienced due to the constant desire of learning how different plants grow.
Tradition is important, sure. But, so is branching out and trying new things. Our turkey stock is representative of that belief. It’s comprised of “traditional” things like onions, carrots, garlic and herbs. But, we use those common things to produce a much less common used thing.
Given that our minds will be returning to gardening in just a few months, we’d encourage you to think about growing or something new to you in 2026! Whether it’s a new variety or a completely different kind of plant. You might just find your new most favorite thing by doing so!
