Post-Thanksgiving Turkey Soup

Let's just skip right past the fact that I haven't posted in many, many moons. Regina asked for my Turkey Soup recipe and what better place to post it? This recipe is about a thousand miles from being an exact science--I usually just wing it, no pun intended--so pardon me if it sounds like complete gibberish.

Turkey Soup

 Ingredients:

1 turkey carcass left over from Thanksgiving
Cold water
1 half white or yellow onion, diced
3-4 carrots
2-3 stalks celery
3 cloves garlic, minced
Fresh or dried parsley to taste
Herbs to taste (depending on what you like, I use thyme, rosemary, sage, turmeric, etc.)
Salt and pepper
Egg noodles (from the freezer section [Reame's Brand] or homemade--I make mine using this recipe)

Optional:
peas, potatoes, mushrooms, turnips, whatever veggies you like in soup.

Destructions:

Begin by placing the turkey carcass in a large stock pot and covering it with cold water. Set to medium-high heat and simmer for at least one hour (or three, if, like me, you forget what you're doing and stop paying attention).

If you want to add turkey meat that has already been carved off of the bird, DO NOT add it yet. Turkey gets very rubbery when it is boiled too long, and it's better to add the extra meat near the end.

I prefer to let the stock cool and then refrigerate the whole pot over night so that I can skim the fat off the top, but if you're hungry and ready to go just move on to the next step. A little fat never hurt anyone, said no cardiologist ever.

Let the broth cool a little so that you can either fish out or strain out the turkey carcass (which should have broken up by now) without scalding yourself. While the turkey bones and meat cool enough to be handled, prepare your vegetables. I like to soften the carrots, celery, and onion up by cooking them for about five minutes in a frying pan with a little olive oil, adding the garlic in the last minute to release the aroma. This reduces the overall cooking time.

Dump the veggies into the stock and add your herbs and spices, heating over medium heat to simmer. If you have leftover (homemade) gravy, you can mix this into the broth for flavor and thickness too. So delicious.

This will need to simmer for at least twenty minutes, during which time you can pull the meat off of the turkey bones. If you're making your noodles by scratch, make them now.

In the last ten minutes of cooking, add noodles and turkey meat. (If you're using frozen egg noodles, they will need to cook longer than fresh noodles. Follow the instructions on the package.)

Taste the broth and add more seasonings as needed. Serve when it tastes right and everything's cooked.

PS: if you make the noodles from scratch, you will have egg whites left over to use for meringue cookies.