Another Fun Sunday At Kasa Kecky's...

After spending Saturday recovering from Thanksgiving and having to work on Friday, Sunday was our day to cook. Poppy's project was to smoke bacon that she'd been curing for a week in the fridge. More on that later, though. My project was making turkey stock and then soup.

So I started by roasting the turkey carcasses with the aromatics:





Then simmered it for a couple of hours. Learned a new secret from Poppy too, she adds some of the leftover stuffing to the pot. I think it added an incredible amount of flavor. Best stock I've ever made!



After straining and defatting the stock, time to make the soup. Poppy wanted dumplings with the soup so I got out Mom's old Betty Crocker Cookbook and made the Parsley Dumplings:





And the finished product:



But wait, time for lunch first...Poppy makes, by far, the best turkey sandwiches in the whole-NOMMY-wide world! So simple too: bread, mayo, turkey...then you slice Claussen Pickles and put them on top. Has to be Claussen's though! A little salt-n-pepper and that's it!



Okay, let's check in with Poppy on the Makin' of the bakin'. Poppy started curing the pork belly last weekend. It's a maple-brown sugar cure. The wood she'll use to smoke the bacon is a Jack Daniel's Bourbon-soaked Barrel Wood.

Here's The Bradley Smoker where all the magic happens:



Here's the cured bacon before heading to The Bradley:



And a very happy Poppy-Bakin'-Makin':





The final product:





Living at Kasa Kecky is always fun and exciting!!!

Happy Monday!