turkey and wild rice soupaka the best leftover turkey recipe ever in the whole world ever~

I love chicken noodle soup. Love it. But since Glen and Anna are celiac, egg noodles are out, and rice noodles just don't really cut it that great for soup. So I've been looking for a good alternative.
Wa la! Chicken (or Turkey) and Wild Rice Soup

Last week I wanted to experiment with a turkey breast in the crockpot just because (yes, this was the day I forgot to turn it on. Obviously, I remembered later ;o) I had a couple of different things I wanted to experiment with, namely making broth in the crockpot over night and finding a good chicken noodle soup alternate.
So this is what I did. After we cut some of the meat off and had it for dinner (I recommend roasting your turkey the traditional way, the crockpot turkey was nothing to talk about.) I put the carcass, still containing quite a bit of meat on it, back in the crockpot, covered it all the way to the top with water, added two quartered onions and a bunch of garlic, and let it cook on low all night. I probably would have thrown in some celery if I'd had some, and if I'd remembered, I may have thrown in some carrots.

The next morning, my house smelled awesome.

Later on, when I got around to it, I took the carcass out, picked off the rest of the meat, and strained the broth. Straining the broth was the one thing that had always kept me from making broth more regularly as I never really knew how to do it well. Some people use cheesecloth, but that always sounded difficult and potentially messy. So I set my largest colandar/strainer inside my largest bowl, and just poured all the broth in there. A few stray pieces of garlic went through, but no big deal. I then stuck the bowl in the frig, let the fat and misc other stuff the strainer didn't catch, congeal at the top. Later on, I skimmed off the congealed part, and then I had my broth. Full of flavor, vitamins, nutrients, super yummy, and not very difficult.
Onto my soup experiment. I had a couple of recipes I wanted to experiment with and create my own. The result was the best chicken (turkey) soup I've ever had, and by far the best I've ever made. My family ALL ate it, and asked for more. We fought over licking the pot. Almost.
So, since you asked and all, and a lot of you are going to end up with some leftover turkey over the next few days, I'm happy to share :o)

Chicken and Wild Rice Soup or Chicken Noodle Soup (or turkey or duck or whatever... ;o)

Ingredients:
1T butter
1/2 cup chopped onion (I think I used an entire small onion, we like onion)
1/2 cup chopped celery (I didn't have any so I left it out)
1c. sliced carrots (I used baby carrots cut in half and probably used closer to 2c.)
1/2tsp dried basil
1/2tsp dried oregano
salt, pepper, garlic to taste
1 bay leaf
10c. broth (if you're using canned broth, use about 8c. chicken or turkey and 2c. veggie)
1/2 pound chopped chicken or turkey (I just threw in what looked right, Glen likes a lot of meat in it.)
1 1/2 cups egg noodles (I used wild rice instead since we can't do egg noodles. I used about 2 1/2c. *cooked* wild rice and added it in at the end.)

Directions:

Sautee garlic, onion, celery, and carrots in butter. I just sautee in the same pan I'm making the soup in.

Add broth, chicken, sauteed veggies, spices, and salt/pepper.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer 20 minutes or so.

While simmering, cook wild rice. When the rice is done, add it to the soup.

Sorry the recipe is kind of all over the place, I had a base recipe that I went off of, and then tweaked it for us. The rice absorbs a lot of the liquid, so even though it seems like a lot, it wasn't excessive. If you want to do it without real broth, the recipe called for 8c. chicken broth and 2c. vegetable broth.

Anyway, it was really easy and so, so yummy. I think I'm more excited about having more of it than I actually am about the main meal tomorrow :o) And while it is excellent the first day, it is even better in the following days.
Let me know if you end up trying it and liking it. It is a 5 star, blue ribbon award winner in my book just because ALL of my kids ate it willingly. With smiles. AND asked for more. All of them! With no complaints. I also love it because I feel like it's super healthy being made with genuine stock :o) Plus...that means I'm not going to have to deal with the turkey mess until Friday...shh...