Turkey Soup with Stuffing Biscuits

I have a lot of catching up to do on the blog, and I didn't realize how bad it was until I flipped through the pictures I recently uploaded...whoops...I guess I was more distracted than I thought!

I made this the weekend after Thanksgiving with the last of the leftovers. It was pretty easy to make, and went much better than most of my broth based soup attempts! What is great about this recipe, is that you can adapt it to whatever your leftovers consist of, and most of the ingredients are probably already around your kitchen!

Turkey Soup with Stuffing Biscuits 
Yields 6 servings

To Prepare the Soup
1. Wash 1 pound of carrots, and cut them down into 1/4 inch thick rounds. 
2. Wash 2 pieces of celery, and cut them down into 1/4 inch thick slices. 
3. Peel and dice 1 small onion.
4. Once all of your veggies are diced, begin heating 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. 
5. When the oil is hot, add all of the veggies to the pan. 
6. Stir them and cook them until the onions are translucent and the celery is starting to get soft. 
7. Add 4 cans of chicken broth to the pot, and keep the pan over medium heat. 
8. Cut up leftover turkey or chicken.  I put in a large turkey breast, and it was a good amount.  You can add more or less depending on your particular tastes! 
9. I then added leftover wild rice from Thanksgiving dinner.  If you are going to add uncooked noodles, rice, or pasta, you might need to add extra broth to your soup as it cooks, otherwise it will quickly absorb the juice and your soup runs the risk of drying out and burning!  You can also precook it and then add it in like I did. 

10. Make adaptations to your liking...have leftover corn?  Toss it in!  Don't want to add grain?  Don't!  Take a look in your fridge and at your leftovers, and get creative!

To Prepare the Biscuits

1. On top of a cookie sheet, press leftover stuffing through a round cookie cutter until it is flush with the top of the cutter. 

2. Repeat this step until you are out of stuffing. 

3. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees. 
4. Keep an eye on them while they are cooking.  When the bottoms have started to brown, flip them over and cook them until the other side has browned.  Your cooking time will vary depending on your stuffing, and how moist or dry it is!

These are great for dipping in the soup too! 

Cheater Chicken Pot Pie

I love chicken pot pie, but sometimes I have a tight schedule to work around, or I just don't feel like going through the labor intensive work of pie dough, cooking fresh veggies, making sauce...you get the idea!  It is exhausting just typing and reading it!  When the craving hits, I cheat!  I like this recipe because it has lots of veggies, but to make it easy on myself I use the canned vegetables!  The can vegetable flavor is masked pretty well by the sauce and biscuits.  It is a quick, easy meal that is filling and leaves everyone running back for seconds! 

Cheater Chicken Pot Pie
Yields 6 servings


To Prepare the Chicken
1. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan.
2. Cut 1 pound of chicken down to 1 inch cubes.

3. Right before the chicken finishes cooking, put a sprinkle of salt and pepper in the pan.

To Prepare the Vegetables 
1. Drain 5 cans of veggies and mix them together in a bowl. I usually use potatoes, corn, peas, green beans and carrots!

2. Add 2 cans of Campbell's Condensed Cream of Chicken soup to the veggies, but do not add water to it!  I don't like using chicken or turkey gravy...I feel like the flavor falls flat! 

3. When the chicken is done cooking, add it to the mixture.

To Finish the Pot Pie
1. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Put the veggie/chicken/sauce mixture into a glass casserole dish.

3. Bake this for 15 minutes.
4. After cooking, bring the casserole out of the oven and top it with biscuits.  I get the pillsbury type biscuits that are labeled as "flaky" or advertise as able to be pulled apart in layers.  Pull the layers of the biscuits apart.  Each biscuit should easy break up into 3 or 4 more biscuits.  If you don't want to top the casserole with biscuits, you can bake the biscuits, slice them in half, and serve the casserole in between.  You can also mix dry Stove Top with its seasoning packet and top the casserole with that!
5. Layer the biscuit pieces like fish scales across the top of the casserole, and put it back into the oven until the biscuits are golden brown.