We love our electric turkey cooker. It makes a fabulous turkey! With the holidays it gets a lot of use! but it has so much potential for other uses as well! Well worth the purchase!
But when you live “tiny” or in an RV full time you need to justify such a large item taking up that much storage space. Honestly in my opinion it is well worth tiny living space accommodations! I have to admit it is well worth the purchase for home living as well as for travel and tiny living too. It’s just a handy item to own! At home… after the turkey dinner … we strip the turkey and place the bones back into the turkey cooker with the drippings. (Note we cook the turkey plain with just a bit of salt and nothing else but that’s just personal preference)
Cover all those lovely bones with water about 1” from the top and add 3 tablespoons of vinegar. We let that simmer for 2-3 days and then using a grease skimming ladle and a skimming spoon (see photos) we remove all the bones, bits of tiny crispies, and floating grease from the top and then place in canning jars and pressure can the jars for 25 minutes for the best turkey broth ever! We also do the same process with beef bones when our neighbor butchers in the fall. We roast the beef bones in the cooker for about 20 minutes then follow same directions as above. This broth is better than anything you can buy in the store flavor wise and it’s basically free! Made from stuff that was going to be thrown out anyway!
Ok so everyone always asks why add the 3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar? It helps to break down the minerals inside the bones and cartilage that make the broth so yummy and healthy for you. You can do it without the vinegar but it won’t taste as good. The small amount of vinegar added to this 24 quart pot isn’t enough that you will even taste it… it is just there for a tiny bit of kitchen chemistry.
The next day we take some left over turkey and some turkey broth… add some noodles and a bag of frozen mixed veggies and you have the best turkey noodle soup you ever tasted! If you are on a low carb diet or just want something a bit different substitute a bag of frozen riced cauliflower for the noodles. If you are out of turkey meat use come canned chicken (usually located in the same isle as canned tuna fish in the grocery store). We like to season it with a bit of rosemary, thyme, and smoked salt (to taste). Lots of options and to be honest we like the riced cauliflower version better than the noodle version lol…
But what about tiny RV living? Well… how about not having to use the oven inside the RV with the oven competing with the air conditioner on a hot summer day when you want to bake something like bread? Pizza? Rolls? Roast? Spaghetti sauce for a large gathering? Cookies? So many uses! Just run an extension chord to the picnic table and place the turkey roster on the picnic table under the awning outside and use it like a portable oven! Because that is basically what it is! The inner pan is removable so you could easily wash it or even use the inner pan as a dish pan for washing dishes after dinner has been served! When not in use and in storage mode… you can use the inner pan area to store you picnic kitchen essentials like aluminum foil, zip bags, dishes, silverware, table cloth, trash bags, towels etc… just take it out and everything for your picnic table is inside then once the table is set you can start cooking with your outside portable oven!
The red turkey cooker in the photo is a new one, because our old one… the thermostat started acting wonky and it wasn’t keeping a steady temperature. That does not mean I am getting rid of the old one tho! I am repurposing it for crafting. I also spin wool into yarn. I often purchase raw wool that needs to be washed prior to spinning or even dyed. So I plan on using the old turkey cooker to scour the raw wool ( this requires repeat soaks in hot water till all the dirt and lanolin is removed without agitating the wool so it does not felt) and color dye baths. The used water will get poured into 5 gallon buckets and cooled then used to water the gardens.
So many uses!
Another use… if you find yourself with too much broth… a small helpful hint. The dogs love a little warm broth on a cold winter day! Just make sure your turkey didn’t have any onions or other items added for seasoning that are toxic to dogs cooked with it or in the pan where you made the broth. I like to share a cup of warmed broth on super cold days with my older dogs as it seems to help with their joint aches. So I can a few pints (instead of my usual quarts for cooking with) just for the fur babies to enjoy in the winter. They seem to like the beef broth more than the turkey broth but both are welcome on a cold day 🙂
Our ancestors made broth similarly and I personally believe it has a similar effect to glucosamine supplements (no scientific proof, just a personal belief). Hence why the pups and I like to share some broth on cold and bone aching winter days. It may be all in my head lol but it sure tastes yummy! And we feel happier after having something warm… so who knows?
Anyway… this electric turkey cooker has so many uses! Time to explore and give yourself a second oven at home when trying to cook those holiday meals or an outside oven while camping etc… it’s a good multipurpose item! Even good for people who like to dabble in spinning wool into yarn lol
After using the grease separator and allowing the layers to sit, cool, and separate… this is what is left. You can see three layers the bottom layer is a tiny bit of broth, the middle layer is fat, the top layer is grease. By using the special design ladle you don’t loose much yummy broth and can get rid of most of the greasy fatty layer floating on top in the cooking pan.
Conestoga Chuck 