Turkey Soup for the Stressed Holiday Soul

This holiday season is proving to be particularly stressful for me: travels, festivities, families, friends, finances ....deep breath...which is why I haven't been cooking or blogging. Luckily before things got crazy, my housemates and I hosted our annual Pre-Thanksgiving Potluck the week before Turkey Day. We had an enormous amount of food for our enormous amount of friends. There was very little leftover except....turkey! In the days following the potluck, I whipped up this tasty soup with a bunch of fresh and frozen veggies, thyme, and Chinese five spice.
Looking at this inviting bowl makes me feel even more disappointed about how little cooking I've done since making this soup, and subsequently, disappointed by how few truly satisfying meals I've had in the last few weeks. While food is always such an important part of the holidays in my family and to me personally, I have found myself eating poorly in these weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I don't mean eating lots of sweets and holiday foods. Restaurant-eating and processed and ready-made foods have seemed to invade my diet in the last few weeks. As much as I'm looking forward to my holiday plans (spending time in the kitchen and dining room of my sister and brother-in-law, who taught me what it meant to be a foodie), I'm also anxious for life to get back to normal so I can get back in my own kitchen.