Sunday, November 27, 2011

Leftovers!

We have to have a post on not wasting that leftover turkey. This is not a real problem in our house since Phil could very happily eat every bit of the leftovers himself, so I have to be quick to get any. However if this is not the case in your house, here are some ideas. You, of course could can the leftover turkey. Put it in a  pan with water, heat it to boiling, put it in the jars with the juices from the pan and can it 75 minutes (pints). These can be used later for almost anything.
You can also take some of the pieces of turkey and make casserole. Our casseroles consist of turkey, pasta, cheese, cream of something soup(chicken, mushroom, cheese and broccoli, celery, onion etc.) and a little milk.
Then there is soup. You can make your typical turkey noodle soup (turkey, stock or water, onions, salt, pepper, carrots, noodles) and usually I do that but today I made something more along the lines of my eating more vegetables so I made a turkey vegetable soup. Here is where you use all those dehydrated vegetables you have hanging around in pretty jars. To mine today I added: turkey, an extra butternut squash, onion, some dehydrated sweet potato, dehydrated zucchini, dehydrated celery, dehydrated turnip greens, carrots, garlic, salt and pepper.
I made 6 pints and then there was some lovely stock still left in the pot so I put it in a jar to can too. These are the last two jars so maybe aren't quite as full of vegetables as the first four are. I did taste it and it is absolutely wonderful. I plan to heat up a jar each day, pour it into my thermos and take them it to work for lunch. 

But that isn't all we will be using the turkey for today. This is supper in the crock pot:

Well it is part of supper anyway. This is turkey and Alfredo sauce. I put it in the crock pot because some of the turkey has gotten a little dry and if I cook it slowly this way, they will soften up. Just have to cook up some linguine later and dish this out on top, maybe a little garlic bread besides. 

Normally I would have taken the turkey bones and made a bunch of stock with it but Phil took the meat off the bones this time and was really thorough and I had nothing left but a pile of broken up bones afterwards. It's okay, I still have two more turkeys in the freezer. I just couldn't help myself with the price of them being so good. I will take those and cut slices from the breast for a meal and the thighs for a meal and then I will can most of the rest of the meat and make stock then. 

Here is what is left of our turkey. I would have just used it all up but Phil will want one more sandwich later I'm sure. 

8 comments:

  1. Nice way to use it all up. I have some family that doesn't eat leftovers. I can only shake my head.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why would anyone want to waste something as nice as that?!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yup, I have family who don't eat leftovers too. I can't understand it either.
    Someone else on another blog mentioned turkey pot pie. Also a good way to use it though a bit more work. I do have the little pie pans that make pot pies though too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yum! I have tons of turkey left over. I may have to try the turkey soup tomorrow!

    ReplyDelete
  5. So far, we have had turkey sandwiches, turkey and rice soup (twice) and turkey pot pie (twice)and turkey-a-la-king in popovers. Still have enough turkey meat left over to make one or two more meals. Since I make big batches of pie crust and keep them in the freezer, the turkey pot pie is easy. I thaw out my pie crusts, make my filling from turkey, potatoes, carrots, celery, and onions. Season, mix in a cup or so of turkey broth, cook for a while to soften the veggies, add cream mixed with a bit of cornstarch to thicken it up, cook til thick, dump in pie pan, cover with second crust and bake at 400 for around an hour. I make one LARGE pot pie rather than the little ones. If I had the little pans and fewer people to feed, I would probably make the wee ones and freeze them.

    ReplyDelete
  6. We all love meat in our house so there's rarely any leftovers. On the few occasions we have anything left after a meal we eat it in sandwiches. Your turkey vegetable soup looks good.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Lamb, I would be interested to hear how you make your pie crust and freeze it. Thanks so much for sharing how you make your large pot pies. I would imagine we could finish off a big one, lol.
    Jo, if I hadn't gotten to the turkey yesterday Phil would have finished it but I since I snatched it up I got 6 lunches for me and 1 dinner meal instead of him just eating it all.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yum~~love leftovers, that means less cooking for me.

    ReplyDelete