So Many Leftovers

Last night, I began to use the massive amounts of leftovers we have from our Thanksgiving Day feast. What I realized is that we have a lot of turkey to use in the next few days! Yikes! We're going to be turkey-ed out before you know it!

I don't really like just "making a plate" of leftovers, since it's like reliving the original meal, which has already been done. I like to be creative with the ingredients, and make something totally new, if possible! Last night, I went a bit mainstream and we had Gobblers for dinner! A Gobbler is a sandwich, made with all the leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner: cranberry sauce as a spread, stuffing as a filler, and turkey slices as the meat. I had made a loaf of Brioche bread on Thanksgiving Day in anticipation of this dish (but also to make the house smell yummy). Brioche is the perfect bread for this type of sandwich because it is dense, and can hold the moistness of the cranberry sauce, as well as the weight of the stuffing and turkey. I enlisted the help of my Breville Panini Grill, in order to heat everything up once the sandwiches were made.

For dinner tonight, I decided to go with a lighter use of the turkey, by making a Vietnamese dish, known as Pho. For all of you who are not familiar with Pho, it's one of the best things for a cold winter's day - a big, steaming bowl of noodles, with broth, veggies, and if you so choose, meat. I'm going to use the turkey in this version of Pho, along with some baby corn, snow peas, water chestnuts, thinly sliced onion  and zucchini. Since I keep most Asian cooking ingredients in the house all the time, I didn't need much at the grocery store, but it's good to keep hoisin sauce, fish sauce, and some ginger on hand for a recipe like this as well. Check out this heartwarming bowl of goodness!

I steeped some cloves, coriander seeds, peppercorns and a cinnamon stick in the chicken broth for a few minutes before adding all the veggies and allowing them to cook. I sliced the turkey into small pieces, and added that as well, allowing everything to heat up together. At the last minute, I added some rice noodles, since they would only take a minute or two to cook, and then I served. This dish is easy in the sense that stir-fry is easy, just add what you have, or what you want to eat, to some broth and let it all simmer together. You could put any veggies in there, and really any kind of meat as well. It was really hearty and warming, and a great use of leftover turkey!

How are you using your leftovers? Comment on this post to share your favorite leftover turkey recipes!