Saturday, November 26, 2016

Leftover Reinvention

I knew several weeks ago that the extended family wouldn't be getting together for Thanksgiving.  Our Thanksgiving dinner ended up being four people--me, Hubby Tony, Son Donald, and a friend of Donald's from college that didn't have any relatives in the area.

Because I didn't have a large crowd to feed, I felt like I didn't have to cook a tradition-bound meal. Turkey was a given, but everything else was open to suggestions.  The Monday before Thanksgiving I asked everyone for one 'must have' dish.  On Thursday, in addition to turkey and gravy, we had mashed sweet potatoes, our family's time-honored cranberry jello salad, green bean casserole topped with french fried onions, roasted Brussels sprouts, and crusty bread.  Dessert was pumpkin-cranberry cookies and an apple crisp with vanilla ice cream. 

Donald put in a shift at the grocery he used to work at, and came home with more bread and some pastries, and his friend contributed some chocolate truffles.  All in all it was a great feast.

Of course I made enough food for leftovers.  When everything was put away the refrigerator was stuffed.  It didn't help that immediately after the turkey was carved I broke down the carcass and started a pot of broth, which when completed took up almost an entire shelf.  Yesterday and today I tasked everyone with eating out of the refrigerator. That's led to some interesting (but surprisingly good) meal combinations.  In the past 48 hours I've had:
  • A bed of mashed sweet potatoes topped with a fried egg
  • A spinach salad with turkey breast, mushrooms that needed to be used, leftover Brussels sprouts, and a spoonful of green bean casserole
  • Steamed butternut squash mixed with apple crisp
  • Shredded red cabbage cooked with onions, garlic, and a couple of spoonfuls of turkey gravy
After two days of dedicated refrigerator eating things are clearing out nicely.  Good thing; after tomorrow it will be just me and Tony in the house again. 

Five years ago today: Small Business Saturday

10 comments:

  1. the best thing is no food is going to waste! Glad you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

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  2. We're going through our turkey now too and actually doing a good job of eating all the left-overs. Then again, family took home a LOT of food, so there wasn't all that much left over for us. So glad you had such a lovely Thanksgiving.

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    1. I saw your holiday post; you had a LOT of food!

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  3. Glad you had a lovely holiday! You gotta try my green bean dish. ;)

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    1. I had read your recipe and it was VERY tempting :-) However, I went traditional as that was what was requested.

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  4. Leftovers are almost the best part of Thanksgiving.

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  5. I tried to cook smaller portions but like collard greens, I'm the only one to eat them out of the three of us - the rest got thrown Sunday night. Love your reinventions. And I'm going to google that pumpkin cranberry cookie recipe. My dad would love those. I usually make him a special cookie for his birthday in January.

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  6. Just the two of us, so we went with Cornish game hens, butternut squash, traditional dressing and gravy, yeast rolls and pecan pie. Today I will be using the leftover squash for soup. The rest has already been eaten!

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