You've cooked the big Thanksgiving meal and your guests have gone home happy and full. Now comes the hard part: What do you do with all the leftovers? Here are 5 ideas for turning your scraps into a week of creative meals.
Make cranberry cream cheese. Pour your leftover cranberry sauce into a blender. Gradually mix in softened cream cheese. Use the fruity spread on bagels or toast.
Make hot cranberry sauce. Pour your leftover cranberry sauce into a sauté pan. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until it's a steaming liquid. Pour it over vanilla ice cream.
Make a Thanksgiving Shepherd's pie. Put your leftovers — turkey meat, vegetables, potatoes and stuffing — in a 9-inch x 12-inch baking dish. Cover with a layer of stuffing or mashed potatoes. Bake in 350-degree oven for 40 minutes, or until the top layer gets crispy. Instant comfort food.
Turn the turkey carcass into soup. Take the whole carcass and cover it with water, carrots, onions, celery, and whatever else you have in your refrigerator for a soup broth. Bring it to a boil and simmer for about two hours. Strain the vegetable and turkey pieces from the broth. Add fresh spinach and rice, and cook for another 30 minutes. You'll have a great turkey soup.
Make a Dagwood sandwich. The Dagwood is a towering sandwich made of leftovers. It's named for Dagwood Bumstead, a character in the "Blondie" comic strip whose sole cooking skill was constructing a giant, teetering sandwich of whatever he could scrounge in the refrigerator. It's a great way to get rid of Thanksgiving leftovers in one swoop.
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