5 Ideas for Using Thanksgiving Leftovers
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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