So, what's everyone doing with their leftover bird?

[hippywife]

I've eaten turkey for every meal both yesterday and today, even breakfast. LOL Bill had oatmeal.

Tonight I made gravy from turkey stock added some savory and thyme, mashed up some taters and we had open-faced turkey sandwiches and finished off the cranberries.

We're down to just one good sized hunk of breast meat left. Will probably be gone by lunch tomorrow.

:hi:

[Gormy Cuss]

1. Today, turkey sandwiches.

Tomorrow, salad with turkey chunks and Trader Joe's cranberry goat cheese.
The rest of it goes in the freezer for soups and casseroles down the line.
The bones have been boiled, the stock is cooling in quart containers.
:D

[yellerpup]

2. Wishing I had one...

:7

[Tab]

3. Haven't made one yet

Had dinner at my brother's. My wife, who was working, thought she'd have a little turkey dinner herself, but grossly estimated the work involved (she doesn't really cook). So now she wants me to cook it tomorrow (Sunday). I really don't want to.

I was debating carving it up ahead of time and just cooking "pieces" - white breast, legs/things/wings, etc. It'd be quicker, and save the later carving hassle. Any thoughts?

[eridani]

4. I'd say go for cutting it up

Less work for you.

[hippywife]

8. Faster cooking time fo' sure

but I'm not sure about less work. I have a helluva time cutting up a whole fryer, can't imagine trying that on a turkey. But then that might be accounted for by the fact I could really use a good set of knives with a cleaver. ;)

[Tesha]

17. Hint: Cooking shears and a sharp, small cooking knife.

The neighbors were in charge of the "main turkey" for our feast,
but partly because they were "turkey virgins", partly because we
wanted some turkey to flavor the stuffing, and partly because we
wanted turkey leftovers, we decided to cook a "backup bird".

Using a great pair of cooking shears and that knife I mentioned
in the title, we had that bird reduced to legs, wings, and a big
breast section in about five minutes time.

(This was actually the second time we cooked the bird that way;
last year, we did "the main bird" that way so as to better be able
to control the cooking times of the dark meat and the white meat.
It works well for us.)

Tesha

[housewolf]

6. Julia & Jacques did that

My PBS station is re-playing the Julia Child/Jacques Cooking at Home series, and the one that aired a couple weeks ago was about just that - Jacques Peppin cut the raw turkey into pieces and roasted all the pieces together. Here's the description of the episode:

108: (Not-Quite-Traditional) Roast Turkey Dinner
This meal is the holiday favorite that is so good, Julia and Jacques recommend it for any day of the year...Roast Turkey with sausage and cornbread stuffing, gravy made the old-fashioned way from the pan-drippings, accompanied by creamed onions and a zesty Cranberry-Apple Chutney. The "not-quite..." which has to be seen, is the inventive way the turkey is cut-up before cooking, and then roasted and re-assembled for serving.

I don't know if you can find the video online or not, but your library might have it, or at least have the "Cooking at Home" cookbook if you want to check it out.


So glad to see that you're done with chemo and starting to feel better! It's good to have you back!

[hippywife]

9. Your kitchen and you're the cook.

Do whatever you want to do or feel up to doing. :hug:

[Tesha]

16. Have you ever tried this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV09oZPrTgQ

"Mark Bittman makes a perfectly cooked turkey dinner without roasting a whole bird."

We did this one last year and it was wonderful - AND easy!

and this one takes 45 minutes

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2008/11/21/dining/1194833563448/roast-turkey-in-45-minutes.html


both good - both easy - both fast -

[pengillian101]

21. Didn't you see the post about Martha's deboned bird I sent?

If not, I'll try to find it again and re-post it.

An entire turkey cooked in 70 minutes is impressive. She carved out the backbone and breastbone and then spread it flat on a baking sheet, skin side up. Olive oil, S&P and baked. Looked great.

[elleng]

5. Chicken curry

No turkey this year (family spread out) but I had leftover chicken. Family always looked forward to turkey curry.

saute chopped onion, garlic, celery, other aromatic veg;
add canned stewed tomatoes;
add bay leaf and some curry powder to taste

Simmer.

Add and mix cut up cooked turkey, chicken, whatever. Salt to taste. Warm. wine, enough to clean can from toms. Simmer.

Serve with rice, plain yogurt, raisins, nuts, seeds, and chutney.


:hi:

[EFerrari]

10. What kind of curry powder is it, elleng?

And when you say chutney, what kind are you meaning? Is that like salsa? :silly:

[elleng]

15. curry p is mccormick (what i use, anyhow)

only chutney i use is cross & blackwell major grey's; about this i'm VERY fussy!!! main ingredient is mango.

[eleny]

18. I love a mango chutney

The easiest party dip is to put a package of cream cheese on a plate and cover it with mango chutney. Arrange wheat crackers all around and stand back. This one looks pretty and goes quick.

[Vinca]

7. Soup. I'm trying to lose weight so I'll throw together the leftover turkey

and a bunch of vegetables, some stock and seasoning, and live on it for a couple of days.

[EFerrari]

11. I wanted to use the carcass for split pea soup but we just had some last week.

Maybe time to check out some new soup recipes. I've had some kind of bean or lentil soup on the back burner since August and need a new lick or two. :)

[Phentex]

12. 30 pounds of turkey and we're down to

one full leg and a few pieces of white meat. We sent most people home with leftovers and my teens have managed to polish off most of the rest.

[grasswire]

13. the last of it goes into stacked enchiladas tonight

Black bean, chopped scallions, black olives, tomatillo salsa verde, a lot of grated monterey jack cheese, layered with corn tortillas and served with sour cream and more salsa verde.

We love turkey sandwiches on sourdough, so most of the white meat goes to that. Just a few bones will be left today (carcass is already gone) and I will simmer them and use the broth with some minced turkey for my furry housemates.

My favorite ways for leftover turkey:

divan, with broccoli and lemon curry sauce and cheddar.

turnovers, with gravy and vegetables inside a pastry crust.

stir fry, lots of crisp veggies

[hippywife]

14. Those all sound really delicious.

A long time ago, I used to do a Mexican Turkey Taco Bake recipe my MIL gave me. It was delicious and we always loved having it. She made it for my sisters when they were down here one year after T-day and they started making it, too.

It has canned soup in it so I stopped making it but I could figure a way around that if we had any turkey left. :rofl:

[pengillian101]

22. Oh, hippywife, you make me glad to know you.

"It has canned soup in it so I stopped making it."

Please don't be so afraid of all the food sources & plastics, etc. Plastics touching food won't kill ya, I don't think. My Granny who died in her 90's used plastic to cover her foods, plastic bags were the squeeeze bags that held the margarine with a red dot to make it yellow like butter, etc.

Maybe microwaving is the culprit, eh? I don't know, but I would bet heating the plastic is bad for ya, leaching into the food, don't you think? That's my bet.

Plastic is absolutely everywhere in food storage. Absolutely everything. Just walk down a grocery aisle.

Milk, cereal, meat, frozen food, bagged vegies, bread and anything else I can think of - bottled water, pop, potato chips, tortilla chips, candy...and now even inside canned goods. Good grief, if no one ate anything that ever touched plastic, it would be 1909.

Plastic must be harmless when it is stone-cold solid, no? That's my thought.

:hi:

[hippywife]

23. Silly Gilli!

I stopped cooking with soup and other processed ingredients long before the canned food scare. LOL Altho that does add to it. Always good to avoid a risk when one is able. :hi:

[pengillian101]

30. Speaking of canned soup...

Thanksgiving gravy this time was easy peasy made from soup and it was better than normal! 1 can cream of mushroom soup, 1/2 can chicken stock, little garlic salt, chives, parsley, nature seasonings and kitchen bouquet. And besides tasting really good - NO lumps!

:hi:

[eleny]

19. Great idea!

I'm going to make the enchiladas tomorrow night. I have to be careful of the ingredients as hubby is on some restrictions. But I know I can make this one, there's always a variation that works for him and I need to get to the grocery tomorrow anyway. Thanks for the idea.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Went over to sister, so I don' have any

[ginnyinWI]

24. Oh, I refuse to eat turkey every day for a week!

We are alternating turkey dinner leftover meals with other completely different meals. I put the turkey bones in the freezer to make soup at some later date, and have a couple of freezer boxes with two-cup amounts of turkey all ready for a casserole or soup--later when we aren't sick of turkey. Each day when I get out the turkey I fill another little box with cut up pcs. We had a 14.5 lb bird for only seven people--and two of them are vegetarians! I sent some home with people but still had a bowlful of good turkey left. The three cats have had an abundance of scraps too. Cuts down on the cost of cat food for the week.

I think my very favorite way to eat leftover turkey is in a simple sandwich, cold, with a little cranberry relish and mayonnaise. Yum!

[hippywife]

25. We had a 13 lb. for just the two of us and the dog. LOL

There is one only one small piece of breast meat left. We all three ate well and it would probably take me another week to get tired of it. Wish there was more left for me to test that theory. :rofl:

[ginnyinWI]

26. if you have a big freezer, go ahead a buy another!

It's cheaper this time of year than at any other. And some months they can be hard to find. It's really an economical way to eat, as long as you are willing to do the work. Roasting a bird without stuffing isn't too hard, it's just the carving and boning. But we paid only 58 cents a pound for our turkey.


Before Thanksgiving was officially made a federal holiday in 1941 people were celebrating different Thursdays in November. Sometimes a grocer would save a fresh turkey from one Thursday to the following week and sell it as fresh to an unsuspecting customer (although I would think it would smell terrible!). Making it officially the fourth Thursday helped solve that problem and also made sure that the Christmas shopping season was longer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States)

[hippywife]

28. It isn't as cheap as you are thinking.

I paid $53 for that turkey. It was farm raised with no pesticides, no antibiotics, natural feed, and delivered from the farm 91 miles away. :hi:

[ginnyinWI]

29. ah.

Well then, yes it would be more expensive. Mine was a plain old Jennie-O store turkey.

[Neecy]

27. I made perogies

Put together a sour cream dough, and while that was resting I ground up the turkey in my food processor and added it to mashed potatoes, fried onions, fresh parmesan, chopped parsley, S&P and a little paprika. It made a ton for the freezer and they were really good boiled and tossed with a little more fried onion, a little bacon and a side of sour cream.