Image Credit: TasteofHome.com
Happy Foodie Friday, dear reader. It is the Friday following Thanksgiving. If you are a Black Friday shopper, we wish you success in your bargain hunting. Of course, we, too, are offering Black Friday savings on our website. Using promo code BlackFriday23, you can save 20% sitewide, excluding the weekly specials and merchandise. We wish you great success in your bargain hunting.
If you cooked yesterday and you are shopping today, the last thing on your mind is cooking. However, if you are blessed to have a refrigerator full of leftovers, cooking today can be very easy. We ordered a huge farm-raised turkey from our friends Mike and Jill Little at Chaganra Farm. Their fresh, free-range, ethically raised turkey did not disappoint. Yes, Butterball is convenient and has that nice little button that pops when the bird is cooked, but in my opinion, it doesn’t compare to a fresh, farm-raised, free-range turkey that had an opportunity to live the life a turkey should and eat a natural diet that a turkey should eat. We also support a wonderful local farm family. It’s all a win, in my opinion.
Today, I will enjoy the leftovers. With The Bibbed Wonder, one cannot just make up a plate of leftovers, pop it in the microwave, and call it good. Instead, one must create new and elaborate dishes from said leftovers. He is a hard man to live with sometimes…sigh and eye roll. Rather than enjoy the pleasure of reheating a meal, I worked diligently to create yesterday; I will create Creamy Turkey and Rice Soup with leftover Turkey Sliders. I dare him to complain about soup after two days of cooking a special meal.
The Turkey Sliders are easy, and I don’t really have a recipe for them, but I will share how I create them. Grambarb bakes the best made-from-scratch dinner rolls. We have three large Ziploc bags filled with dinner rolls. First, I brush a 9 x 13 baking dish with melted butter. I split the dinner rolls and fill the baking dish with the bottoms of the dinner rolls. Next, I layer Helman’s Mayonnaise, leftover turkey, gouda cheese from Pleasant Lane Farm, leftover cranberry sauce, and more mayonnaise on the top of the roll. Top the layers with roll tops, butter the roll tops, cover with aluminum foil, and bake for fifteen minutes at 350 degrees. Honestly, it doesn’t get any simpler.
For the Creamy Turkey and Rice Soup, I follow a recipe I found in my Taste of Home Soup Cookbook…yes, I have a soup cookbook. I call it my soup bible. The Bibbed Wonder and The Bean roll their eyes when I pull out my soup bible. For the required turkey stock in the soup recipe, I boil the leftover carcass with six cups of water, onions, celery, carrots, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, salt, and pepper. This way, nothing goes to waste, and we get to utilize every ounce of the delicious farm-raised turkey.
Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, cubed
2 carrots, finely chopped
2 celery ribs, finely chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
4 cups chicken or turkey broth
2 cups cooked wild rice
2 cups cubed cooked turkey
2 cups half-and-half cream
1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Directions
In a Dutch oven, heat butter over medium-high heat. Add carrots, celery, and onion; cook and stir until tender.
Stir in flour until blended; cook until bubbly. Gradually stir in broth. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly; cook and stir for 1-2 minutes or until thickened.
Stir in remaining ingredients; return to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
There you have it, dear reader; that is how I utilize my holiday leftovers and keep my anti-leftover-eating husband happy. Stay safe, be smart, enjoy our Black Friday deals, rest up from the holiday, and keep washing your hands on this chilly Black Friday.