Thanksgiving Leftovers all used up!!

This post is a couple days late, but I still wanted to report in that I have successfully used up ALL of my Thanksgiving leftovers!! I am really striving to be a good steward of what we have and that especially means leftovers (which often tend to get lost in the fridge and turn into an unplanned science experiment - LOL!). We ate some of the leftovers just warmed up - but that usually happens the first day or so... it's the rest that I needed to be creative with. Well, on 12/1 I posted how we made turkey and noodles with some of what we had remaining from dinner.

What we had remaining was some turkey, stuffing, corn, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes. Here is how we used the rest....

** on 12/2 we had "Gobble Up Good Turkey Casserole" (from www.menus4moms.com) which used up nearly all remaining turkey as well as all of the stuffing. Here's the recipe (I noted my changes in parenthesis after the item):

Gobble Good Turkey Casserole
1 can cream of mushroom soup (used 2 cans as I did not have cream of celery at home)
1 can cream of celery soup (did not use, see above)
1 package onion soup mix (did not have any, but added some onion powder and black pepper)
1 cup rice (long grain, not minute rice)
1 1/2 cups milk
2-3 cups leftover turkey
(I topped mine with the leftover stuffing and hubby LOVED it - I highly recommend this!)

Combine all ingredients in a large casserole dish. Bake covered 30-45 minutes at 350°F or until bubbly. (Mine took a solid hour, add more time if you use brown rice.) I then served it with the remaining green bean casserole and corn.


** on 12/3 I made Mashed Potato soup which I morphed from several recipes I found online. Here's how I made mine:

Amy's Mashed Potato Soup
2 cups of chicken stock (I used 2 chicken bouillon cubes and 2 cups of water)
2 cups leftover mashed potatoes
onion powder to taste
celery salt to taste (next time I will probably finely chop some celery and carrots)
crumbled bacon
shredded cheese

Heat broth then add mashed potatoes. It will be thin at first, so turn down the heat to medium and let it thicken. If it gets too thick or if you want it creamier or richer, you could add some milk or sour cream. Top with some crumbled bacon and shredded cheese.


All that remained was some turkey and some stock; both of these are now in the freezer until I want turkey and noodles again.

So, I successfully managed to use up ALL my leftovers and with minimal additional cost. Here's what I figure:
* the turkey and noodles cost approx. $1.50 ($1.00 for the half bag of noodles and $.50 for carrots and seasonings);
* the turkey casserole cost approx. $2.00 ($.50 for rice, $1 for cream soup, and $.50 for milk and seasonings); and
* the soup cost approx. $1.60 (pennies for the bullion cubes and seasonings, $.50 for cheese, and $1 for bacon).

For neither of these am I adding the cost of the leftovers as they were free in my mind as they would have probably been thrown away in previous years. $5.10 for 3 meals is pretty good in my opinion!!!

Thanks for continuing to join me on my adventure to be a good steward.