It may seem early to be thinking about how you are going to use your Thanksgiving leftovers since you probably haven’t even bought your turkey yet. But the best way to make sure that your leftovers don’t get pushed to the back of the refrigerator is to have a plan for how you are going to use them up.

On Thanksgiving night, I clean the meat off the turkey and place the turkey bones in the slow cooker to make turkey broth. The next morning I wake up to delicious turkey broth and have the base for several delicious recipes.

The best way to ensure your family doesn’t get tired of leftovers is to create new and surprising flavor combinations with your leftovers. If you just reheat turkey and mashed potatoes they will probably get bored, but if you use the mashed potatoes in a Pierogi Casserole and the turkey in Curried Turkey Salad or Lasagna Soup they will probably forget that they are eating leftovers.

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Cooler evenings call for spicy dinners to warm us up. I like to add rice to my chili to make it extra hearty. And I often include corn in my white chili because the sweetness of the corn provides a nice contrast to the spicy peppers. Adding rice and corn are fairly inexpensive ways to stretch chili a little farther. This recipe makes enough for two dinners for my family. I freeze the leftovers and then have a ready-made meal on a busy night.

I usually use shredded chicken in white chili, but when I scored a package of extra lean ground turkey for .99 cents, I decided that I needed to change things up a bit.

I make a point of checking the meat mark downs and organic produce markdowns EVERY time I visit a grocery store. I have found that the best time to find good deals is after 6:00 p.m. because the manager marks items down right before his shift ends or first thing in the morning. I never know what I am going to find, but if you want to find great sales you have to look for them.

There are probably a few of you who are wondering how I get my children to eat their dinner wrapped in a leaf. Well, my oldest child is a Lord of the Rings junkie, and what the oldest kids are interested has a tendency to trickle down to the younger children…so my children pretend that food wrapped in leaves is made by elves. I am happy to listen to all of their favorite LOTR quotes for the umpteenth time, while they enjoy stuffed cabbage for dinner.

I forgot to make my rice in advance, so instead of waiting 45 minutes for it to cook, I prepared the rice in a pressure cooker. It only takes 7 minutes to cook white rice in a pressure cooker and brown rice cooks in just 18 minutes. While the rice was cooking, I was able to prep all of the other ingredients.

Ingredients:

1 large head of cabbage, cored
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 large carrots, finely shredded
2 celery stalks, diced
1 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes (don’t drain)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 1/4 lb. lean ground turkey
1 cup cooked long-grain brown rice
1/2 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, lightly beaten

Directions:

Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Add onions, garlic, carrots, and celery. Sauté until the onions are soft, approximately 5 –7 minutes.

Place a large pot of water on to boil.

Leave half of the vegetable mixture in the pan and transfer the other half to a large bowl.

Add the diced tomatoes, sugar and vinegar to the skillet. Simmer on low for 10 minutes.

Add the ground turkey, rice, pepper, salt, and egg to the bowl, Mix well.

Remove enough leaves to make 16 cabbage rolls. Cut the denser ribbing from the bottom of the leaf. If you don’t have enough large leaves you can use to smaller leaves. Place 3 –4 cabbage leave in the pot of boiling water for 1-2 minutes to soften them. Remove with tongs, place the leaves in a bowl of cold water to cool. Then move the leaves to a towel or colander to dry. Repeat the process for the rest of the leaves.

My Blanching System

Place a portion of the meat mixture in the center of a leaf.

Roll up bottom, then fold over one side, then fold the top down, then roll to close. Place in a greased baking dish with the seam-side down. Repeat until all of the cabbage rolls have been made.

Spoon the tomato mixture over the cabbage rolls.

Cover with foil and bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes. Remove foil and bake for 10 more minutes.

I serve cabbage rolls with rice and use the leftover cabbage to make Sautéed Cabbage and Carrots.

Sautéed Cabbage and Carrots

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 head of cabbage, coarsely chopped
2 large carrots, julienned
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions:

Heat oil in large skillet. Add cabbage, carrots, garlic powder and pepper. Cook over a medium-high heat, tossing occasionally, until the cabbage just begins to wilt, approximately 7 – 10 minutes.

I often make Gluten-Free Oatmeal Shortbread for dessert which my kids pretend is Lembas Bread.

Is your cooking ever influenced by your children’s interest?

Bacon…bacon…bacon.

Too bad it’s so bad for you!  Because it tastes soooooo gooood.

We don’t eat a lot of bacon, but when we do I try to use turkey bacon.  Lean, lean, lean turkey bacon.

But the problem with the “lean-ness” is that it doesn’t release much fat to cook itself, like pork bacon does.  I’ve tried cooking turkey bacon in the microwave on paper towels.  I’ve tried it on aluminum foil in the oven. And I’ve tried it in the skillet.

My fave…

By far the skillet!

Here are a few tips and tricks that help me make the most of my time in the kitchen.

• Batch Cook – Cook the entire package at once.  Once cooled, add the whole or crumbled bacon to a freezer baggie. It thaws in minutes when you need to use it.  Best to cook an entire package while you’re working on something else in the kitchen!
• Slow and Steady – The turkey bacon tends to respond best when cooked longer over lower heat.
• “Deglaze” – If you have the heat too high and the bacon starts to burn (because there is little fat coming off the bacon), add a Tbsp or two of water…as if you were “deglazing”.  This will cool down that part of the skillet, and make it easier to lift the bacon from the skillet to flip it.

I hope these tricks help you out the next time you cook up some turkey bacon!

Now my question for you…real bacon, low sodium bacon, turkey bacon?!  What do you prefer?!

I found a box of Kasha in the pantry alongside the other grains when I was rummaging through the pantry on Friday. I’d purchased this a while back and tried a recipe…and didn’t like it at all!

But I thought I’d give it another chance.  You know…let it redeem itself!

+There was a recipe on the back of the box for a Kasha Chili. But I wanted to add some protein for my men!

I made a standard chili (using tomato sauce instead of diced tomatoes because I’m all out…but not for long…as the Mega Event sale this week has them on sale and there’s a great coupon matchup!  So I’ll be restocking next week!) using ground turkey, kidney beans and Kasha, along with tomato sauce and spices.

So this is Kasha.

Kasha is roasted buckwheat kernals. It is the cereal of choice in some eastern European countries…seems it would be similar to steel cut oatmeal.  Despite the fact that the word “wheat” appears in “buckwheat”, kasha and buckwheat are gluten-free.

We have just enough to make more kasha in the box to make this again.  And we certainly will!

The Kasha redeemed itself with this chili!

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Our Thanksgiving dinner, like most Americans, consists of a buffet that includes too many heavy dishes. And on Thanksgiving Day, I allow myself to indulge…

However, I try to make up for that indulgence by using the leftovers to create healthier and lower calorie meals. I will make quite a bit of turkey soup and freeze it to use later on hectic evenings. I also use the leftovers in salads on the weekend following Thanksgiving.

This salad uses many traditional Thanksgiving foods, but the curry dressing gives it an exotic twist. The dressing is made using yogurt, which is much lower in fat than mayonnaise based dressings. This mollifies my guilt when I decide to enjoy some leftover pumpkin pie!

Ingredients:

2 cups leftover turkey, cubed
1 large sweet potato or yam, cubed
2 cups cooked rice ( I usually use leftover rice)
1 apple, cut into bite size pieces
2 stalks celery, diced
1 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup pecans, chopped
3 green onions, thinly sliced
3/4 cup plain yogurt (or 6 oz. container)
1 tablespoon honey (or sugar)
1 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions:

1. Place cubed sweet potatoes or yams in a double boiler and steam for 8 minutes or until just fork tender. Be careful not to over cook.

2. In a large bowl, combine turkey, rice, yams, apple, celery, onions, cranberries, and pecans.

3. In a small bowl, mix together yogurt, honey, curry, and ginger.

4. Pour dressing over the salad and stir until thoroughly combined. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Serve on a bed of greens. Makes 6 servings.

How will you be using your Thanksgiving leftovers?

It’s been great experimenting with new soups and coming up with various side dishes that nicely complement the soup. This is the last soup of “Soup Week.”

Be sure to check out some of the recipes from this week’s $5 Dinner Challenge. There are some good ones!!! Hubs and I are going on a date Saturday night and I’ll be on a “computer fast” for a bit. I’ll be back Sunday night

The turkey I made last Saturday in the crockpot has been stretched to the max. 3 meals, several lunches. Tonight’s soup is the turkey’s final harrah!

Recipe adapted from Gluten Free Gourmet Cooks Fast and Healthy

Ingredients
2 cups cooked and diced turley ($1.29)
2 cups turkey broth (free) I made it last week and froze it into Ziplocs.
2 cups water
1-2 cups milk ($.10) I used rice milk.
2 cups frozen corn or 1 can creamed corn ($.75)
2 small potatoes, finely diced ($.15)
1/2 onion, finely chopped ($.15)
2 tsp cornstarch
Salt and Pepper
Sour cream to garnish ($.25) (not if GFCFSF!!)
GF Cornbread ($1) Saved in freezer from last week
2 cup frozen broccoli ($.75)

Directions
1. Dice cooked turkey. Add broth, water and turkey to large saucepan. Add corn or creamed corn, diced potatoes and onion. Cook on medium high for 10 minutes.
2. Add milk and 2 tsp cornstarch to thicken soup. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook 10 more minutes. Set on low until ready to serve.
3. Make favorite cornbread recipe.
4. Cook broccoli according to package instructions.
3. Serve turkey chowder with sour cream garnish along side cornbread and broccoli.

Cost $4.44

Print this Recipe

1. In large saucepan, add water and broth. Add diced or shredded cooked turkey. Add chopped onion and chopped celery.
2. Cut baby carrots in half and add to soup. Add 1 cup of wild rice mix to soup. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Slit sweet potatoes with knife or vent with fork. Bake sweet potatoes at 350 for 1 hour in baking dish with 1/4 inch water. Cover with foil. Remove and let cool about 10 minutes. Peel skins off of the potato and mash. Serve with cinnamon and butter if you like. We eat them “plain”.
4. Eat warm delicious soup with a side of sweet potato!

Cost $5.02

Print this Recipe
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Have a Frugal and Healthy Recipe to share?

Post the recipe on your blog and then add the link below. Other guidelines can be found here. To make it easy for other readers to find your recipe, please leave the link that leads directly to your recipe post. Any links that lead to your homepage will be deleted. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to leave your recipe in the comments section!

The ladies at Happy to Be at Home are hosting a contest…Be sure to stop by for a good chuckle!

Here is my troublesome turkey!