Share Your Recipe Ideas: Leftovers Edition!

Full fridges and the day after Thanksgiving go together like cookies and milk. But if you want to avoid having to eat turkey cranberry sauce sandwiches for the next two weeks, what do you do? 

Here are some of our favorite ways to get rid of that mountain of leftovers. Put your favorite recipes in the comments section below!

Easy Turkey Stock

Makes 2-3 quarts, depending on the size of your turkey. Use in place of chicken stock in everyday cooking, and it will taste worlds better than anything that comes out of a can, box, or jar.

• One turkey carcass, with most of the meat sliced off and stored separately, and broken into parts
• One large yellow onion, peeled and roughly chopped
• The leafy tops of a celery heart, rinsed and sliced thinly
• Three carrots, sliced
• Tsp. dried thyme, 2 bay leaves, and 10-15 whole peppercorns wrapped up in cheese cloth, tea bag, or reusable tea ball

Put the dismembered turkey carcass into a large stock pot, pushing the pieces down a bit so nothing is within an few inches of the pot's lip. Put in your vegetables, herb bag, and enough water to cover the carcass. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours, until stock is richly flavored. Remove herb bag and turkey bones, pour stock into containers, and refrigerate or freeze. 

Pro tip: if you have kids, see if you can find the wishbone in the boiled turkey breastbone. Put it on a windowsil or other out-of-the-way place to dry for a few days, then ask your kids to make a wish.

To make a basic turkey vegetable soup, remove the cooked vegetables from your stock. In a large stock pot, saute a chopped, large yellow onion in a glug of olive oil over medium heat until it begins to brown. Add sliced carrots, celery, sliced leftover turkey, and 1 quart of strained stock. Bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are soft.

Harvest Pizza

• One ready-made 12-inch whole wheat pizza crust, or home-made whole wheat pizza dough rolled out into a 12-inch crust
• One small butternut squash
• 1/4 cup capers or kalamata olives
• Slices of leftover tofurkey or seitan, cut into strips
• One medium yellow onion, halved and sliced crosswise into 1/4-inch-wide pieces
• 1 cup shredded asiago 
• 1-2 sprigs fresh rosemary
• salt and pepper
• olive oil
• a tablespoon of coarse-ground cornmeal

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Squash: Halve your squash and scoop out the seeds and stringy tissue. Cut the squash pieces in half lengthwise. Rub a 1/2 tsp. of oil, a good quantity of black pepper, chopped fresh rosemary, and a few pinches of salt on the exposed flesh, and put in the oven on a cookie sheet, skin side down, until you can easily pierce a slice through with a fork.

Onions: In a medium skillet, over medium heat, saute the onions in a glug of olive oil or a melted knob of butter, until they brown but do not burn. Remove from the pan and set aside, and go work on another part of dinner while you wait for the squash to cook.

Pizza: Once the squash is done, increase oven temperature to 450 degrees. Cut away the skin from the roasted squash, and mash the flesh in a bowl. Spread a thin layer of mashed squash on your pizza crust. Sprinkle cheese, onions, capers, and tofurky across your pizza. Toss your pizza crust in the oven, on a baking sheet or pizza stone sprinkled with cornmeal. Bake for 10 minutes or until crust is firm.