turkey pot pie

American eats more than 13 pounds of turkey each year, and much of that will no doubt come this week as we pile our plates with a generous serving -- or two or three -- of turkey and all the trimmings.




Chris Carson, 31, Jacquie Carson, 31, Jim Burrell, 68, and Megan Lowden, 71, fill containers with Thanksgiving dinners at Atherton Union at Butler University Thursday during the Mozel Sanders Thanksgiving Dinner preparations. - DANESE KENON / The Star

But after the big dinner and a sandwich later, another round of reheated leftovers looks less and less appealing. By Friday night -- Saturday at the latest -- post-holiday cooks realize they have to do something, anything, with all those leftovers.
According to the National Turkey Federation, the most popular ways to serve up leftover Thanksgiving turkey are in sandwiches, soups and stews, salads, casseroles and stir-frys.
Local caterer and cafe owner Melissa Mudd would agree -- and add a few more categories as well.
She and husband Shawn own Sweet & Savory, a cafe, bakery and catering service at 9840 Michigan Road, and the holiday offers them plenty of opportunities to get creative with Thanksgiving leftovers. They'll be roasting turkeys for customers all morning on Thursday.
"I get asked about leftovers a lot," she said. "People get sick of turkey really fast."
Beyond another slice of turkey topped with mashed potatoes and gravy -- or the ubiquitous turkey sandwich with mayo -- what can you do with all those leftovers?
"You can always go the route of pot pies," said Mudd. "We use roasted vegetables, and you just throw everything in."
But instead of topping it with a pie crust, said Mudd, aim to use up even more leftovers.
"Use your leftover mashed potatoes instead of a pastry crust," she said.
While delicious, Mudd said, a turkey pot pie still features all those traditional Thanksgiving flavors. She often prefers to use leftovers in a completely different dish, "so you're not having the same meal again and again."
To combat the sameness of typical leftovers, Mudd developed a recipe for Puer- to Rican Turkey Chowder, which uses diced tomatoes, Anaheim chilies, cumin and tomatillos in addition to the leftover turkey. "It doesn't have any of those Thanksgiving flavors," she said.
Her recipe for Turkey Florentine Soup, with its spinach, Parmesan and heavy cream, also avoids being a typical turkey soup. "I love a chicken Florentine casserole," said Mudd, "and we turned that into a soup."
Mudd also uses spinach, tomatoes, portobellos and Provolone in a day-after-Thanksgiving breakfast dish, Turkey Leftover Frittata.
"We came up with a breakfast frittata for the morning after that we tried and really liked," she said.
But it's not just turkey that will be sitting in the fridge waiting to be transformed. Those who bake a holiday ham instead of, or in addition to, the Thanksgiving turkey can easily turn leftovers into ham salad to top crackers or croissants, said Mudd.
"It's one of my favorite things," she said. "I'm from the South, and we make everything into a salad. Spiral sliced ham makes a really good ham salad."
Admittedly, some of those plastic refrigerator containers hold a challenge for even the most creative cooks. It can be tough to find a creative way to use up sweet potatoes, said Mudd, beyond simply mashing them for pie or sweet- potato casserole. But leftover whole roasted sweet potatoes can be diced and tossed with roasted and diced Yukon Gold potatoes.
Cranberries, with a sweet-tart taste that pairs well with meats as well as fruits and baked goods, may be among the easiest leftover to use.
A simple sandwich topping, Mudd said, can be made by mixing a tablespoon of cranberry sauce with a tablespoon of mayonnaise. But she especially likes Apple Cranberry Crisp, a tasty dessert or breakfast treat that can be made with whole fresh or frozen cranberries or leftover cranberry sauce.
Cranberry sauce can also be added to muffins or scones. "I'll just fold it into our basic muffin batter," Mudd said.
Leftover canned pumpkin can also be added to muffins, said Mudd, noting that she often adds molasses and chocolate chips to pumpkin muffins. "I like them with white chocolate, tsurprising. Pot pies are quick and easy one-dish meals. More important, what better way to use leftover Thanksgiving turkey than in a perfectly seasoned, hot-from-the-oven pot pie?Recipe from One Dish Meals (Lebhar-Friedman, $35)
Total time: 2 hours

3 tablespoons butter or vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups diced yellow onion
2 teaspoons minced garlic
3 tablespoons flour
3 cups turkey or chicken broth
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup diced carrot
1 cup diced celery
2 cups diced red or Yukon Gold potato
4 cups diced cooked turkey meat
1 cup green peas (thawed if frozen)
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 (9-inch) prepared pie crusts, frozen puff-pastry sheets (thawed) or other topping of choice, such as leftover mashed potatoes
Heat the butter or oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat until it simmers. Add the onion and sauté, stirring frequently, until tender, about 10 to 12 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté until aromatic, about 30 seconds. Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until pasty and thick, about 2 minutes. Add the broth, whisking well to work out any lumps. Bring to a boil, and then immediately reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring frequently, until thickened, about 15 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Add the carrot, celery, and potato to the broth mixture, and simmer until the vegetables are tender, about 20 to 30 minutes (depending on the size of the cut). Add the turkey and peas, and remove from the heat. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir in the chopped parsley.

Spoon the filling into individual crocks or a baking dish. Cut the pie crust or puff pastry dough to the appropriate size and shape, and cover the filling. Cuts vents in the crust, and press the edges of the dough onto the baking dish or crocks to seal.

Bake the pot pie until the pie crust or puff pastry is golden and flaky, about 45 minutes for a large pot pie and 25 minutes for individual crocks.

Makes 4 to 6 servings, each (13-ounce) serving 490 calories, 21 grams protein, 45 grams carbohydrates, 26 grams fat, 570 milligrams sodium, 35 milligrams cholesterol and 4 grams fiber.



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SOFT TURKEY-POTATO TACOS

A salsa made with black beans and corn is good, but a tomato-based salsa is fine, too. A scattering of cilantro would not be amiss. Add pickled jalapenos or sour cream, too, if you wish.
For each taco:

2 soft corn tortillas
2 tablespoons leftover mashed potatoes
1 or 2 pieces cooked turkey, either light or dark meat
Prepared salsa, as desired
1 slice Cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese
Heat the oven to 375 degrees or, if making just one or two tacos, use a toaster oven.

Warm tortillas briefly on an ungreased griddle over medium-high heat, flipping each tortilla once.

Stack 2 tortillas on top of each other, and spread the one on top with mashed potatoes. Place the turkey in the center of the potatoes, using enough to make a meaty taco but not so much that the taco cannot be folded easily. Add prepared salsa, tuck in the cheese and fold both tacos over the filling. Place in a baking tray and warm in oven 3 minutes, or until cheese melts.

Makes 1 taco.



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TURKEY HASH

If on Thanksgiving Day you served simple baked sweet potatoes and some are left, you can make this more unusual hash. Serve a dollop of cranberry sauce alongside to combine almost all the flavors of the season.

2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil or vegetable oil
2 medium onions, peeled and minced
1 teaspoon dried red-pepper flakes, or to taste
4 cups minced leftover cooked turkey, dark or white meat, or a mixture
2 cups cooked, roughly chopped sweet potatoes
Salt, to taste
1/4 cup leftover gravy or 1/4 cup heavy cream
In a large, heavy-bottomed skillet, heat the butter and oil. Add the onions and pepper flakes, and cook, stirring now and then, until onions are translucent but not browned. Add the turkey and sweet potatoes, sprinkle with salt and saute, stirring occasionally, until browned. If some sticks to the bottom of the skillet, that's fine; just scrape up the browned bits, which are one of the pleasures of hash.

Add the gravy or cream
Hoarding Thanksgiving leftovers is understandable, but hardly in keeping with the holiday spirit.

In the interest of earning family favor and your own waist-

line control, go ahead and wrap up some of those leftovers and send them home with loved ones - if they can keep them safe and cold all the way home.

So many folks look forward to eating their own creative concoctions after Thanksgiving Thursday. It's the whole holiday weekend to savor the now mellow Thanksgiving flavors. The leftovers are golden.

Of course, it's important to put away the leftover turkey (and all other dishes) within two hours of the main feast. Get thyself to the kitchen and carve up all the meat, package it airtight and place some in the refrigerator, some in the freezer in freezer-proof wrappings.

Some families never find it necessary to freeze leftover turkey because there's not that much left of it, and there are so many completely different presentations for the roast white meat and dark meat.

First comes the sandwich. Everyone has a favorite leftover Thanksgiving turkey sandwich. If only deli sandwich meat could be this good.

Some feature dark-meat slivers on rye with mustard and horseradish and crunchy lettuce. Many more probably slap white breast meat, thinly sliced, onto firm white bread with mayo, even a little leftover cranberry relish in some cases, but never let it soak into the bread. Spicy cranberry chutney is better on sandwiches, in my opinion because it's more like Major Grey's, more suited to sandwiches.

In the piggy-trough category, a few guys have been known to spread stuffing on a layer of mashed potatoes on bread to support the leftover turkey pieces. With gravy between each layer, it must be microwaved until the bread is completely stale. I think it's a waste of leftovers, but maybe I've never piled on the leftovers in just the right fashion. Let's not judge each other's sandwiches.

Well, any cook that can wrest roast turkey away from sandwich-makers may have enough for turkey soup, casseroles, turkey salad (think chicken salad), turkey curry or an old-fashioned pot pie.

You can top the poultry-vegetable mixture for a pot-pie casserole or individual pot pies with leftover mashed potatoes, even mashed sweet potatoes.

Some like to save a single pie crust from a Pillsbury package for topping a pot pie in pronto, double-quick time. Some use canned biscuits or batter from a Jiffy cornbread box mix.

The point is to leaven the dough and turkey protein in a pot pie with actual vegetables. They're what set yours apart from frozen pot pies and restaurant pot pies.

Today's pot-pie recipe calls for a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, those tiny diced ones that most people dislike when served on their own. If there's time, make your own mix of chopped vegetables, such as sautéed celery, onion and slivered carrots, plus frozen baby peas. Outstanding.

Even better, add mushrooms to a pot pie. Use a separate sauté pan to stir-fry sliced fresh mushrooms. The high heat allows the weeping mushrooms to dry out in the pan and turn bronze. More flavor develops than if the mushrooms are cooked over slow heat and allowed to simmer in their own watery juices.

If you have a big stockpot, then you can simmer all the roast turkey bones to make Turkey Frame Soup. I saw that title in a magazine once. A former editor told me she spent $30 at the grocery after Thanksgiving to buy rice, spices and vegetables in order to make leftover-turkey soup. She was incensed. In subsequent years, all the leftover turkey in her house went into sandwiches.

Just a little bit, a teeny half-cup of chopped turkey, is called for in the Creamy Wild Rice Soup. The recipe calls for 100 percent wild rice, not a packaged blend with seasoning.

You may already have a turkey curry recipe, but here's a guide. Serve it over cooked, long-grain rice.

Gather these ingredients: 3 tablespoons butter, 1 large carrot, peeled and diced, 1 medium onion, sliced, 1 minced garlic clove, 1 tablespoon curry powder, 1/2 teaspoon ginger and 1 tablespoon flour.

As for liquid, use a can (13.75 ounces) of chicken broth, plus 2 cups chopped cooked turkey.

Round out the dish with 1/2 cup water, 1/3 cup raisins, 1-1/2 teaspoons Tabasco hot sauce (red), salt to taste, chopped parsley and the long-grain rice.

In a 3-quart saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Sauté the carrot, onion and garlic about 10 minutes, adding garlic last. Stir in the curry powder, ginger and flour. Cook 1 minute.

Add broth, turkey meat, water, raisins, hot sauce and salt. Over high heat, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in parsley. Serve mixture over cooked rice.

Extra-Quick Turkey & Noodles

1 can (10-3 /4 oz.) condensed cream of chicken soup or the fat-free type
1/2 cup milk
1/8 teaspoon ground pepper
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups cubed roast turkey
3 cups cooked fine or medium egg noodles
2 tablespoons sour cream or plain yogurt
Chopped fresh parsley or a handful of frozen baby peas
Yield: 4 servings

Mix soup, milk, pepper, Parmesan, turkey and cooked, well-drained noodles in a large saucepan and heat through. Stir in the sour cream the last minute. Garnish with parsley. Even better, cook some baby peas the last minute or two of boiling the noodles. Drain together and toss with the soup mixture and sour cream. ― Adapted from Campbell's

Turkey Pot Pie

1 (16-oz.) package frozen mixed vegetables, thawed (or cook your own diced carrots, potato and celery; stir in frozen peas and corn)
2-1/4 cups cubed cooked turkey or chicken
1/4 cup butter (3 to 4 tablespoons)
1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
1/2 cup diced onion
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 (14.5-oz.) can low-sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon chicken bouillon granules
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
Pastry for a single-crust pie
Yield: 6 to 8 servings

In a greased, deep 2-1/2-quart baking dish, combine the thawed (or cooked) vegetable mixture and the chopped turkey. Set aside.
In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium-high heat and saute the mushrooms and onion until quite tender. Stir in the flour and let cook a minute or two over medium heat. Remove pan from burner and add the thyme. Gradually stir in the chicken broth, stirring smooth, except for the mushrooms and onion still in the pan. Return pan to heat and cook and stir about 2 minutes.
Crush the bouillon granules to a powder and stir into the mushroom-onion mixture. Stir in the mayo. Pour this saucy mixture over the vegetables and turkey in the baking dish.
Have oven heating to 450 degrees.
Roll out pie pastry to fit the top of the baking dish (or use pastry strips or cutouts). Place over the hot filling and trim or flute the edge, as necessary. Cut slits in the top. Bake at 450 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes, or until the pastry is light golden brown. Let stand 5 minutes before serving. ― Adapted from "Taste of Home's Casserole Cookbook"

Creamy Wild Rice Soup

6 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons sliced green onions
1/2 cup flour
3 cups chicken or turkey broth
2 cups cooked wild rice (not a blend)
1/2 cup cooked, cubed turkey
1/4 cup finely grated carrots
3 tablespoons sliced almonds, toasted
1/4 teaspoon each white pepper, salt
1 cup half-and-half
2 tablespoons dry sherry
Parsley garnish, optional
Yield: 6 servings

In a large saucepan, melt the butter and saute onions briefly. Blend in the flour and let bubble a minute to cook the starch. Remove from heat and gradually whisk in the broth. When smooth, return pan to burner and let mixture come to a boil. Cook 1 minute while stirring. Add the cooked wild rice, chopped turkey, carrots, almonds, salt and pepper. Simmer 5 minutes. Blend in the half-and-half and dry sherry. Garnish with parsley and some extra sliced almonds toasted to a golden color. ― Adapted from Minnesota Cultivated Wild Rice Council.

Cajun Turkey Sandwiches

Sliced turkey for 6
1 tablespoon butter
1 small green bell pepper, cut in thin strips
1 large red bell pepper, cut in thin strips
1 large onion, halved lengthwise, cut into slices
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
6 kaiser rolls, split
2 tablespoons mayonnaise blended with Creole mustard to taste
6 slices medium-sharp Cheddar cheese
Yield: 6 servings

Prepare turkey slices and set aside. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the bell peppers and onion. Saute, stirring often, until vegetables are tender. Stir in the hot sauce and celery seed. Remove from heat.
Spread bottom halves of rolls with mayonnaise and Creole mustard mixed. Top each with a slice of Cheddar, 1/6 of the turkey and vegetables and top halves of rolls. Toast the split rolls in advance, if desired, with the cheese slice melted on the bottom