Tired of Turkey?

 

Long about now, the second day after Thanksgiving, we start to hear people whining that they are "tired of turkey." I've never understood that. Our family of five that expanded into fourteen makes short work of a turkey dinner. I've never been troubled by having too many left-overs. In fact, I've grieved the insufficiency.

Not so this Thanksgiving.

This year I bought a 12-pound bird and my sister joined Himself and me on Thursday. We had a lovely dinner and sent Bonnie home with enough turkey for another dinner and perhaps a sandwich. On Friday there were turkey sandwiches for lunch for us.

Last night's dinner was the thing I think I invented where I take some sliced turkey and put it in the casserole and add some gravy and then a layer of mashed potatoes and a little more gravy and then a layer of left-over stuffing. We don't know what it would be called but we do love it and there's enough left for another two-person meal.

Joe had spent some time on Thursday evening stripping meat from the carcass and yesterday said bony-but-still-meaty remains and a bunch of vegetables simmered for several hours. This morning I separated out the meat from the bones and other unusables, added the rutabaga and the barley, and we had delicious soup for lunch. A couple of portions were shared with our good neighbor to the left.

While the soup was simmering, I put together the beloved turkey (or chicken) and pecans and celery for the hot turkey salad that will be topped with shredded cheddar and cracker crumbs for tomorrow's dinner. 

I put a whole lot more turkey aside with gravy for tonight's dinner. My husband grew up with a heavy Pennsylvania Dutch influence and he introduced me to the wonder of turkey waffles. Not to be in any way confused with the ridiculous Eggo-type tasteless waffles with syrup served with a side of fried chicken that some bad restaurants tout as a delicacy. Oh, no. We make the waffles from scratch using Dottie's decadent recipe and they are served with some sliced turkey and gravy on top, and a side of cranberry sauce. Trust me when I tell you that this variation of a hot turkey sandwich is comfort food at its very finest.

And there are still drumsticks and wings wrapped up in foil.

So today I thought a lot about my blogger-friend Lynne, whose waste not/want not family was so inventive with left-over chicken that they finally tired of it. She made a quilt to commemorate the event.