Thanksgiving is the kick off to the holiday season in my house. Pretty much every weekend that follows up until Christmas is a birthday, get together, or party. We have Dad’s birthday, kielbasa night, and pierogi night. Hopefully being able to sneak in a quick trip up north to visit the Michigan family and make pierogis with them as well. Like most families around this time to say we are busy is an understatement.
We hosted Thanksgiving at the house as well as a game day party for The Ohio State vs. Michigan game, OH. I spent some time Thanksgiving eve scouring Pinterest for some Thanksgiving leftover inspiration to make for the big game. Especially cranberry sauce as I forgot to set it out on Thanksgiving… I got so lucky, everything I picked out turned out amazing and I can’t wait to share the ideas with you. Here are the winning leftover recipes I found this year and the tweaks we made to them.
White Cheddar and Cranberry Dip from The Little Broken Blog
We changed a few things based on what we had because the whole point of leftovers is to use what you have and not buy more but I am sure it is delicious as it is written as well. We did 6 oz cream cheese, 2 cups of shredded aged English white cheddar, and 1/3 cup of leftover cranberry sauce. Stirred it all together and baked at 375° until bubbly, served with wheat crackers. Since we had so much leftover cranberry sauce I froze little portions in small mason jars so we can make this recipe again and again over the next few months.
Creamy Turkey Gnocchi Soup from The Wholefully Blog
For this one I had about 2 cups of chopped leftover veggies from a veggie pizza appetizer my Mother-in-Law brought over for Thanksgiving. It had carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers,red and green peppers all diced up together so I used that in place of all the carrots and onions in her recipe and used 3 smashed cloves of garlic. I also cut the amount of turkey down to 1 1/2 cups to make sure I had enough for the turkey spread I am working on perfecting. It is close but not quite there so that recipe will have to wait! Using homemade turkey stock takes this over the top.
Leftover Turkey Stock
I just put the cut up turkey carcass in a large crockpot, fill with water and cook on low overnight. Wake up and remove the bones and strain the liquid a few times before storing in mason jars in the freezer or using in a soup.
Thanks for stopping by and checking out the leftover situation for this Thanksgiving. Now I am on to CYBER MONDAY SHOPPING!!! Hopefully I will find some good deals. Here are a few that jumped out to me, the instant pot and lego deals are awesome!
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