Got any Leftover Turkey?

What to Do With Your Turkey Leftovers…

Chef Todd Mohr of Web Cooking Classes shares his leftover turkey tips

(transcript of video)

So, half time is over.  The commercials have ended, and you are left with the exact amount of food that you had planned for; or maybe you planned for some leftovers.

However, rather than loading everything separately into your fridge, I can show you some ways to quickly make complete meals for the next few days.  So, here is my idea for leftovers.

Start by getting the leftover turkey off the carcass

The first and easiest is get the meat off the turkey carcass.  Cut all the meat from the turkey.  Separate the dark and light meat if you’d like.  This you can use for sandwiches or whatever else you might make in the coming days.  I showed you how to use roux with simmering milk and some Parmesan cheese and some cooked egg noodles.  Some of the turkey you’ve got an instant casserole dish that you can freeze for a later time or eat later that week.  All your vegetables; cut your vegetables into bite size portions.  Put them in zip lock bags.  They can become soup at another time, or they can get covered in cheese sauce too and served.

Make some stock with your leftover turkey

That turkey carcass?  I’ve suggested before make the stock out of it.  Boy that turkey broth is so good.  Anybody sick in your house, it is culinary medicine for sure.  So, go ahead and make that turkey stock, because you’ve got the ends of the vegetables that you’ve saved.  You’ve got your leftover chopped up vegetables that all can go into a stock.  What do you want for dinner tonight? Or the next night?

Make some turkey sloppy joes or chili with the leftover turkey

How about turkey sloppy joes?  One of my favorite things to do.  Take the dark meat from the turkey.  Take the leftover gravy if you want, or some of your roux and broth.  A can of beans.  Red beans, black beans… what ever you’d like.  Make turkey chili out of it, or turkey sloppy joes.  Some tomato paste, or tomato sauce, or whatever you’d like.  Turkey sloppy joes work out really well.

Make some Shepard’s Pie with turkey leftovers

Or how about a Shepard’s pie?  This is an easy thing to do, by taking your leftovers and putting them in a pie tin or a casserole tin.  Put the turkey in there.  Put the vegetables on top.  Pour the gravy on top of that.  Put the mashed potatoes leftover on top of that and bake it in the oven.  It’s Shepard’s pie.

All the stuff comes down to the fact that when you have a plan, you reduce your stress over the unknown.

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Thanks to Chef Todd Mohr of Web Cooking Classes for showing us what to do with our leftover turkey.

Veggie Wonton Soup Recipe

How to make wontons and wonton soup recipe – Posted by Caveman Cooking on December 9, 2010

While doing our recent REVIEW: Man Pans Stir Fry Wok & Steamer Set, I made some of this fabulous, veggie-friendly soup. I also promised to share the recipe. Since I never lie (well, almost never ) here it is! Oh, and by the way, this gets rave reviews from the Cavewoman, a lifelong vegetarian, as well as from the Cavekids and me, lifelong carnetarians! Though, as you’ll see, this is easily adjusted to satisfy the meat-only crowd.

INGREDIENTS

6 Cups Vegetable Broth
1 1/2 Cups Sliced Mushrooms (Baby Bella or Shitake)
10 Ounces Firm Tofu
8 Ounces Water Chestnuts
5 Green Onions
12 Wonton Wrappers
1/4 Teaspoon Sesame Oil or Chili Sesame Oil
1-2 Tablespoons Corn Starch
Salt & Pepper to taste

RECIPE

Chop the green onions, water chestnuts, and tofu into small bite sized pieces. Then, take about 1/5 of each ingredient and chop that portion more finely for use inside the wontons. Set aside.

Thinly slice mushrooms. Set aside.

Set up a work station with the wrappers; a glass of cool water; a clean, dry plate to make the wontons; a plate covered lightly in corn starch; and the finely chopped ingredients.

To make the wontons, put a single wrapper in the center of the clean plate. Place an appropriate amount of each ingredient onto the wrapper (don’t overstuff the wrapper or it will tear when you take the next steps). With a slightly wet finger, moisten all for edges of the wrapper. Fold one corner of the wrapper up to it’s opposite corner, and firmly seal all edges together. Place the completed wontons on the corn starch plate, taking care not to lay them on top of each other to prevent them from sticking together.
NOTE #1: If you have any leftover wonton “filling”, just save it and throw it into the soup at the appropriate time.

Place broth into properly sized sauce pan or wok and bring to a boil. While many recipes call for you to boil your wontons, I find that doing so tends to create very soft wontons that tend to fall apart. To combat this, I like to steam them before adding them to the soup. It should only take 5-8 minutes to fully steam the wontons.
NOTE #2: By using this Man Pans Stir Fry Wok and Steamer Set, I am able to steam the wontons with the boiling veggie stock. Not only is this convenient and eco-friendly, I think it also adds to the flavor of the wontons.

When wontons are fully steamed, remove the steamer insert and add the tofu, mushrooms, and water chestnuts. Return to boil for another 3-5 minutes.

Reduce flame, add green onions and sesame oil. Gently add wontons. Salt and pepper to taste. Stir gingerly. Allow to simmer for 10 minutes.
NOTE #3: If you are adverse to any kind of spiciness, just go with the plain variety of sesame oil. But, if you like just a hint of tang, go for the chili-version. It won’t make it very spicy at all, but it will add a nice essence.

Serve in bowls along with any of your other Asian favorites. It also makes a fine main course, too.
HINT: This soup is easily transformed into a carnivore version by using the filling from our Lamb Wontons instead. Just be sure not to fry them, as described in the recipe. Also, you may have to steam them for a few more minutes to make sure they are cooked enough. Add some shrimp or chicken chunks to the initial broth boil and you’ll have a delicious meat-lovers rendition of this soup.

If you’d like to win one of these Man Pans Stir Fry Wok and Steamer Sets, or even an entire set of their pans, be sure to enter out our Want Pans? Giveaway. Hurry, though, because the contest ends 12/15/2010.

Prep Time = 40 minutes
Cook Time = 20 minutes
Serves 6

©2010 Caution: Caveman Cooking/UHearMe, Inc. All rights reserved. This recipe originally appeared on the Caution: Caveman Cooking blog at http://cavemancooking.net authored by Caveman. This recipe may be shared and reprinted as long as this entire copyright message accompanies it.

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Here are more Stir Fry Wok Recipes.  Many thanks to Caution: Caveman Cooking for allowing us to reprint his Wonton Soup Recipe and showing us the Caveman’s method of how to make Wontons!