Using up the leftovers

I hope everyone had a good Christmas. Mine was OK, could have been better for a number of reasons, but lots of good food, mine and some of the gifts my husband's family has sent.

Christmas Day, I cooked the turkey and a mincemeat pie (Don' favorite), but my sister-in-law provided all the side dishes as well as the house for our feast.I was a little bit surprised when I opened the bag of turkey I had arranged to take home, and found containers of sweet potatoes, cranberry slices and stuffing as well as the turkey.

Don and I have somewhat of a tradition that on the last day we spend in our house before traveling out of town to spend Christmas with family, we enjoy a pre-Christmas dinner. So, to all of the above, I also must add to my stash of leftovers a good chunk of ham. (We did eat all my side dishes that night.) In addition, I had some already grilled onions, and raw white potatoes, carrots and celery that really needed to be used SOON.

So, I have been trying to use up all these leftovers. Here's some things I came up with.

I jazzed up the boxed stuffing with the grilled onions, and served that alongside some of the turkey and the sweet potatoes.

I made potato pancakes with the potatoes. Potato pancakes are yummy on their own, but for extra flavor you can add ham or turkey. We had some with each. And the cranberry slices with a few of them. The recipe for potato pancakes is fairly simple. I have two different potato pancake recipes I'm working with, one with ham for two people and one with turkey for six people. Since I'm in a household of two, I present the recipe with either choice of meat in that quantity. Following my instructions makes one largish pancake, which you can cut into four pieces to serve. If you have more people, or want to eat more than one serving of these delicious pancakes, you can double or triple this recipe. Plan on making at least two or three pancakes if you do. While this recipe is just fine for smaller pancakes than the 7" diameter it will create, anything larger than that will be harder to flip and cook thoroughly.

POTATO PANCAKES

1 Tbsp flour
3 Tbsp milk
1 egg (or if you prefer, a single yolk or single white)
1 cup shredded potatoes
1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped meat, ham or turkey are both good

Oil or melted butter

Mix together flour, milk and eggs.Stir in the potatoes, then the meat. Fry in oil or butter, 10 minutes on each side for one large pancake, less for smaller pancakes. Pancakes are done if golden brown.

The rest of my turkey and vegetables I made soup from. I was trying to follow two, maybe three different recipes, and I've come to the conclusion that turkey soup will be good with just about anything. Besides turkey, my soup had lentils, carrots and celery and some very flavorful broth. I am sure onions, cabbage, tomatoes and/or potatoes would be good in the same soup. Another soup I had my eye on, but ran out of turkey before I could make, called for corn, chile peppers, tomatoes and chicken, and I'm sure turkey would be fine with that combination of vegetables as well. Broth, water mixed with bullion cubes, or wine all would be good choices for liquid.

The key is to make sure whatever liquid you add covers all the meat and vegetables - when you're done cooking it. With those lentils in there, my soup needed about an hour of cooking. Beans will take longer, and without legumes, you probably can say "soup's on in fifteen to 30 minutes. I added the rest of the vegetables 15 minutes before the end, but I think the carrots will taste better when I heat up the leftovers tomorrow, because they haven't yet absorbed the flavor of the soup. Tomatoes, cabbage and other softer vegetables like that, maybe only need about five minutes to cook.