Use your imagination (What to Do With All The Leftover Food)

Member Name: moronboy

Product:	What to Do With All The Leftover Food
Date:	26/11/00 (319 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Creativity can make the aftermath more palatable

Disadvantages: You may have to throw things away

1) Don't buy too big a turkey / pudding etc. if you are worried about the aftermath. My mum roasts a bird as big as a small horse, but she and my Dad enjoy the leftovers almost as much as the meal, so just think about what you need.

2) Turkey sandwiches are always an option, but if you've really punished the bird in the oven, it will be quite dry and you'll need a lot of gravy. Next day, the meat left on the turkey will be even more dry, and the sandwiches won't exactly be exciting stuff. So, don't poison your family, but don't overcook the beast either.

3) Turkey sandwiches are more interesting and palatable if you give them some imagination - coronation turkey is a good option. Heinz sell a pre-mixed sauce, but it's just as easy to do your own - mayonnaise, curry powder or paste (whatever you have), a spot of apricot jam (optional). Add to lots of turkey and serve on freshly baked / bought bread.

4) Christmas Pudding Ice Cream. Of course, the easiest way to make your own ice-cream is buy somebody else's (vanilla would be my choice, or something with a bit of alcohol in it). Then just beat in crumbled bits of leftover pudding into it. Lots of people (Nigel Slater is one) advocate making your own ice cream by using ready-made custard - this works very well with pudding. I tried this last year and it worked very well, and despite the winter cold, a spot of pudding ice cream was more welcome than some pudding warmed up in the microwave.

5) Throw away any vegetables you still have unless you have mashed potato and you want to make potato cakes. I do not believe you can do anything with cooked vegetables.

6) Strip the turkey carcass and make soup, or follow the Nigella Lawson option of keeping the carcass and freezing it to make stock at some later point. It is possible to make really good stock with the bones.

7) Bit specific, but do not attempt to make turkey curry with the leftovers
. It is a foul and unnatural creation. I speak from experience.

8) Do not leave the carcass out for the birds to eat. My mum does this and I think it is profoundly unnatural.

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