Leftovers Live On: Hot Turkey Wraps

Dear recipe-searcher and leftover-user,

In eager anticipation of leftovers after this Thursday ...

I've wanted to post this recipe for a long time, and I am not sure why I haven't done it yet ... but I love this recipe, and I know it'll be a hit at your house, too.  I am ridiculously excited to share it with you!

The first year we were married, I went on the hunt for leftover turkey recipes.  This was an exciting venture for me - usually, coming from a family of ten, we had enough leftover turkey for everyone to have some sandwiches, some soup, and that was about it.  It could disappear pretty quickly!  But with just my husband and I and a huge container of cold, cooked poultry, the world opened up ... and I didn't want to just eat one thousand cold-turkey sandwiches!

While browsing around, I found some recipes online that turned out to be keepers - I don't know where I found them, and they've evolved in their own ways since then, but they are delicious - amazing - perfection.

If you have a big crowd and you want to make some leftover turkey go pretty far, this recipe will do the trick.

These Moo Shoo Turkey Wraps are a fun Asian-American fusion deviating from the typical turkey leftovers you usually see, and they are astonishingly easy to prepare.  My husband and I whacked them together one night after Thanksgiving, using a huge wok from my grandma, and ate as much as we could handle.

Moo Shoo Turkey Wraps
Obviously, there is lots of wiggle room in this recipe.  Add some toasted sesame seeds if you like; I love to serve these with homemade (or storebought) sweet plum sauce!  To really go with the Asian theme or to avoid extra gluten you could use rice wraps, like spring roll wrappers, instead of tortillas.  If you like, you could use a bagged shredded coleslaw mix instead of a cabbage.  

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon olive oil
10 ounces sliced mushrooms
4 green onions, sliced
1 teaspoon peeled, grated ginger
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 - 3 cloves garlic, crushed
16 - 20 ounces shredded fresh cabbage (one small cabbage, or less than half large cabbage)
1/3 cup water
2 cups shredded leftover cooked turkey
3 tablespoons soy-sauce
3 tablespoons (plus extra for serving) hoisin sauce
8 tortillas, warmed

In a skillet or wok, heat one tablespoon olive oil on medium-high until hot.  Add mushrooms and saute 6 minutes, or until tender and lightly browned.  Remove to a plate.
In the skillet, heat one teaspoon olive oil on medium-high.  Stir in green onions (reserve a small portion if you want to sprinkle some fresh on the wraps), ginger, crushed red pepper, and garlic.  Add shredded cabbage and cook 2 minutes or until cabbage begins to soften, stirring constantly.  Add water and cook 1 to 2 minutes or until water evaporates.  Cabbage should be tender-crisp, not mushy; stir frequently.  Stir in turkey, soy sauce, 3 tablespoons hoisin sauce, and cooked mushrooms; cook an additional 3 minutes or until turkey is hot, stirring constantly.
Spread tortillas with hoisin sauce; top with turkey filling, extra green onions if you like, roll up and enjoy!  These are very juicy.  These are very delicious.

If any of my readers are vegan and cook meat alternatives like tofurkey, I'd be interested to hear your take on this dish with that replacement!  I haven't tried it yet, myself.

I'm hungry now!

Mrs H

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P.S. There will be another fabulous idea for leftover turkey for you on Friday!  Also, don't forget to pop your head in here if you're in the mood for soup ....

Remember the Cookies!

Dear fellow readers who have at times been forgetful, neglectful, and altogether regretful,

I share a dire warning to all busy cooks who will be bustling about this week preparing for Thanksgiving!

Remember the biscuit-cookies of a few days ago?

Well, that is not all that went awry that night!

While I was shopping for groceries on that fateful day, I was chatting via intermittent text with the mysterious Mrs. S.  She was relating to me an incident that had happened to her in the kitchen one time - she was making macaroni and cheese for dinner when she noticed the rich scent of vanilla in the air ... an aroma that does not usually accompany the savory Lactobacilli dish.  Upon further investigation she realized that the soy milk she had used was vanilla-flavored!

I chuckled at this amusing anecdote.  How could anybody overlook the fact that the milk was vanilla?  Impossible.  At the moment, I was buying almond milk - and in light of her words, I double checked the carton to make sure it was unflavored before tossing it in the cart!  This would add some smooth creaminess to our mashed potatoes that night.

Back at the homestead, dinner preparations were rolling along as they are wont to do.  I boiled a huge pot of potatoes, obligingly peeled by one of my gracious dinner guests, and dumped the steaming tubers into a bowl and mashed the ever-living love out of them with a fork.  I poured in some of the almond milk, some butter, some herbs, a little salt, a little pepper, beat them to a final fluffy pulp, and served them with meatloaf and gravy.

Mmm.  The rich scent of vanilla in the air.

Wait a moment ... Where was that coming from?

I took a forkful of the mashed potatoes.  Peculiar tasting.  I looked around the table (that is to say, I looked around the circle of menfolk sitting on the floor with plates on their laps).  Everybody was eating with the rapidity of a Last Supper and conversation was scant - generally proof that the food is good.

Oh, how quickly the prideful are brought down.  Oh, mysterious Mrs. S, how could I have found it in my calloused heart to laugh at you?

Grimly I went into the kitchen and pulled the carton from the fridge.  Beaming, the label proclaimed loudly that it was Vanilla Flavored!

I went back out to the "table."  Hunkering down beside my husband, I muttered, "do you taste anything weird with the potatoes?"

"Yeah," he said, "I think the gravy is a little funny or something."

I didn't want to mention anything and put the herd off their feed, but curiosity killed the cook.  "Does anybody taste anything funny with the potatoes?"

"They're great!" came the reply.

"I accidentally used vanilla-flavored milk," I confessed.

Thoughtful looks, slow forkfuls.

"Yep," said my husband.  "That's vanilla, alright."

Measure twice, cut once!

Mrs H

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The Many-Purposed Turkey

Dear food-shoppers and dinner-makers,

As Thanksgiving approaches, many a household cook is drawing up shopping lists, working out who will make what, which day she'll start that, and, of course, totaling up the cost.

A good number of you are already planning to have a turkey at your festivities.  Many years when I was growing up, we would just prepare a huge turkey roaster full of Butterball turkey breasts (I think we had nine, one year ... ), so we didn't have leftover bones or giblets.  But now we seem to be going for the whole bird, and of course, in my home we always roast a whole turkey ... because I just can't live without the special treat of rich, aromatic turkey broth!

Dinner has been finished ... The turkey has been long since carved, the bones toppled over on the cutting board, bleaching like any self-respecting skeleton.  Dishes are being cleared away, leftover Frog-Eye Salad scooped into a plastic bowl, leftover rolls shuttled into plastic bags.  Amidst all this cleaning and redding, I like to get a big pot of turkey broth started right away.

This cook uses the giblets in the broth; I usually use them for the gravy, so
they are not around long enough to see the broth-pot. But if you are looking
for an alternative way to use the giblets, click here!

Just another way to eke a few more dollars from that turkey and see to it that nothing is wasted, the broth is often used up within a few days to make turkey soup from the Thanksgiving leftovers - nothing like coming in from a frosty backyard with red fingers, red noses, and bright eyes, and having a steaming bowl of this succulent goodness plopped down in front of you!

If I know I'm not going to use the broth up within a few days, I just can it as soon as it's strained.  In fact, I use my big Presto pressure cooker to cook the broth in, so I turn right around and wash it up to can the broth!

Canning Turkey Broth
Here's a recipe for a basic, simple turkey broth, and instructions for pressure canning.  You can not can turkey broth in a boiling water bath - the temperatures will not go high enough to kill bacteria in the broth.  If you don't want to can it, you can always freeze it!

Rich Turkey Broth & Leftover Turkey-Noodle Soup
Here are instructions (I am not sure that an actual recipe exists ... it's all based on your unique leftovers!) for a more flavorful turkey broth, and instructions for a delicious, memorable turkey soup!  To be honest, there have been many times throughout the year that I have craved this delicacy, but it is heresy to make it at any time other than Thanksgiving!

And therein lies the magic ...

Mrs H

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It's Not Thanksgiving Without ...

Thanks for reading this post, I'm so excited to visit with you!  

After you've gleaned all the good information you need, visit our new blog platform at www.farmandhearth.com to read even more fascinating tidbits from the kitchen and the fields. 

My darling readers,

Every family has something that is a staple of the most festive Thursday in November.

"It's not Thanksgiving without Auntie Rachel's butterflake rolls!"

"How can it even be Thanksgiving without the broccoli salad Grandma always makes?"

"I don't think it counts as a holiday unless the uncles are bickering about politics."

Every year, for eons, my Grandma Oregon (we called her that when we were little because she lived in Oregon ... she's since moved, but the name stuck like flies on flypaper) would make this traditional family recipe - Frog-Eye Salad.  There are lots of variations of this on the web, but I am not sure what the origination of the recipe is.  I just know that there was a little index card once upon a time, and since those days it has been typed up and emailed to all the family cooks.

One year, the baton of the Frog-Eye Salad was passed on to me.  I don't remember how it happened, but suddenly I was the Keeper of the Salad!  It was my special baby.  Nobody else could make it.  I made sure of that.  Every Thanksgiving, I proudly went through the mysterious process of cooking the recipe, a process I shrouded in mystery to keep from other household cooks (not that anybody wanted the recipe, it would just give them one more chore at Thanksgiving ... so it was pretty easy to keep it "secret").

Then came a staggering blow - I was about 18, and it was two days before Thanksgiving.  I fell victim to a mysterious, horrible illness that had me sleeping on the couch for upwards of twenty hours a day.  My body was covered in rashes, I couldn't eat, and I had the strength of a former alcoholic in a bar on free-drinks day.

This was devastating!  In our family, the women would cook for days before Thanksgiving, and almost all night on Wednesday, and I considered myself a central part of this with all my "expertise" in the kitchen.  I was missing school, work, and cooking - unheard of!!  The day before Thanksgiving I lay frail on the couch while my sisters ran in and out of the kitchen with bowls for me to examine, textures for me to approve, and - they had to make the Frog-Eye Salad.

Now that the secret is out, I see no reason why not to share this treasured recipe.  It's probably my favorite pasta salad in the world.  It is sweet, has a mysterious aura, the texture is phenomenal, the aroma is magical, and it has nothing to do with frogs.  The day after Thanksgiving, you have to be quick to try and get some leftovers for breakfast - this is always the first thing to go!

We've tried unsuccessfully to change the name a few times, but we always end up accidentally coming back to Frog-Eye Salad!

Traditional Frog-Eye Salad

No frogs were harmed in the making of this recipe!  When a friend of mine was getting married, friends and family provided a potluck dinner and I made a septupled version of this recipe.  It disappeared immediately!  We usually make the first part of the recipe on Wednesday, and then on Thanksgiving morning we finish off with the additional mix-ins.  

1       large can crushed pineapple

1       can mandarin oranges

                         -drain and save the juice from both cans.  

Put fruit in fridge.  (If you want, after draining and reserving the majority of the juice, refrigerate the fruit in a mesh strainer to allow fruit to drain even more.)  

Cook according to package:

1       cup of Acini de Pepe, rinse and drain in a fine-mesh sieve.  (You will find acini de pepe in the pasta section.)  

Combine the reserved juice with

1       cup sugar

2       tablespoons flour

Cook, stirring continuously, until thick, then slowly drizzle in 

3       beaten eggs*

Cook until thickened. 

Add the acini de pepe, refrigerate for several hours or overnight to cool. 

In the morning, add drained fruit and: 

½       10 oz bag miniature marshmallows

8       oz tub Cool Whip

Stir and refrigerate until dinner. 

Will hold up to one week, but you'll be lucky if it lasts two days.

*If you pour the eggs in all at once, they will cook and you'll have scrambled eggs in your sauce.  Alternatively, I suggest beating your eggs in a small bowl, then gradually adding spoonfuls of the hot syrup to the eggs while you continue beating.  Then pour everything back into the pan and continue with the recipe.  

What is something you just can't imagine Thanksgiving without?  Is it a special dish, or is it a particular tradition that your family loves?  Maybe you can think of more than one thing!  In our family there are some special whole wheat rolls, the frog-eye salad, deviled eggs ... it just wouldn't be the same!  And on Thanksgiving morning, we attend a one-hour service at our church.  Everybody brings bags of food and supplies for the food-bank, and I can hardly picture a real Thanksgiving without this special service.  

What do you treasure?  

Thankful for traditions, 

Mrs H

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Shocking Language!

Dear gentle reader with the soft-spoken words,

Every family has different rules on taboo words, exclamatory words, and bodily function words.

I don't want to post the words here that we weren't allowed to say growing up, because that would defeat the whole purpose; but certain common phrases and nouns, no matter how customary they may be to hear out and about, have disgusting roots and are not necessarily edifying.

Other words are just to gross to hear, and people in polite company prefer to hear euphemisms than to be granted a visual of you engaging in some bodily impulse.  For instance, I much prefer to hear a person say, "Excuse me, I need to run to the bathroom, I'll be right back!" than to hear the uncouth, commonly used phrase where she describes the precise function she feels the urge to perform and then goes away, assumedly to do as she said she needed to do.

I feel respected when Mr H's co-workers make valiant efforts to stem the tide of expletives when I am around, and they sometimes come up with extremely creative ways to say what they feel they need to say without the offensive words.  Or they just say, "Earmuffs, Mrs H!"  Lately, a few of them have decided to replace all swear words with the names of various popular candies.  "Oh, skittles!" they might say.  "That's a Big Hunk loud song!"

It sounds uneducated to fill your language with curse words.  A truly educated person should, in my estimation, be able to come up with a wide variety of more descriptive nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns to describe the world they are encountering; using the same swear word for all of these, whether out of anger or just in casual conversation, is demeaning to the listener and reflects poorly on the speaker.

I was babysitting two of my favorite children a few days ago when the five-year-old exclaimed in surprise, "Oh, saddlehorses!"  I found this amusing; later when his four-year-old sister used an exclamation of "oh my gosh!" he reproved her and said, "say saddlehorses!"  She willingly repeated the phrase after him.  Since the parents hadn't mentioned any taboo words (I just assume all possible options are off the table when I babysit), I asked the kids, "Are you only allowed to say 'saddlehorses?'"  The older child shrugged.  "No, I just think it's more interesting!"  When their parents got home that night and the children were snoozing in bed, I asked the same question.  "You know," said their mom, "I really have no idea where that came from.  He just said it one day, and he's said it ever since!"  But out of the mouths of babes - it really is more interesting!  (On that note, I will add that it is not cute or clever when your three-year-old spouts out a swear word or mis-pronounces something that you immediately interpret as a swear word.  There's nothing cute about vulgarity)!

Some words, while not intrinsically bad, just take more explaining than you may be feeling up to at the moment.  A few years ago my husband had the unfortunate experience of using the now-evolved word "gay" within earshot of my little sister.  She, being five, asked what it meant.  Not feeling qualified to explain to her that it can be used to describe a different type of lifestyle or outlook, he went with tradition and said it means to be happy.  She ran around the living room joyfully, screaming, "I'm gay! Gay, gay gay!  I'm gay, gay, gay!"  My husband was mortified and my mom, bless her heart, managed to suppress her laughter and calm my sister.

How do you come up with rules for taboo words in your family?  (No, no, don't post a list of words you can't say!)  What do you do when one of the kids comes home from a visit and uses, perhaps innocently, some phrase you'd rather not hear?  How do you feel when somebody uses distasteful words in your presence, or conversely when they make heroic efforts to quell the flood of effluvia and speak with some measure of respect?

Shockingly,

Mrs H
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Cold Turkey in Arizona

To the gourmand,

There are meals, and there are memorable meals.  And the memorable ones are the more precious by virtue of their poverty of frequency.  As Joseph Wechsberg, the author of the celebrated Blue Trout and Black Truffles, wrote in 1962, "I've had memorable meals in my life but never too many in succession, and there are often long, lean months between these festive occasions."

Truer words, my good fellow.

There are meals that are outstanding in my memory - a blazing fire, the conversation and forks moving excitedly, the laughter going on long, the companions seated at the table hours after dessert has been set aside and the candles wilt low in their holders.

Food is, above all, a time of communion.  I've discovered that it is very difficult for me to eat alone - I need the presence of someone else to share the delight with, to enjoy the moment, to savor the company of one engaged in what is not only a most rudimentary need for survival, but also one of the most highly refined pleasures society can offer.

I know I am not alone in this, and it makes sense that in this light many of our favorite food memories are necessarily centered not on the exquisite tableau of food itself, but rather the delight that the company offered.  Tonight, it is raining outside, and cold.  Thanksgiving is drawing close, and this stirs my memories to a dinner from last November which shall forever stand as one of my all-time favorites.  The food, in my recollection, was astoundingly good and filling.  The company, above all desirous.  The setting, never to be reconstructed in its singular exceptionality.

On the way down southwest, we took the scenic highway through California
and drove through the redwoods and along the coast. 

It was only a day past Thanksgiving, and Mr H and I were making a long drive home from spending that cibarious holiday with family in the the southwestern United States. We were stopping in Arizona that night, on a high desert plateau at a quiet, clean rest stop.  Temperatures were at freezing outside, but because we were in the spirit of adventure we didn't mind sleeping in the car.  We hung towels, sweatshirts, and every piece of spare fabric we could find from the mirrors, the window-handles, and stuffed into every frosty crevice the car offered.  While Mr H assembled this contraption, I went outside the car and opened the trunk. Inside was a cooler replete with leftovers from the Thanksgiving orgy of food.  I pulled out a hefty slab of cheddar cheese, a huge turkey breast, and a pan of pumpkin pie.  With these chilled items in my hands, I shuffled back into the car and we turned the heater on again to warm up.

Dinner was succulent, rich.  We were hungry.  We tore the cold turkey with our hands and ate it with broken-off hunks of cheese.  We scooped the pumpkin pie with a spoon and shared the utensil, leaving the crust in the pan with the cold turkey fat, leaving some leftover turkey in there, too.  We ate until we were full and we stashed the rest for morning.  Together, happy, content with the company of each other, with satisfied bellies and slightly greasy fingers.  We ran the the engine again to heat the car, talking, chuckling at our sleeping quarters, swathing ourselves in a shared quilt and snuggling into icy pillows.  Between dinner and dawn, we woke several times to run the engine again and heat the frosted car.  By morning, the towels were frozen to the windshield, we were frozen together, our feet were solidly numb, and the turkey had to be broken out for breakfast.  That didn't matter - as cold as we were, we were plenty warm.

What is your memorable meal, and what made it so?

Mrs H
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