Creative meals with holiday leftovers

Everyone has them, the turkey, the ham, the mashed potatoes, miscellaneous vegetables, cakes, pies, and cookies. What you do with them depends on the people you share your holidays with. If you are sharing your meals with family and friends,  you will want to share your bounty.

There are several ways to make sure that all the leftovers are used and enjoyed. One way is to send everyone home with some of them. One of the best ways to do this is to use Chinese takeout boxes. These are available online and at local party stores and discount outlets. They are inexpensive and come in several sizes, one of which is sure to be perfect for every member of your party.

Within one box you can package a single serving of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy. You can also pack a small container with cookies or candies. Ham and scalloped potatoes also make an excellent leftover container.

After you have given away as much of your leftovers as possible make sure that the rest of them are placed in containers in your refrigerator as quickly as possible to keep them fresh. When you open the fridge door, it can sometimes be overwhelming to look at all the containers and try to think of what to do with them. It is a good idea to look for recipes before the holidays for dishes to utilize the main items in your menu.

If you have items that were purchased and never opened such as dinner rolls and or pre-made pies and they are things that you won’t use on your own, you can make a call to your local soup kitchen. In my area, they will not take anything that has been opened or cooked. These days, they are obviously just as vulnerable to being sued as everyone else is. Any opened food is a liability that they are not able to take advantage of.

Casseroles and soups are two of the meals that are the best for using leftovers. One of my favorites is turkey pot pie. The pot pie uses leftover turkey, peas, creamed onions, gravy, and stuffing. The turkey carcass can be turned into a turkey soup. This will, of course, be after you have eaten as many turkey sandwiches as you can tolerate.

Ham is perfect for ham salad sandwiches, ham omelets and frittatas, ham and scalloped potato casserole and the proverbial ham sandwich.

With a ham bone, some dried yellow peas, an onion and some summer savory you can fill your crock pot with water, go to work and come home to a delicious pea soup.

If you have leftover rolls you have several choices. You can grind then up and make bread crumbs or you can just take the pieces and throw them outside for the birds. Another good use is to make a bread pudding. All you need is milk, eggs, sugar, raisins, cinnamon and vanilla extract and you have a very memorable dessert.

Mashed potatoes can be made into fried potato cakes. Pan fried in butter these are great for breakfast or as a side dish.

The next time you have a surplus of holiday leftovers, don’t panic. Pack it up, give it away and make enough meals to feed your family for several weeks. Everyone will have a happy holiday and beyond.