Fall is Falling! and the Weekly Specials with Mary Anne

Summer finally arrived – briefly – and now it’s back to cooler weather again tomorrow. I have to admit the idea of cool and less humid is very appealing. I love Fall weather – cool nights and brisk days and blue skies. And have you noticed that the leaves are starting to fall already?

What makes it official, though, that it’s almost fall is that Marsh has pumpkins for sale. Honest! Already! It’s one thing for them to be at the Farmers Market, but on sale at a grocery store? Don’t worry, though. I’m not going to be talking about how to cook them today, though there are some recipes here for things to do with pumpkins that don’t involve making pumpkin pie…

Marsh has pie pumpkins for $1.99 each. These are smaller than field or jack-o-lantern pumpkins and better for making pies or using in other dishes. Gala apples and Bartlett pears are $1.29 a pound. Family packs of boneless skinless chicken breasts are $1.88 a pound, as are pork chops. Milk is $2.99 a gallon, but if you buy five of a various things you can get a dollar off of each of them, bringing the price down to $1.99 a gallon.

Kroger has broccoli crowns, Roma tomatoes, and romaine and red and green leaf lettuce for 99 cents a pound. Two heads of cauliflower or celery are $3.00, or $1.50 each. Iceberg lettuce is 99 cents a head. Bone-in turkey breast is $1.29 a pound and chicken wings are $1.99 a pound. Milk is $2.69 a gallon. Cottage cheese is $2.29 for 24 ounces and cheese is $3.79 for twelve to sixteen ounces.

Aldi has green and red grapes $1.98 for two pounds, or 99 cents a pound. Navel oranges are $2.49 for three pounds, or 83 cents a pound. Avocados are 49 cents each. 32-ounces of non-fat Greek yogurt is $3.89.

And there’s still lots of great produce available at the Farmers Market. If you receive Food Stamps, don’t forget that you can exchange up to $18 of food stamps for up to $36 of Market Bucks, effectively getting your produce, meat, eggs, and dairy for half-price.

It’s way too early to be thinking about Thanksgiving turkeys, either, though turkey breast is on sale this week. That’s ok, though – just the turkey breast. I can handle that all year long. And better to be talking about it now than closer to the big day.  If you think about it, turkey is just another kind of meat. It’s really the side dishes that make it seem Thanksgiving-y. So let’s steer clear of candied sweet potatoes and green bean casserole and pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce for now, shall we?

I did some looking around online, and came up with an average size turkey breast is between 4 and 8 pound and that you should buy about half a pound of turkey per person. SLOW COOKER TURKEY BREAST calls for a six-pound turkey, so that falls right in there, and should make about twelve servings, or three meals for four people each. Each serving will cost about 70 cents a serving, or $2.80 for four servings. A bit less if you make your own ONION SOUP MIX, a bit more if you a commercial mix. Don’t throw out the cooking liquid when you cook the turkey breast! It makes a great soup.

Let’s start with hot sliced turkey, broccoli, and CARROT SALAD. The turkey is $2.80, a pound and a half of broccoli is $1.50, and the Carrot Salad is $1.30, for a total of $5.60 for four servings, or $1.40 per serving.

The second meal will also be sliced turkey breast, either hot or cold, with FAUXPOTATO SALAD and sliced tomatoes. (What on earth is Fauxpotato Salad? It’s just potato salad made with cauliflower instead of potatoes. Sound strange? Well, remember that I don’t eat potatoes. Oddly enough, cauliflower makes a pretty good substitute. You could make your own potato salad, but at least try your recipe once with cauliflower instead of potatoes!) The turkey breast is still $2.80, the Fauxpotato Salad is $1.75, and a pound of Roma tomatoes is 99 cents (let’s call it $1.00), for a total of $5.55. How about half a pound of grapes to go with it, which brings it to $6.05. You can back off a bit of either grapes or tomatoes to get rid of that extra 5 cents and bring it back to $6.00 or less for four people, or $1.50 per person. How much Fauxpotato Salad you’re going to get depends on how big your head of cauliflower is, but I’m assuming you’re going to get at least four cups of florets from half a head of cauliflower.

The third meal will be a leftovers kind of meal. You should have roughly a third of the turkey breast left, but it might be in scraps instead of nice slices. No problem. Use it to make EASY CHICKEN DIVAN, but use turkey instead of chicken and use fresh broccoli. You could use a combination of broccoli and cauliflower if you wanted to, or even all cauliflower for a different dish. It depends on how big the heads of cauliflower are. Either way, it should make six servings and cost about $6.90, or $4.60 for four servings, if you use CREAM OF WHATEVER SOUP MIX. At least another dollar if you use canned soup. Add half a head of lettuce, a couple of Roma tomatoes and some salad dressing for a whole meal for right around $6.00, depending on how much salad dressing you use.

Budget Lunch

And finally, there’s the cooking liquid from slow cooking the turkey breast. I hope you didn’t throw it out! Skim off the fat (optional) and add enough water to make between four and six cups. Heat it and add half a head of cauliflower (about six cups). Cook it until the cauliflower is very soft, puree it in a blender or food processor or using a stick blender (Don’t have any of these? Borrow a food processor or stick blender from MHC’s Hub Tool Share Program. It’s free!) Add a cup or so of half and half and you’ve got about ten to twelve cups of really tasty soup. Enough for four good sized servings at a cost of about $1.15, or less than 30 cents each! That’s figuring that the cooking liquid is free, since we’ve counted all the cost in the turkey. Instead of using the cauliflower you could use the leftover Easy Chicken (Turkey) Divan, which would bring the cost up to $2.70, or about 70 cents per serving. Myself, I’d save the Turkey Divan for another meal and make the cauliflower soup. But it’s up to you. Just be sure that you don’t toss the cooking liquid from the turkey!

Even with pumpkins and turkey on sale, it’s much too early to be thinking about Halloween, let alone Thanksgiving. But turkey is much too good to bring out only on holidays. Enjoy it all year long, when it’s on sale.

Happy Eating!

---Mary Anne---

What Do We Do With the Veggies, and the Weekly Special with Mary Anne

Marsh has meat this week. Family pack assorted pork chops are 99 cents a pound. Hormel Cure 81 Spiral Sliced Half Hams are 99 cents a pound. Sugardale hams (water added) are 69 cents a pound. And they have iceberg lettuce for 99 cents a head. These prices are good through next Wednesday, February 26.

Aldi has some great buys on produce. Green peppers are three for $1.49. Mushrooms are 99 cents for eight ounces. Roma tomatoes are 99 cents for twenty ounces, or 80 cents a pound. Red potatoes are $1.89 for five pounds, or a little less than 40 cents a pound. Onions are 99 cents for a three pound bag. These prices are good through next Tuesday, February 25.

IGA has turkey breast for $1.19 a pound. Ten pound bags of chicken leg quarters are $5.99, or 60 cents a pound. These prices are good through next Sunday, February 23.

Kroger has their regular one-week sale and also a special four-day sale. The four-day sale ends Sunday, February 23. On sale for those four days they have milk for $1.98 a gallon (limit 2) and ten pound bags of russet potatoes for $1.98, or 20 cents a pound (no limit). On sale for the week ending Wednesday, February 26, they have iceberg lettuce for 99 cents a head and leaf lettuce for 99 cents a pound. Celery is 99 cents a head and Roma tomatoes are 99 cents a pound. Ragu spaghetti sauce of various types is $1.29 a jar after a 50 cent discount for buying six of various things. Split chicken breasts (including bone and skin) are 99 cents a pound. Various cheeses are $3.49 a pound. Cottage cheese and sour cream are $1.99 for 24 ounces. 

I’ve given recipes for all of the types of meat that are on sale this week, so I’m going to do something a little bit different. I’m going to focus on the veggies instead of the meat. I’ll still give recipes and menus that come in at about $1.50 per serving for the whole meal, though, and they will all include meat. I just won’t limit myself to one kind of meat.

The first recipe, SMOKEDSAUSAGE AND PEPPERS uses Bar S Smoked Sausage that’s $3.99 for two and a half pounds, or $1.60 a pound, this week at Marsh. There are a few different kinds at this price. I’m going with the Polish sausage. In case you’re wondering why I say to cut the sausage on the diagonal, it’s because it makes the pieces look bigger! This will cost about $5.15 and will make four servings. You could add a lettuce salad and stay under $6.00. Or a can of fruit. Or carrot sticks and dip. Or you could add some more veggies to the sausage and peppers. Carrots would be good, or cabbage, or mushrooms.

One of my favorite vegetable dishes is MUSHROOMS AND ONIONS. It seems to go over well with guests, too. It goes with just about any kind of meat. Here I’ll pair it with pork chops. You’ll think this makes a huge amount, but because the mushrooms and onions cook down so much you’ll end up with a lot less than you expect. It makes four servings as a side dish. With the mushrooms and onions on sale, it will cost about $2.50. Add four 8 ounce pork chops for another $2.00, and a salad of iceberg lettuce, carrots, green pepper, and a diced Roma tomato for another $1.50, for a total of about $6.00.

And finally, PEANUT STIR-FRY. You can use whatever meat you want with this – IGA’s turkey breast or chicken leg quarters, or Marsh’s pork. It's the PEANUT SAUCE that's important here. Let’s go with the pork, shall we? Pork is so good in a stir-fry and goes well with peanuts, too. You can use pretty much any vegetables you have on hand. I just chose these because they’re on sale and the colors look nice together. Broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower are good in a stir-fry, too, as are fresh green beans, tomatoes, zucchini, etc. Pretty much anything goes. This will come to a little over $5.00 and will make a lot. You shouldn’t need anything to go with it.

Isn’t it great when veggies go on sale? These are good, but I can hardly wait till summer!

Thanksgiving Leftovers

Happy Thanksgiving! We’re getting this out early this week because the Hub will be closed on Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving.

I’ll start with this week’s specials, and then give you some ideas of things to do with your Thanksgiving leftovers. By the way, did you hear that the average cost of a full Thanksgiving dinner for is under $50? And, according to the news story, that’s without using sales prices! I find that hard to believe. I had a hard time keeping my Thanksgiving dinner for 12 under $50 and I DID use sales prices.

But anyway, on to the sales. Watch the dates that the sales are good for. They’ve changed some because of Thanksgiving.

Marsh has “over 20 different varieties” of Washington or locally grown apples for 98 cents a pound in half peck bags. I’m not sure how big that is, but based on the size bags you usually see I’m assuming somewhere between 3 and 5 pounds. They have pork chops for $1.29 a pound and fresh ground beef (73% lean) for $1.99 a pound. Cucumbers and green peppers are 88 cents each. There are five $1 off “write your own coupons” that are good with a $10 purchase. I assume that requires at least $50 to use all five coupons. These prices are good Friday through Wednesday. They also have a deal on select gift cards – you get $20 off your next grocery purchase when you buy $100 or more in select gift cards. I don’t see any special dates for this, so it’s probably also good Friday through Wednesday.

Aldi still has 3 pounds of sweet potatoes for $1.49, a pound of baby carrots for 89 cents, 10 pounds of russet potatoes for $1.89 (Did you get a chance to try the roasted root veggies that were demoed last week? They were fantastic! Ask for the recipe the next time you go in.), a head of celery for 89 cents, and a 3 pound bag of onions for 99 cents. A 15 ounce can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling, just pumpkin) is 89 cents. Cans of cream of mushroom and cream of chicken soups are still 49 cents each. Aldi’s prices are good from last Sunday through next Wednesday. They’re closed on Thanksgiving Day. They had some beautiful poinsettias when I was there on Monday. I think they were $1.99 each, but maybe they were $3.99. I wasn’t really paying attention. Eggs had come up to $1.49 a dozen on Monday.

Kroger has boneless pork loin for $1.77 a pound. That’s all I saw in their ad (which was very small). Their prices are good from 7 a.m. Friday through next Wednesday. One thing that may be good for other shopping – they’re giving 4x fuel points for gift card purchases. This deal is good now through December 11. Don’t forget that fuel points usually expire at the end of the month, so unless you need gas between now and Saturday, you might want to wait until after the first of the month if you plan to buy gift cards there.

OK, so what do you do with your Thanksgiving dinner leftovers? As I said in my earlier THANKSGIVING column, I had eleven people for Thanksgiving dinner a couple of weeks ago. There were lots of leftovers. Dinner plus the leftovers cost $47.21. My goal was to make a total of at least thirty meals from the ingredients for Thanksgiving dinner. Eleven of those meals were Thanksgiving dinner itself, so I need to come up with another nineteen meals. I didn’t quite make it. Sixteen meals for sure, but you’d have to squeeze pretty hard to get the whole nineteen. Unlike my usual columns, my Thanksgiving menus do include bread (in the dressing) and potatoes.

Let’s start with what I have to work with. I had the following leftover ingredients:

A dab of whipping cream – about a fourth of a cup or so

Half a head of celery

6 pounds of potatoes

A cup of chopped walnuts

4 eggs

3 onions (a pound and a half)

4 ounces of cream cheese

More than half a liter each of diet and regular cranberry soda

That’s the leftover ingredients themselves. There were lots of leftovers, too. Things that had been cooked or otherwise prepared but not eaten:

About 12 cups of TURKEY (it’s hard to believe that there’s that much, but I measured it into freezer containers and that’s how much there is)

A couple cups of CREAMED SPINACH

Most of a pound of frozen peas (they weren’t very popular this year)

About 4 cups of MASHED POTATOES

A cup or so of SWEET POTATOES

About five cups of APPLE/CELERY/GRAPE/NUT SALAD

About a cup of GRAVY

A couple of cups of drippings and broth

About 3 cups of CRANBERRY SAUCE (I forgot to put it on the table)

A couple of cups of STUFFING

Most of a PUMPKIN PIE

About 2 cups of WHIPPED CREAM

The first thing to do is to make WALDORF TURKEY SALAD. This makes a good lunch dish. Make and eat this the day after Thanksgiving, because the apples don’t last very long once they’ve been cut.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with just plain leftovers. For four servings, reheat about 4 cups of leftover TURKEY and two cups each of MASHED POTATOES, STUFFING, and peas. If there’s not 2 cups, just use however much there is. Reheat the GRAVY, too. Each serving is 1 cup of turkey, and half a cup each of mashed potatoes, dressing, and peas, plus some gravy. Serve with the CRANBERRY SAUCE.

Next make TURKEY, BROCCOLI AND SPINACH CASSEROLE, using some of the turkey and the leftover creamed spinach, plus the last of the whipping cream and cream cheese.

  

The last thing to do with Thanksgiving leftovers is to make CARCASS STEW. It uses up the leftovers that you haven’t done something else with, so make it after you’ve made the other turkey leftovers meals. It's soup or stew made with broth from the turkey carcass and any leftovers you have left. A similar thing to do is to make TURKEY AND NOODLES. Like Chicken and Noodles, but with turkey instead of chicken. 

I just ran across this recipe for SHAKER CHICKEN PUDDING, which should work just as well with turkey instead of chicken. You do have to buy the mushrooms, but you should have everything else left from Thanksgiving. You’d have to make this instead of something else, of course. But it does sound good.

So there you have it. Sixteen or more servings made from just the leftovers plus a few carrots and a pound of frozen broccoli. The carrots cost about 35 cents ($1.39 for 2 pounds, or about 12 carrots, at Aldi) and the broccoli 99 cents (at Walmart). Which brings the total cost of Thanksgiving dinner for eleven plus sixteen more meals to $48.55. Twenty or more meals if you add a package or two of noodles. There’s still some leftover pumpkin pie and whipped cream, too, which you can add to any of these meals. And lots of potatoes that you can use to stretch any meal, and some eggs and celery and onions.

The only way I was able to stretch the holiday budget this far was because it did include a lot of carbs or “fillers” – especially the dressing and the potatoes. But then, they’re part of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, too, right?

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and thanks to you for reading my columns!

Turkey Breast, and the Weekly Specials with Mary Anne

No one has much in the way of specials this week except Marsh. Marsh has “family packs” (about 5 pounds each) of ground beef for $1.99 a pound, and Perdue split chicken breasts (with the skin and bone) for 99 cents a pound. I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure that boneless skinless chicken breasts are cheaper if you bone and skin them yourself than if you buy them already boned and skinned. And you get the skin to make Chicken Chips out, and the bones to make chicken broth out of. Boning and skinning them is really easy. Assorted pork chops are $1.79 a pound and, Saturday and Sunday only, they have bone-in turkey breast for 99 cents a pound. Nothing special when it comes to veggies, but that’s a nice assortment of meats on sale.

Aldi has milk for $1.69 a gallon, and Kroger has pork loin for $1.99 a pound, but that’s about all in the way of advertised specials. I did find eggs for $1.29 again at Aldi, and pie pumpkins for $1.98 each at Walmart.

Turkey is new here, so let’s go with that. I’ll start by giving a couple of different ways to cook the whole breast, and then a couple of recipes for using the leftovers. Of course, you can use cooked turkey in most recipes that call for cooked chicken.

A turkey breast is a great alternative to a whole turkey if you’ll just be feeding a few people. Figure on about 8 to 10 ounces of turkey, before cooking, per person, if you don’t want any leftovers. Figure about a pound of turkey per person if you’re cooking a whole bird. And don’t limit it to just the holidays. Turkey is good year round.

If you’re looking for a traditional roasted turkey, like for the holidays, try ROAST TURKEY BREAST WITH GRAVY, though of course you don’t need to make the gravy.

Assuming you use homemade chicken broth that you made from chicken bones and carcasses, this should cost about $6.60, and, again, should make about 10 servings. If you don’t want to make gravy, save the vegetables and de-fatted drippings for soup. Save the fat from the drippings to cook with.

The easiest way to cook a turkey breast is in the slow cooker. It doesn’t look as nice as if you roast it in the oven, but it’s easy and usually gives moist meat. SLOW COOKER TURKEY BREAST makes good leftovers for salads, sandwiches, soups, and casseroles. In fact, if you’re like me, you’ll be cooking the turkey more for the leftovers than for the first time around. To make the most of the leftovers, start by cutting off the two big chunks of meat on either side of the breast bone. Try to keep it in two pieces (one from each side) as much as you can. Slice one half across the grain for recipes that call for sliced turkey. Dice the other half in 1/2” to 1” pieces to use in salads and other recipes that call for diced or cubed turkey.

The turkey itself will cost about $6.00, and the soup mix, if you make it yourself, will cost about 25 cents, for a total of about $6.25. It should yield about 10 cups of diced cooked turkey, or about 62 cents per cup, plus some great turkey broth.

So, one way or another, you’ve got the turkey breast cooked. Now what are you going to do with the leftovers? The easiest thing, and something I do quite often, is to make a salad out of it. It can be as basic as TURKEY AND CELERY SALAD or as fancy as TURKEY WALDORF SALAD. Or you could make a Cobb-type salad with it, or a chef-type salad. Or whatever else you can come up with!

This makes four servings, and, to be honest, have no idea how much it costs because I haven’t priced walnuts or raisins lately. Or apples, for that matter. I’m pretty sure, though, that it’s under $6.00, or $1.50 per serving.

One more recipe, for a supper dish this time. I don’t know where I got the recipe that evolved into BROCCOLI, SPINACH AND CHICKEN CASSEROLE, but I do know it’s good and easy. And, of course, it works just as well with turkey as with chicken. In fact, I think it started as a turkey recipe.

This casserole costs about $5.60, and makes 4 servings, at $1.40 each. It’s a good meal by itself, or you could add some carrot and celery sticks for another 25 cents or so. You can make a good soup by thinning leftovers with some chicken broth, or with turkey stock from cooking the turkey breast.

Stay tuned for more recipes using leftover turkey as we get closer to Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Turkey Loaf

(based on a recipe from Jane Brody’s Good Food Book)

1 T vegetable oil

2 t minced garlic (2 large cloves)

1 c finely chopped celery (2 large stalks)

1/2 c chopped onion

1 green pepper, chopped

½ lb thinly sliced mushrooms

1-1/4 lb ground turkey

1 egg white or 1 whole egg, lightly beaten

1/2 t salt

1/2 t freshly ground black pepper

Dash nutmeg

1/2 c minced fresh parsley or 2 T dried parsley flakes

In a large skillet, heat the oil briefly and saute the garlic, celery, onion, and pepper, stirring the vegetables until they are slightly softened, about 3 - 5 minutes. Do not let them burn. Stir the mushrooms into the vegetable mixture, cover the skillet for a few minutes until the mushrooms start to give up their moisture, then remove the cover and saute the vegetables, stirring them, until all the liquid has evaporated. Remove the vegetables from the heat and set aside. In a large bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients. Add the vegetables and combine the ingredients well. Put turkey mixture in a lightly greased loaf pan (approximately 8x4 inches) and bake loaf for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Let the loaf rest for 15 minutes, then remove it from its pan for slicing. 

Cajun Turkey Seasoning

(bbq.about.com)

4 T salt

4 T onion powder

2 T garlic powder

2 T red pepper flakes

2 T paprika

1 T ground oregano

Mix ingredients together. Rub over the surface of the turkey (or, in our case, chicken), inside and out. Try to work the rub in under the skin. Let sit for about two hours before cooking. Can be used on all poultry (like chicken leg quarters) no matter how it’s prepared, but the recipe comes from the bbq page of the site. Store in a cool dark place.

Pork and Peanut Stir-Fry

You can use whatever meat you want with this – IGA’s turkey breast or chicken leg quarters, or Marsh’s pork. Let’s go with the pork, shall we? Pork is so good in a stir-fry and goes well with peanuts, too. You can use pretty much any vegetables you have on hand. I just chose these because they’re on sale and the colors look nice together. Broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower are good in a stir-fry, too, as are fresh green beans, tomatoes, zucchini, etc. Pretty much anything goes.

2 lbs pork spareribs

3 T oil

2 peppers

3 carrots

8 oz mushrooms

2 onions

PEANUT SAUCE (recipe follows)

Start by preparing the meat and vegetables. It goes together quickly once you start cooking, so you want to have everything ready before you start.

To Prepare Ingredients:

Remove the meat from the bones and cut it into thin slices, about 1/2”x1/2”x2.” Basically, you want matchstick shaped pieces, as tall as they are wide. The length of the pieces will depend on the size and shape of the pork chops. Set the pork aside. Save the bones to make bone broth.

Remove the seeds and stem from the peppers and slice them about the same size as the pork strips. Peel the carrots and cut them on the diagonal into 1/2” slices. Peel the onions, halve them through the stem and root ends, and cut them into 1/2” slices. Clean the mushrooms (the experts say to wipe them with a damp cloth, but I rub them gently under running water) and slice them into 1/2” thick slices. If the mushrooms are big, halve them before slicing.

Make the PEANUT SAUCE (recipe below)

To Cook the Stir-Fry:

Heat the oil in a big skillet or wok. When it’s hot, add the meat and keep it moving around in the pan until it’s done. Not necessarily browned, just done. Remove the meat. Add the carrots and onions to the oil and drippings in the skillet and toss them around for a couple of minutes, then add the mushrooms and peppers. Remember you want the meat in a stir-fry to be crisp-tender, and they’ll cook a little bit more after you add the meat and sauce. (If you like your veggies soft, go for it! Just cook them a few minutes longer. I won’t tell.) Add the meat and sauce and toss it over the heat just until the meat is heated through and the sauce is evenly distributed. Add water a tablespoon at a time if you need to thin the sauce.

PEANUT SAUCE

(A Cookbook for the Financially Challenged, by Alexandra Pauley)

½ c smooth peanut butter

2 T soy sauce

2 t minced garlic (or 1 T garlic powder)

1 t chili powder

1 t minced fresh ginger (or 1 t powdered ginger)

Combine everything and pour it over the cooked meat and vegetables. Toss well to coat. You may need to add a bit of water to thin it, but wait and see how it works once it’s on the meat and vegetables. There may be enough moisture in them to thin it enough.

Harvest Stew

from Stephanie O'dea of A Year of Slow Cooking

Ingredients
1 pound lean ground turkey or chicken
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 chopped garlic cloves
1 can kidney beans, rinsed
1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped
3 red potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 acorn squash, peeled and chopped
1 whole can tomatoes
4 cups chicken broth
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp all spice
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Use a big crockpot for this stew, or cut the recipe in half. Guess what? I didn't brown the meat. If you are using extra lean ground turkey or chicken, there really isn't a need - the only worry about using beef or pork is the fat content. If you prefer those types of meat, or already have it on hand, brown on the stove top and drain before adding to the stew.

I used my mom's microwaving-the-squash trick for cutting the acorn squash, and it worked. It worked so well, I'm not scared to buy squash anymore. I microwaved it on high for 2 minutes. It sizzled and freaked me out, but it cut easily, and I used a paring knife to cut away the skin.

Peel and chop all of the vegetables, and add it to the crockpot. Break up the ground meat with your fingers and add it in. Dump in the kidney beans and the can of tomatoes and chilis. Add the broth and the seasonings. Stir well. It will look like there isn't enough liquid, but more will be made from the vegetables and meat. I promise.

Cover and cook on low for 7-9 hours. I cooked ours on low for exactly 8. It was perfect 

Turkey Creole Soup

(adapted from a recipe in Recipes from Minnesota, With Love)

4 stalks celery, diced

1 medium onion, chopped

minced garlic to taste (about 2 cloves)

1/4 c cooking oil

4 c chicken or turkey stock

1 can diced tomatoes

1 green pepper, diced

2 c cooked, diced turkey (or chicken, for today’s recipes)

8 oz frozen peas

1 T dried parsley, or 2 T minced fresh

1 t dried thyme leaves, or ½ t powdered thyme

1 bay leaf

2 t dried basil

Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté celery, onion and garlic in oil until tender.  Add stock and bring to boil.  Add remaining ingredients.  Reduce heat and simmer uncovered about 15 to 20 minutes.  Adjust seasonings.

Shaker Chicken Pudding

(adapted from Old Shaker Recipes, from Bear Wallow Books, 1982)

2 c cooked chicken (or turkey)

1 c fresh sliced mushrooms

1/2 c diced onion

1/2 c thinly sliced celery

1 t salt

1/4 t pepper

1 t dried rosemary

2 c chicken stock

5 eggs, beaten

1 T butter, in slivers

Dash nutmeg

Preheat oven to 325. In a baking dish, combine chicken, vegetables, salt, pepper and rosemary. Mix well. Combine chicken stock with beaten eggs and pour them over the chicken and veggies. Dot the top with slivers of butter and a dash of nutmeg. Place baking dish in a pan with 1” hot water. (Put the larger pan in the oven and add boiling water, then the baking dish. Don’t put the water in the pan and then try to move it to the oven. You’re likely to splash hot water on yourself.) Bake at 325 for 50 – 60 minutes.

Turkey and Noodles

(Part of the LEFTOVERS from my THANKSGIVING DINNER for 12 for under $50)

To get the very last meal out of the Thanksgiving leftovers, make Turkey and Noodles. Like Chicken and Noodles, but with turkey instead of chicken. This was my aunt’s signature dish. Make it like CARCASS STEW, but add a pound or two of noodles to the broth. Homemade are best, of course, but probably more effort than you want to make right after Thanksgiving. I like curly noodles, but whatever you like – or whatever is cheapest. Meanwhile, boil up some more potatoes, and mash them. You serve the turkey and noodles over the mashed potatoes. Talk about carb heaven comfort food! You can really stretch the last of the leftover turkey this way, because the broth gives a strong turkey flavor to the noodles even if there wasn’t much meat left. You should be able to get more than four servings of Turkey and Noodles, because you’ve got the noodles and the potatoes to stretch it. It depends on how much water you used to cook the bones. In fact, if you really need to stretch it, make the Carcass Stew up through taking the meat off the bones, but save the bones. Put the bones back in more water, add a couple of tablespoons of vinegar and some more salt and pepper and poultry seasoning, and simmer them all for at least twelve hours, and up to 24, or even 36. You’ll be amazed at how much flavor was left in the bones. You can use this turkey broth, along with the leftovers, to make Carcass Stew, and use the first bunch of broth to make Turkey and Noodles. That’s really stretching things, but both meals should still be good even if they don’t have quite as much flavor as if you just make one meal out of the carcass. 

Turkey Carcass Stew

(part of the LEFTOVERS from my THANKSGIVING DINNER for 12 for under $50)

The last thing to do with Thanksgiving leftovers is to make CARCASS STEW. It uses up the leftovers that you haven’t done something else with, so make it after you’ve made the other leftover meals. After you’ve picked most of the meat off of the TURKEY bones (and I do mean most of it!), make turkey broth out of the carcass. Put the bones, an onion, and a couple of stalks of celery in a big soup pot, then add enough water to cover the bones. You should have at least six cups of water, and eight or ten cups isn’t too much. Add a bay leaf if you have it, and some poultry seasoning, salt and pepper. Add any leftover drippings, too, that you didn’t use to make the GRAVY, and the broth from cooking the turkey neck and giblets. Bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer at least a couple of hours. Pour the broth through a strainer (Don’t forget to save the broth! I did once. I carefully poured it all through a strainer and right down the drain. I’d forgotten to put a big bowl under the strainer.), wipe out the pot to be sure there are no tiny bones left in it, then pour the broth back in the pot. Add the leftover GRAVY, MASHED POTATOES, STUFFING and peas. Leftover SWEET POTATOES are good in it, too, as is a bit of CRANBERRY SAUCE. Not too much cranberry sauce, though. No more than half a cup or so. Add a cup or two of sliced celery and a chopped onion or two. Bring it back to a boil, then simmer it for about 30 minutes. You could add a chopped carrot or two or three. Meanwhile, take the remaining meat off of the bones. You’ll be amazed at how much meat there was left! Add the meat to the soup. You should end up with 10 or more cups, depending on how many leftovers you had. If there weren’t very many leftovers to put in it, dice a few potatoes and add them when you add the celery, onions and carrots. This should make at least four very generous servings. 

Turkey, Broccoli and Spinach Casserole

(part of the LEFTOVERS from my Thanksgiving Dinner for 12 for under $50)

3 or 4 cups of leftover turkey, diced

The leftover creamed spinach

1 pound frozen broccoli

4 ounces cream cheese

1 cup chopped onion

Cook the frozen broccoli with the chopped onion. If it was chopped broccoli, great. If it wasn’t, run it quickly through your food processor before you cook it so it ends up as chopped broccoli. If you process it after it’s cooked it’s likely to turn to mush. Combine everything and mix well. Put it in a casserole dish and bake it for about 40 minutes, or until it’s hot and bubbly. 

Waldorf Turkey Salad

(part of the  LEFTOVERS from my Thanksgiving Dinner for 12 for under $50)

The leftover apple/celery/grape/nut salad plus enough sliced celery to make 5 cups

3 cups leftover turkey, in large dice

1 cup cranberry sauce

Combine the leftover salad, the celery and the turkey. Add the cranberry sauce and mix it well. Add some more mayo if it needs it. Sprinkle each serving with some more chopped walnuts. If you have some lettuce, you could put each serving on a lettuce leaf.

Dressing

(Part of my Thanksgiving Dinner for 12 for under $50)

I chopped two onions and thinly sliced about a quarter of a head of celery, then sautéed them in a quarter of a cup of butter. I added them to stuffing mix and some broth from cooking the neck and giblets. (Actually, since I don’t eat grains, I cooked the celery and onions with some sausage and mushrooms, and didn’t use any butter or broth. Most people wouldn’t recognize what I made as dressing, but it serves the purpose as far as I’m concerned.)

Turkey Gravy

(Part of my Thanksgiving Dinner for 12 for under $50)

I took most of the drippings from the turkey and skimmed off some of the fat. I put the drippings in a skillet. Then I mixed a couple of tablespoons of flour with some water and added that to the drippings, stirring constantly. I added some salt and pepper and poultry seasoning and that’s it. (Actually, because I don’t eat any grains, I used another kind of thickener, but flour is what’s usually used.)

Roast Turkey

(Part of my Thanksgiving Dinner for 12 for under $50)

I thawed the turkey, then put it in one of those oven bags. I rubbed a couple of tablespoons of butter over the skin and under the skin on the breast, then baked it for about 3 hours. I find that the turkey comes out a lot moister when I roast it in the bag, even though it doesn’t look quite as nice. But it’s cut up before it goes on the table anyway (mangled is more like it, the way I carve it!) so it doesn’t really matter that it isn’t as pretty as if it had been roasted out of the bag. The time that the directions with the bag give are pretty close, and quite a bit shorter than if you roast it out of the bag, so be sure to use those directions and not the ones that come with the turkey itself.

Broccoli, Spinach and Chicken Casserole

16 oz frozen chopped broccoli

16 oz frozen chopped spinach

3 c cooked diced chicken or turkey

8 oz cream cheese

2 T butter

Salt and pepper to taste

Cook the broccoli and spinach a little less than the package calls for, and drain very well. (Squeeze the spinach to get rid of as much water as you can.) If you remember in time, save the water you drained from the veggies to make into soup later. Add the rest of the ingredients, and stir well. Put it all in a shallow baking dish and bake at 350 until it’s bubbly and starting to brown on top. 

Turkey Waldorf Salad

3 c diced cooked turkey (or chicken)

1 c thinly sliced celery

1 – 2 apples, quartered and sliced

½ c chopped walnuts

½ c raisins

½ c mayo

2 t lemon juice

2 t sugar or equivalent sweetener

Combine the turkey, celery, apples, walnuts, and raisins. In a small bowl, combine the mayo, lemon juice and sweetener (or just use a Miracle Whip type dressing). Add the mayo to the turkey and apples and mix well. If raisins have too many carbs for you, just leave them out.

Turkey and Celery Salad

1 c diced cooked turkey (or chicken)

1 c thinly sliced celery

3 T mayo

1/2 t lemon juice

1 t sugar or equivalent sweetener

Mix it all up and eat it! You could use a Miracle Whip type “mayo” and skip the lemon juice and sugar.