Great 'Use of Xmas Leftovers' Hunt

snottyotty

Serves 4-6 depending on your appetite.

Very rich, very filling, very popular with my family.






FILLING

Turkey, ham, spring onions, garlic, olive oil, prawns, salt & fresh ground black pepper, tbs chopped mixed herbs.
Cannelloni tubes.

Cheese sauce

3-4 tbs cornflour, 1 oz butter, approx 1-1.5 pints of milk 1 - 1.5 lbs STRONG chedder, (n.b. never cook with something you wouldn't eat/drink on its own) grated parmesan cheese for the topping

Finely chop all the filling ingredients, in a medium sized heavy bottom pan fry all in the olive oil until the onion and garlic are soft leave to one side while making the cheese sauce.

Make a roux with the cornflour and butter, make sure you give enough time for the flour to cook or it will go lumpy when the milk is added, dont have the heat too high either or the butter will caramelise (Go brown) turn the heat right down and add the milk stirring all the time, until it reaches a pouring consistancy. Add the cheese, stir until melted ( try it, you may want to add more cheese at this stage.)
Add approx. 1/4 of the sauce to the filling, or enough to bind and allow it to be piped into the cannelloni tubes.

Fill the tubes with the mixture, (I use a piping bag for this, but in the past have been known to use a large funnel and a chopstick or wooden spoon handle!) place in an oiled shallow oven proof dish and cover with the remaining cheese sauce. Sprinkle with the Parmesan and garnish with whole prawns. (I add a little sprinkle of paprika for colour but its up to you.)

30 - 40 mins gas mark 5 electric 190

Serve and enjoy! ( or not as the case may be ):j

Happy New Year!

Trow

Soup.

It's dead easy. You can make stock from the carcass first if you want.

You then bung in all the leftover veg - mashed potato, roast parsnips, sprouts, whatever.

As usually it is all already cooked, bring to the boil, whizz with a blender and you are there.

You can add lentils to bulk it out or whatever you want, really.

nictay_2

I was determined to find a more delicious leftover meal than just heated up or turkey/ham sandwiches, so I did a pasta bake which was delish!

Cut up as much ham and turkey as you need, it turned out I should have put more in than I had thought, so more the better I reckon. I'd say 2 1/2 heaped cups is good, although 3 wouldn't hurt!

Boil 450g dried pasta, any is good, I used shells so the bits of meat would sit inside the little shells. Make a big pot of cheese sauce (750 mls) and pour over the drained cooked pasta and stir in the meat.

Turn it out into a greased oven proof dish, sprinkle cheddar and a bit of parmesan over the top and grill for 10 minutes until golden and bubbly.

It is quite calorific, but the best use of Christmas leftovers I've tried, and if you can't do it in the holidays then when can you!

Enjoy!

lowreyd

I went out of my way to find lovely tomatoes this year, red ones, not insipid wintery ones. And didn't use them! So they were the good side of squishy, and I had some other bits knocking around - shallots I had bought for something and only used four etc etc. So, I made pasta sauce. Its a passatta recipe, but you can make it coarser and just use it as a sauce. Cut your tomatoes in half - leave cherry toms whole, bung them in an oven tray, put in anything like onions, shallots and garlic (peel and slice or roughly chop) you have. I also had a red pepper, so chopped that up aswell. Any nice herbs that go with Italiany things, I had some basil, which works well, but thyme, rosemary etc also work. Pour over about 50ml, or a couple of tbsps of olive oil, or veg oil if its what you have. Sprinkle over 1tsp of salt, a good grind of pepper and 1 tsp of sugar.

Put it in the oven at around 180 deg for about an hour, or until everything has softened up a bit. At this point I put it through a passatta maker, but you can push it through a sieve with a spoon. Or just chop it and use it if you don't mind skins in there.

YOu can make this kind of thing by just cooking it all in a pan of course, but the roasting makes it taste lovely.

I bottled it, a I am geared up for preserving, but you can freeze it in bags. I had about 500g of tomatoes, and it made a 500ml jar. If you just want to use it, it will keep in the fridge for up to about four days.

i also had mushrooms, all kinds of bits of cheese, a few eggs, bit of cream, so made a quiche which we had for tea last night. Also freezes well.

If you have sprouts and such like left hanging around - fresh, not cooked - just blanche them in boiling water for about a minute, let them cool and bung them in the freezer in bags. I obught far too much cauliflower, sprouts and broccolli, so I've frozen it to use during January.

Most things will freeze, if in doubt, give it a try.

Diane

ClaireN75

mineallmine wrote: »

Turkey curry, Balti style. Pataks do curry pastes/sauces that Jamie Oliver recommends in one of his books. I used the Balti one (there's also Tikka Masala, Korma, etc). Add a third of the jar to your diced turkey (I like to leave it to marinate). Meanwhile fry a chopped onion, add the meat and fry until sealed. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes and some water until you get a consistency you like. Cook for about half an hour. Serve with bread or naan bread.
:T

This is my favourite, but I also add any leftover gravy to the curry, it makes it taste even more delish!

Butti

Obviously you don't need to cook the turkey from scratch.

12oz turkey/chicken
4oz raw ham/gammon
4-6 oz onion
4oz button mushrooms
1oz unsalted butter + 1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp paprika
pepper
1/4 pint soured cream
1/4 pint dry white wine or vermouth
2-3fl oz water
1-2 tsp cornflour

Cut chicken/turkey and ham into strips
Heat butter/oil and fry meat
Remove from pan
Add onions to pan and cook 2-3 mins
Stir in mushrooms and wine
Put meat back in pan
Cook slowly for 5 minutes
Blend in a basin - cornflour, water, puree, cream, paprika, pepper
Add mix to pan, bring up to boil and simmer for 2-3 mins
Check seasoning and serve with rice

B

humblebumble_2

Cooked up some pasta, added basil pesto, sun dried tomatoes and the last of the turkey chopped up, served with some salad leaves. Yummy!! (Festive colours too!)

Margaretlane

I made a type of cottage pie.
Chop up turkey and left over bits of ham and bacon. Add a can of condensed mushroom soup and some water(half a can). Heat for a while then strain through a seive saving the juice. Put in a baking dish and top with left over mashed potato. Put in an oven, 180C, for about 30 mins. Serve with either leftover veg or new cooked veg.

Gemm85

I gave some of our leftover turkey to the cats, but the rest I used in Toasted sandwiches with a mixture of cheese and spagetti hoops

welshsue

I made a rather yummy pie yesterday with leftover turkey, pork sausagemeat and sprouts.
It was very straightforward, I chopped up the turkey, sprouts, sausagemeat and some leek and fried off in a wok to heat through and brown slightly.
Then made a basic white sauce with 1oz of butter, 2tbsp flour and 1pt of milk, when it was thick, added 2 crumbled chicken stock cubes and poured over the turkey mix.
Mixed it all well, then placed it all into a large rectangle dish and topped with shortcrust pastry. Brushed the top with milk and cooked in the oven at 190c for approx 40 mins.
It was absolutely delicious and my eldest son went back for 2nd's and then 3rd's.
Great way to use up leftovers and you could put whatever you wanted into it.