Christmas leftovers

foxgloves

Have made lots of lovely thick turkey stock, turkey & ham pie, turkey chilli, turkey stew, ham pasta bake with stilton crumbled into it, sausage casserole (leftover cold chipolatas) and a belgian cake to use our leftover mincemeat. No Christmas pudding left over this year, but last year, I crumbled it up with bread & made bread pudding squares. Oh......leftover cream went in the pasta bake & the pie. Lots of pie filling so froze half of it to top with mashed potato and have a different sort of pie later in the month. I love leftovers and would be genuinely gutted if there weren't any!

twinkle_star_2

What can I do with a big jar of leftover mincemeat? It's already been opened so I can't keep it for next year.

Fond as I am of mince pies, I think I need something else to use up the remaining mixture.

rachbc

I'm using mine to do an apple and mincemeat crumble - to have with the 10p brandy cream I got inwaitrose alst night!

lostinrates

Any ideas for an imaginative way to use up lebkuchen/chrsitmas biscuits in pudding? I mustn't have them and my father groaned when I offered him a couple with coffee while he was here today...it would be nice to present them in a different way and get them gone now till next year

sausagesandwich19

lostinrates wrote: »

Any ideas for an imaginative way to use up lebkuchen/chrsitmas biscuits in pudding? I mustn't have them and my father groaned when I offered him a couple with coffee while he was here today...it would be nice to present them in a different way and get them gone now till next year

mini trifle type things crushed served with some sort of cream on top?

foxgloves

I make belgian cake with any leftover mincemeat.

thriftmonster

I made mincemeat buns this year - just a standard fairy cake recipe (weight of 2 eggs etc) with a couple of spoons of mincemeat stirred in - yummy. I also make a big tart - pastry shell, layer of mincemeat and then a sponge mix on the top - sort of Christmas Bakewell.

PipneyJane

Someone on the Christmas thread said "buy a turkey crown since there is less waste", :eek:which struck me as absurd because my Christmas Dinner philosophy is to roast the largest bird I can afford/fit in the oven or freezer precisely because I WANT leftovers. Since we did our Christmas Dinner last night, on Christmas Eve, (and I've got 5 minutes to myself this morning) I thought I'd tell you what I plan to do with our leftovers and share a recipe.

We roasted a goose, so have left over meat, chestnut stuffing and roast potatoes. Usually, I'd make a nut roast for today (either carrot and hazelnut or parsnip and cashew nut), which will be served with extra roasted veggies and cold meat from the roast. However, this afternoon, we're off to my mother-in-law's for the night, because she didn't want to leave the cat for more than 24 hours (she came to us last night), so that plan is out the window.

On the "Boxing Day" stretch of my post-Christmas leftovers plan, we'll have a cooked breakfast around lunchtime and meat and stuffing sandwiches for tea, after which I'll process birdy for the freezer. Birdy is usually a turkey but it won't be much different with this year's goose, except there will be less meat. I'll strip all the meat off the bird, chop it into bite-sized lumps and bag it in freezer bags, 250g at a time which is enough for any recipe that feeds 4. They'll go into the freezer until I fancy something that calls for "chicken". If there is any stuffing left over, it'll get turned out of the carcass and stuck in a bowl in the fridge for more stuffing sandwiches. This year, I've got a friend coming over for dinner on the 27th, so some of the goose will become "Goose Pad Thai" (sauce from a jar, sorry).

I'll make stock with the bones, gibblets and neck together with the remains of the roasted garlic and any leftover HM gravy. They go into the stock pot with an onion (roughly chopped), a carrot (ditto), a couple of peppercorns, and a couple of cloves of garlic. Cover with water, bring to the boil and simmer for 4-6 hours over the course of that evening or the next. When the liquid has decreased by more than half, I'll strain off the bones, etc, possibly boil the stock down a bit more before allowing it to cool and solidify so that I can scrape off the fatty top. The stock will go into the freezer in re-used soup pots. The fatty top will go in my "fat bag" in the freezer until the next time I rend fat (it currently contains the fat I removed from the goose before roasting). I'll pick off any remaining meat from the bones, bag that labelled as "stock meat", freeze and use it later in the year for a scorchingly hot vindaloo or something else strongly flavoured. (Got to be careful doing this - small bones almost dissolve after a few hours in the stock pot, so don't get over-enthusiastic.)

The fat I drained off the goose while roasting is currently in the fridge. Since it is already rendered, it just needs "washing" (a technique I picked up from a wartime cookbook). To do that, ensure the fat is in a heatproof bowl and pour boiling water over it. Put back in the fridge and allow to harden. Any impurities will wash into the water under the fat. Lift off the "lid" of hard fat, scraping the underside as necessary to remove any crud. Put the fat into a large saucepan, preferably one that has a pouring spout, and heat until it stops bubbling/spitting (that signifies any remaining water has been removed). Pour into tupperware containers and refrigerate or freeze. It'll now keep indefinitely. Use as cooking fat. (To rend the fat in the fat bag, I'll dump it frozen into a separate baking dish next time I do a roast. The fat will melt leaving some golden, crispy crackling bits, at which point I'll strain the fat off into a bowl for processing as above, dust the crackling with salt and pepper and fight my husband for nibbling privileges.:rotfl:)

Just in case anyone thought that turkey leftovers had to be boring, here's a recipe. This one is from my non-kosher repertoire. It's a Filipino dish that serves 4 but can be scaled up quite easily. Serve over rice.

Pipi-An

Ingredients

250g cooked turkey (or 400g raw chicken, cubed)
150g bacon trimmings
1 large onion chopped
75g mushrooms sliced
2-3 carrots, sliced
1 green pepper, sliced or diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
6 tablespoons crunchy peanut butter
1 teaspoon ground chilli
2 tablespoons soy sauce
300ml boiling water
1 chicken stock cube
1 can of chopped tomatoes

Method

1. If using fresh chicken, put it into a small saucepan, cover with the boiling water, add the chilli and the stock cube and simmer for 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, heat the bacon in a large pan and dry fry until all the fat has rendered out of it. Add the onion and fry until clear, then add the mushrooms, green pepper and the garlic and fry until the mushroom water has evaporated.
3. At this point, either pour in the chicken and it's stock as cooked in point 1 above or add your leftover turkey, boiling water, chilli and the stock cube. Stir in the remaining ingredients and bring back to the boil.
4. Simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the sauce is thickened and the flavours blended. Serve over rice.

adelight

I'd never heard of rendering fat before, do you think it will work for duck fat? I have a mug of that in the fridge that would be brilliant for roasting veg in future.

In my house we always have turkey curry, a very simple one with shredded turkey, ginger, mushrooms and a thin tumeric heavy sauce. Not exciting but it's tasty, we usually have that on the 27th and turkey with cheese and pickles on the 26th.
I've asked my Mum to save the giblets for me as she usually throws them away. I'm going to freeze the neck and then use it for stock. I'm going to be eating so much soup in the new year with turkey stock, duck stock and fish stock!

bramble1

Our left overs go to the dogs for their Xmas dinner! There's never much left..