The Best of Thanksgiving–Leftovers Edition

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Hi Wickeds. Everyone knows Thanksgiving includes the famous feast, but one of my favorite holiday traditions is the day and even the weekend after the big event when we have that best part of the Thanksgiving holiday–leftovers.

So spill it, Wickeds. What is your favorite after-Thanksgiving treat? Besides revenge, what is the dish best served cold?

Jessie: I love to make an open-faced stuffing waffle sandwich. You spread leftover stuffing onto a preheated waffle maker and bake until hot and crispy. Then you make a sort of turkey salad filling. I mix some mayo, a spoonful of cranberry sauce and a dollop of chipotle in adobo sauce together with chopped, leftover turkey. I pile it onto the stuffing waffle and eat it with a knife and fork. Delicious!

Julie: Jessie, I need to try that this year! It sounds delicious. I love it all. We make roasted root vegetables that are great all for the next meals, and work well in sandwiches too. I make GREAT candied yams, but they rarely make it to the left over stage, and are best warm. And of course, the desserts are better the next day, especially when you have room to really enjoy them.

Liz: My Thanksgiving dinner is usually comprised of sides since I don’t do turkey. I love to make lots of roasted veggies , which are good either warmed up or added to salads. And also, pumpkin pie!

PiesEdith: Pie for breakfast! I always make three kinds, and usually two pumpkin pies, so we have leftovers. Yum. And I love my mother’s bread stuffing: torn up bread, onions and celery sauteed in loads of butter, poultry seasonings like sage and rosemary, and chopped walnuts. I like it so much I can eat it cold the next day.

Sherry: I love to make a casserole of leftover stuffing, turkey, and some gravy. It’s heaven. It’s something my mom always did and her stuffing is the best.

Barb: Pie for breakfast the day after Thanksgiving is a favorite of my kids and their families. I usually make an “extra” apple pie and leave it home when we go to my sister-in-law’s. But my favorite is a turkey sandwich, the best part of Thanksgiving dining for me.  Toasted white bread, mayo, turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce. Yum!

Readers, which leftovers are your favorites? Leave a comment for a chance to win a hardcover copy of Murder Flies the Coop by Jessica Ellicott!

Published by Barbara Ross

Barbara Ross is the author of the Maine Clambake Mysteries and the Jane Darrowfield Mysteries. Her books have been nominated for multiple Agatha Awards for Best Contemporary Novel and have won the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. She lives in Portland, Maine. Readers can visit her website at www.maineclambakemysteries.com

65 Thoughts

  1. Jessie: that stuffing waffle sounds delicious! Living alone, I mostly microwave, but I might dig out the inherited waffle iron and mix up a batch of stuffing to try it.

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  3. We always have left over meat pie (a French Canadian tradition)…its so good cold in the morning, and reminds me of my Grandparents who started the tradition. Have a great holiday all!

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  4. I love the stuffing in the waffle iron idea. My favorite thing on Thanksgiving day is the stuffing. On the day after, I love making a traditional club sandwich (three slices of bread) with bacon, lettuce, tomato on one part, and gobs of turkey on the other. Served with potato chips and toothpicks, of course, just like in old fashioned department store tea rooms.

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  5. Cranberry sauce is my favorite (although all the options you’ve given sound delicious too)!! Getting fresh cranberries while living overseas was very difficult, and I am not a fan of the jelly in a can. Cooking a double batch this morning just to be sure of leftovers!

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  7. Oh my word, Jessie! What a day-after treat! I will dream about that all day!
    I mostly have a nice turkey sandwich the next day, as most everything else has been eaten! If I am lucky, there may be a slice of pie for breakfast!
    I do hope each of you Wickeds and your families have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

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  8. Leftover dressing and a turkey sandwich is the best for me. The dressing waffle sandwich sounds delicious, and I might have to give that a try!

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  11. A tasty turkey sandwich the day after with mayo and Swiss cheese is always welcome. A side of frozen cranberry salad and a slice of pie completes the day for me. Thanks for the chance to enter your giveaway.

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  12. Pie for breakfast is wonderful if I can resist eating it all the night before! Stuffing is a wonderful leftover warmed up or eaten cold.

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  13. The mashed potatoes and turkey are usually the only things I’m interested in reheating. Love them!
    Happy Thanksgiving, ladies!!!

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  15. Any leftover stuffing with a bit of gravy is my favorite any time of the next day…but there isn’t always leftover stuffing. I wish I had a waffle iron to make that idea.

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  18. Mine is an artery clogging turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce sandwich. On white bread with mayo of course. I think that I am already drooling.

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  20. My sister makes a really good cranberry orange relish and I could eat a bowl of it for breakfast the next morning. I am not a fan of Turkey so we usually make pork schnitzel for Thanksgiving and it’s good as leftovers too.

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    1. A turkey is WAY too much food for our little family, so I fix a portion of a ham. We love leftover ham because you can do so much with it. I always have plenty to cube for the must make for her split pea soup for our daughter when she comes home for Christmas.

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  25. Since I was at my sister-in-law’s, I have no leftovers but I bought turkey drumsticks so will eventually have my own turkey sandwiches. I put butter on the bread as I did when I was a kid but now I throw baby spinach on all my sandwiches. Also plan to make my sister-in-law’s mother’s cranberry relish, which I usually eat for dessert. I’m very fond of leftovers since they take less time to prepare. Just jazz them up a little.

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  28. Leftovers???? Isn’t that what you send home with everyone that came to eat? 🙂 Actually, it was only hubby and I this year and we chose to grill a steak, bake a potato, saute some onions to feast on. Stuck with tradition with the pumpkin pie that hubby requested. We have gotten use to cooking for two so there were no leftovers other than the pie when we got up to wash the dishes. YEAH! Sounds like pie for leftovers which works for me.

    I will say though when we have a traditional Thanksgiving feast, one of my favorite dishes is my take on the green bean casserole – Green Bean & Shoepeg Corn Casserole. It has grated cheese, water chestnuts, onion, sour cream and celery soup in the casserole along with the added shoepeg corn and then a crumble topping of Ritz crackers and melted butter. LOVE this stuff and can it eat it hot, room temperature or right out the frig as a leftover.

    Thanks for the chance to win a copy of “Murder Flies the Coop” by Jessica Ellicott!
    2clowns at arkansas dot net

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  29. OMG, I am going to buy a waffle maker right now. Stuffing is my favorite and that sounds so delicious. Cold turkey sandwiches are a favorite, and I have a few recipes cut out of magazines years ago when the kids were small. One everyone asks for is Turkey Devonshire (wherever that name came from), kind of a strata, toast, a sauce made of leftover gravy, milk and swiss cheese, layered turkey and crisp bacon. Each new generation loves it. Happy Holidays!

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  33. Turkey noodle soup, and the turkey bones cleaned, dried, and painted with gold paint as a sleigh for Santa. Now that I think about it, you could probably even use last year’s Easter Bunnies in gold paint and felt antlers to pull the sleigh. Sorry. It must be a sugar high from the pecan raisin pie.

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  35. Mine is the yams that are left over they are so good with their sweet juice that is included with the dk meat of the turkey so good!

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  36. I am so darn bummed..I just found this email!!! Ugh!!!! I absolutely love Murder in a English Village! I hope to get Murder Flies The Coop for Christmas, if not, then will get for myself from my hubby! I love cranberry sauce, for me a must have with turkey leftovers or not..I like it on my turkey sandwiches.

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