The Chatty Homemaker

Finding joy in every day life with a large family

A New Spin on Thanksgiving Leftovers

Celebrating Thanksgiving at our house

For the past ten years or so our family has celebrated Thanksgiving at our house and everyone usually shows up. This year was much different. We had invited everyone in the family and our church family as well. Everyone was excited as usual, to indulge in all the from scratch goodness that comes from our kitchen.

Then Thanksgiving Day came and one by one people started to call and give one excuse or another as to why they would not be able to come. I had cooked a 25lb turkey, 15lbs of potatoes, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy, 2lbs of homemade creamy, gooey mac and cheese, pies and cookies, and so on. In short there was a ton of food. We had a total of four people show up and eat, and not one of them touched any dessert!

Figuring out what to do with all the leftovers

Needless to say we had a ton of leftovers. Once the kids and I figured out how to fit all that food into the refrigerator and cleaned the kitchen and dinning room I began to brainstorm some ideas on how to use them up quickly. Since there were so many, I tried to come up with ideas that would incorporate as much as possible into each meal.

The first few nights we did normal stuff like turkey manhattans and gnocchi. One night though I thought I would do a turkey pot pie to use up a lot of different things. The more I thought about it, the more I began to change my mind about how to put it together. Finally I decided to just press the stuffing onto the bottom and sides of a large baking dish then throw in whatever I could. Such as the corn, carrots, celery, cranberries and of course the turkey. I then added my leftover gravy to a cast iron pot. Then added a bit of cream and a bit more flour to make a creamier gravy for the “pot pie”. Then I poured it over the top of everything else in the baking dish.

At this point I had thought about making a biscuit dough and placing some biscuits on top. Or just doing a pie crust top, but my husband called and said he was getting off work early. So, in order to have dinner on the table when he arrived at the house I decided to just leave it open on top.

My husband gives my creation a new name

We had the table set and the food on it ready to eat when Aaron came in. None of us knew exactly how this was going to taste but we all agreed that it smelled amazing. Aaron couldn’t wait to taste it and he was the first to do so. He had his almost gone and was about to go back for seconds before I ever took my first bite. He as well as our 6 children, who are not still exclusively breastfed, loved it! I have to say I did, too. It was creamy, savory and absolutely delicious.

My husband, looking into his food, turned to me and said, “You can’t call this a pot pie though, it’s much better than pot pie. I think you should call it Hoosier Gumbo.” So, we decided that is what we are going to call it. If you would like for me to add to this post the full recipe telling exactly what I put in it and all please leave a comment letting me know and I will do that.

One response to “A New Spin on Thanksgiving Leftovers”

  1. […] As I explained in my last post, we had a ton of food on Thanksgiving and not a lot of extra people to help eat it. Today I am going to share with you what I made after the creation of “Hoosier Gumbo.” If you missed that post please read it here. […]

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