by Ashley
I know you’re probably getting sick of hearing about Thanksgiving by this point, but I wanted to write one last Thanksgiving-themed post to tell you about how far our Thanksgiving food stretched this year…
From a single meal we were able to serve:
- 3 adults + 2 kids for lunch on 11/27
- 5 adults + 3 kids for dinner on 11/27
- 1 adult + 2 kids for lunch on 11/28
- 1 adult + 2 kids for lunch on 11/29
And still going strong….
I finally had to eat something different for lunch yesterday (11/30), but I packed up and froze enough leftovers to feed our family (2 adults + 2 kids) a full Thanksgiving dinner for some future meal. And we still had an extra serving of sweet potato casserole for some future meal side-dish (now frozen) and extra turkey leftovers that I’m planning to make into turkey-noodle soup tonight (same recipe as chicken noodle soup, but using leftover turkey & turkey broth).
In my conversions, 2 kids = 1 adult (in terms of portion size), so our Thanksgiving dinner made 17.5 servings, not including the leftover sweet potatoes and turkey noodle soup planned for tonight.
Not too shabby to get nearly 20 meals out of a single dinner!
Also, I wanted to thank you guys for the tip on saving leftovers! I don’t mind eating leftovers but in years past I’ve never thought to freeze any uneaten Thanksgiving leftovers. I think I’ve eaten leftovers for a couple days, then the rest sits around in the fridge until it eventually goes bad and/or gets thrown out. I’m excited to get every bit of use out of the leftovers this year (saves money and cuts down on food waste!) I’m particularly proud of myself for saving all the turkey broth. This is something I never used to do, but since I’ve started blogging I’ve been saving chicken broth anytime I’ve cooked a full chicken (tip: although most breast meat is at least $2.50/lb.+, you can often find full chickens priced at as little 88 cents/lb.) I like to cook a full chicken in the crock pot and I’ve learned to save any chicken drippings and/or broth for future cooking. Flavorful AND frugal! : )
Hope you all were able to stretch your Thanksgiving into many meals, too!
Any other tips for saving food so leftovers don’t go to waste? I have a friend who posted a picture on Facebook of a “Thanksgiving leftovers” quiche with potatoes, stuffing, eggs, turkey, and cheese. Thought that was pretty creative, too!
Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Freshly 40, married mother of two, working in academia. Trying to finally (finally!) pay off that ridiculous 6-digit student loan debt!
Forgive me if you’re doing this, but you can also MAKE broth from the carcass of your chickens/turkey. I save veggie scraps in the freezer every time I peel carrots, chop onions and peppers, and I save the stems from broccoli and asparagus. I throw them in the crock pot all day with the bones and at the end of the day I have broth from kitchen trash! It makes a ton. I make chicken soup the next day and either use it for Spanish rice the next or freeze the rest.
This is so genius! I’ve used the bones/carcass before to make broth, but I’ve never thought to save my veggie scraps! I love this idea! Not only does it squeeze every dime out of the food items, but it makes super flavorful and super cheap broth!
You might want to tell your husband you’re doing it! I think my husband thought I had gone off the deep end when he found my bags of “trash” in the freezer. Lol. I finally harassed him so much that he now gets the latest bag out when he cooks, too, and puts the scraps in there.
I save some of my veggie scraps for stock too, but you might want to be careful which you use. I find that stronger flavors like broccoli and peppers can really overpower a broth. This would be okay for veggie soup or something like that, but not a welcome addition to a sauce or gravy, at least for me. I like a simpler stock, so I only save carrots, celery, and onion, and sometimes a few parsley stems or a little dried out garlic, but even these can be too much if not used sparingly. As a bonus, the outside skins of yellow onions give the broth a lovely yellow tint.
We made Turkey pot pies with some of our leftovers and a can of refridgerated biscuit dough for the “crust”. We made them mini-sized in muffin tins. They turned out yummy!