Thanksgiving Leftovers

Part of the fun of making a Thanksgiving dinner is trying to figure out how to use up the leftovers. You can only have a leftover turkey sandwich so many times before it gets boring. I got pretty creative this year. I made Herb Turkey and Asparagus Risotto.

This was made with turkey stock that I made myself from the leftover turkey bones. It was so full of flavor and delicious.

I also made Turkey Enchiladas. I made them exactly like I would chicken enchiladas with a red sauce, but I used turkey instead of chicken. Easy!

I ran out of turkey a lot faster than I thought I would, but there is always one thing that I have leftover long after everything else is consumed: cranberry sauce. I love making my own fresh cranberry sauce and I keep it simple: cranberries, diced apple, sugar, water. Boil. Cool. Eat. I think I'm the only person that ever eats it, so I always have a ton leftover. I'm determined to use it up this year so I made some cranberry muffins.

These are really yummy. Connor is a muffin-fiend and has eaten two in the last hour. I mostly followed this recipe from Two Peas and their Pod, but I changed a few things. I used juice from an orange instead of orange zest. (My orange had already been zested for a previous dish.) The batter is REALLY thick (we're talking almost cookie dough consistency), so I would add more milk or orange juice to thin it out. The thick batter makes a dense hearty muffin, which may or may not be desirable to you, but it does make for quite a beautiful, rounded muffin top. I also cut the sugar back by a few tablespoons. I find myself doing that for most recipes and I can hardly tell the difference.

The muffins are delicious. I recommend you give them a try if you have some cranberry sauce to spare. I have a Christmas party to attend tomorrow, so next I want to try this Cranberry Orange bread recipe:

Mmmmmm......