Post-Thanksgiving Day Turkey Treat

Cooking the traditional centerpiece of a Thanksgiving meal is easy; the directions come with the bird. But what do you do with the leftover carcass? There’s a lot of good meat on it, well worth the time to cut off that meat and transform it into a big pot pie, or a casserole. The remaining not quite bare skeleton can be cut up so it will fit into a stockpot if it’s large, or cut up and put in a gallon-size freezer baggie, frozen and stored to make soup stock later.

You can probably get two or three cupfuls of diced meat and turkey bits from the turkey carcass. That’s enough to create a lovely Turkey Tetrazzini. I’m pretty sure I’ve given you this recipe before, but not in the past four years since I don’t find it in my records of what was published when. So here it is:

 Turkey Tetrazzini
  4 to 6 servings
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
 
2 to 3 cups turkey meat pieces
½ lb. shell pasta or linguini
1 Tbsp. olive oil
½ lb. sliced mushrooms
½ cube butter or 1/3 cup coconut oil
3 Tbsp. white wine, optional
½ cup slivered almonds
½ cup pitted small black olives

Cook the pasta. Drain it and toss it with the olive oil so it won’t stick together. Gently stir the turkey meat into half of it. Put that half of the pasta into a casserole. Brown the mushrooms in the butter or coconut oil. Stir in the wine, if using. Stir in the olives. Stir into the remaining half of the pasta. Set aside while you make the sauce below.

Sauce:
3 Tbsp. butter or olive oil
2 Tbsp. flour
2 cups chicken broth or 1 can Campbell’s condensed chicken broth diluted with water to make 2 cups
Salt to taste

 Melt butter or heat olive oil to shimmering. Add flour and stir cook until it changes color. Set aside to cool somewhat, or heat the chicken broth and then stir it into your flour roux. Stir cook until the sauce thickens. Divide the sauce between the pasta with the turkey meat and the pasta with the mushrooms.

Top the casseroled pasta with the pasta and mushroom combo. Sprinkle with sliced almonds. Bake 20 minutes or until well heated through. Garnish with small parsley sprigs if desired.