Thanksgiving dinner was awesome!  I love how this meal comes together when we have these big meals with our friends.  I also love how everyone has a buddy at the meal.  We go way back to preschool for the little one, but we've been doing Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter Dinners for so long like this I don't remember not doing them this way.  We also do the Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day barbecue thing too.  Love that as well!   The great thing about Thanksgiving turkey is  the leftovers to work with.  Historically (ok, for the past 35 years or so), DH has only eaten Thanksgiving leftovers.  Usually with Turkey Frame soup and Turkey in some other meal (like Monday's Turkey Curry).  We'll see if I can get this to go a bit further than I've gotten in years past.

Last night after dinner had been served, I cut off all the visible meat from the turkey and put it in ziploc bags in the fridge.  We had a 14 lb turkey which fed 8 people (we had 9 at dinner, but Miss L is pescatarian and had salmon).  I had 2 quart bags with enough turkey for 2 meals.  I broke up the carcass and put it in my 16 qt. stockpot.  I added a box of carrot sticks left from the week, a quartered onion and the carrot peelings from dinner prep, onion and celery trimmings from the stuffing prep that I had bagged up earlier in the day along with 1 1/2 gallons of water.  I brought it to a boil and turned the heat down to simmer and simmered it for about 4 hours.  The result was 1 1/2 gallons of the most gelatinous turkey stock I've seen in recent years.  I strained it into a smaller stock pot (8 qt.) and let the solids from the pan cool down so I would be able to pick the meat off the bones.  Again, I ended up with 2 generously full quart bags full of boiled turkey.  I took the stock out today and spooned about 4 ladles (approx 2 cups or so) into a 2 qt saucepan.  To that I added a handful of chopped turkey from the soups stock, 2/3 c. cooked rice from earlier in the week I had frozen, a rib of diced celery, 1/2 a diced small onion, a generous pinch of dried thyme, the leftover carrots from Thanksgiving (diced up), and 1/4 t. garlic salt.  The result was some yummy soup for Miss M for tomorrow's lunch.   That's my "Turkey Frame Soup" in a nutshell.  A bonus meal, plus turkey stock to use in place of the chicken broth in my Turkey Curry recipe.  Totally frugal, and totally a free meal.

Monday I'm making Turkey Curry.  This was our meal from the Turkey breast meat I'd cut off and freeze to use later.  I'm not freezing it this time since I'm using it Monday.

Turkey Curry
1 T. butter
1/2 c. diced celery
1/2 c. chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
4 1/2 t. flour
4 t. curry powder
1/4 t. ground ginger
1/4 t. salt
1 1/2 c. chicken broth
1/4 c. + 2 T. evaporated [NOT condensed] milk
3 c. cooked cubed turkey
1 red apple, cored &  diced
1/2 c. golden raisins

In a large saucepan, melt the butter.  Saute the celery, onion and garlic until soft; sprinkle with the flour, curry, ginger and salt; cook 3 minutes.  Stir in the broth and milk; bring to a boil, reduce heat.  Add turkey to the saucepan.  Simmer, uncovered, 5 minutes.  Stir in apple and raisinss; cook 5 minutes.  Serve over hot cooked rice.  Serves 4-6.  

I'll post my other recipes for the week tomorrow night.