Turkey melts

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Yes, another post about what to do with the leftover turkey. Not from me - this is the first time I've posted since Christmas, but just generally, there are tonnes of ideas about what to do with the leftovers. And rightly so. Even having reduced my Christmas food shopping list to a minimum, bearing in mind that we weren't entertaining anyone on Christmas Day itself, my fridge is groaning with food.

I weighed up the pros and cons of buying a truly local bird, or getting a free range Copas turkey from the local butcher. In the end, the butcher won. I like buying meat from him. It's always great, he gets great fish for me too, and what's even more valuable, he tolerates my indecision when I have failed to meal plan, sympathises with me generally about life, and occasionally allows me to owe him if I've forgotten my purse. For all these reasons, he wins out when such choices have to be made.

I ordered the smallest turkey I could - which still ended up being 4.8 kilos. Very tasty it was, if I do say so myself. There seems to have been a mind shift about cooking turkey - gone is the requirement to be up at 5 a.m. to 'put the bird in', leaving it to cook for hours on end. I stuffed mine with a made up mix of sausage meat, grated onion, finely chopped parsley and the zest of 2 lemons, covered the breast with streaky bacon, and sat it all on some roughly chopped onion, bay leaves and rosemary which all helped to add flavour to the gravy. It took less than 3 hours, and sat comfortably under some foil while I sorted the rest of the meal out. Marvellous.

The Husband and I agreed that we would take a practical approach to the leftovers this year. As the big move draws ever nearer, there's no room to be stashing things away in the freezer - I'm meant to be emptying it - so we decided that we would keep the leftover meat in the fridge, and if it didn't get eaten in a few day, well, we'd just (gulp) throw it away.

But strangely, I've been even more zealous in my attempts to use it up than I would normally have been.

We had the traditional cold version of the turkey dinner on Boxing Day with my father in law and his partner: cold turkey, cold sausages, cold cranberry sauce, cold gravy - but hot bubble & squeak (yum).

Yesterday, turkey sandwiches for lunch.

Today, turkey melts. This idea came to me while I was writing an online article about using up turkey, and I thought I'd give it  go. Turns out, it was definitely a good idea.Not only was it a slightly different way to eat up a bit more of the turkey, it also used up some of the cheese. Now, as an aside, while the concept of 'too much cheese' is not one I am necessarily familiar with, it would be fair to say that there is currently rather a lot in the fridge.

8 soft tortillas
250g chopped turkey meat
4 spring onions, finely chopped
grated chedder, crumbled blue cheese, whatever you have

Heat a non stick frying pan, and lay a tortilla into it. Sprinkle some chopped turkey, spring onion and cheese over half the tortilla

 and fold the other half over the top of it. You should then be able to get another on in alongside depending on the size of your pan and the wraps you are using.

Warm till the underside is toasted brown, then flip over and toast the other side till the cheese is melted. Leave to cool a little, then serve.

I can also recommend making this omitting the spring onions (and, if you've run out the turkey)  including any cranberry saauce you happen to have lying around. Spread your half tortilla with the cranberry, and sprinkle over some turkey and crumbled/slice cheese. Camembert is good for this, as is Cambozola.

Toast on both sides as before, then devour. Mmmmm.
 

As a result, we're now down to one dish of leftover meat. And tonight - it's turkey pie. At this rate, we may avoid curry altogether.