Just After Christmas ~ the Biggest Leftover-Fest of the Year!

OK chaps, time to stop lying around the place, let’s get to it.

This is the biggest leftover fest of the year; something that I and other food writers always bang on about just after Christmas but, you know, every little helps especially when it comes to help with eating really well!

Here are some ideas ...

Leftover Turkey

Firstly remove all the good usable meat from the turkey and use it in one of the following ways.

Turkey Fritters / Rissoles / Cakes

Finely chop leftover turkey and mix with leftover mashed potato. Form into cakes and shallow fry till crisp.

Turkey Curry 

... but not necessarily as you know it, Jim – see here for a quick, easy and different recipe. 

Turkey Sandwiches 

Obviously, with added stuffing and cranberry sauce OR they are good with  cranberry and Brie OR, as in this case, with roasted butternut squash.

Turkey Carcass

See here for  how to use every part of a chicken and act appropriately. Then maybe make some ...

Turkey Soup

I like to make this with leeks but onions work well too.

1 large leek or onion
1 tablespoon olive oil or butter
2 large potatoes
turkey stock
reserved turkey scraps

~   Toss the leek or onion in the oil in a soup making sized pan over low heat.  Press a butter wrapper or piece of foil directly on top without burning yourself.  Cover the pan and cook gently till very tender.
~   Peel and thinly slice the potatoes and add to the pot.
~   Pour over just enough stock to cover the potatoes, bring to a boil, turn back to a simmer, cover the pot and cook till tender.
~   Mash the potatoes into the broth or you could run through the food processor for a smoother finish.
~   Add some cream if you wish. 
~   Taste, season and only now add the turkey scraps to the hot soup just to heat through.

This soup is based on my genius recipe which I have written a whole book on!

Leftover Gravy

~   This freezes well and, in fact, if you are also freezing some turkey meat it will fare particularly well if you freeze it in the gravy.

~   Stir leftover gravy into the soup above or use it in a turkey pie.

~   If your gravy is particularly delicious (and I trust that it is – if not see here to ensure that it is superb next time you make some) then serve hot as a dipping gravy – maybe alongside the turkey sarnies.

Leftover Stuffing

Boxing Day Fritters

Roll leftover stuffing into balls, flatten and put a spoonful of cranberry sauce in the middle, reform the ball enclosing the cranberry sauce completely. Dip in flour, egg and breadcrumbs and deep fry till hot, crisp and golden. Eat carefully as the cranberry will be very hot OR, if you’re scared of hot sauce, form the stuffing into cakes, fry till crisp and serve with cranberry sauce.

Make stuffing balls or sausage shapes and use instead of real sausages in Toad in the Hole. 

Add to turkey pies, sandwiches etc.

Leftover Bread Sauce

~   Another thing that is good to add to turkey sandwiches.

Bread Sauce Stuffed Mushrooms

Remove the stems from large open mushrooms and brush inside and out with oil. Fill with the bread sauce, sprinkle with soft fresh breadcrumbs and bake at 400ºF/200ºC/180C fan/gas 6 for 15-20 minutes till hot through and the top is crisp and golden. These are extra good drizzled with balsamic glaze.

General Christmas Leftovers

Christmas Pie

Turkey, gravy, stuffing balls, sausage-meat etc. topped with pastry or mash.

Bubble and Squeak

In short fry leftover potatoes together with other leftover veggies in a little oil till hot all through and with a crisp crust.  The secret (not really, you can tell anyone) to this is to let everything sit for a while over the heat before disturbing it to allow the crust form. You could add leftover sausage, turkey, ham, stuffing and/or top with a fried egg.

Make an Après Christmas Pizza with all the leftovers! If you feel cheese is needed then Brie is probably your best bet.

Leftover Christmas Pud

Fry thick slices of leftover Christmas Pudding in butter to reheat luxuriously. Serve with custard, cream or ice cream or, if it is still the season of goodwill, all three.

Christmas Pudding Sauce

Melt a knob of butter and a spoonful of brown sugar. Stir in crumbled Christmas pudding plus Brandy or Rum to taste and serve with ice cream

Make the best Christmas Pudding Ice Cream I know!

Leftover Marzipan

15 Delicious Ideas for Marzipan Trimmings right here!

Leftover Panettone & Stollen

These both make very good bread and butter pudding or manly bread pudding  or see here for a wonderful quick way to use Stollen. Actually it doesn't have to be "leftover" Stollen,  you could buy it on purpose!

A couple of days ago I hit upon the most perfect breakfast ever – Stollen gently fried in butter and topped, in this case, with thick brandied cream (although I think other creams such as double or clotted would work well too).

Panettone makes good French Toast.

See here for how to make French Toast and ignore the bit about coating in panko crumbs, if you like!

There are lots and lots more ideas for almost every leftover you can think of in "Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers" which, like a dog, is not just for Christmas!

Have a Look Inside here.

15 Delicious Ideas for Marzipan Trimmings

I have just marzipanned our Christmas cake and find I have an unseemly amount of trimmings, This doesn't faze me one little bit because there are so many delicious ways to use the leftovers.  In case you find yourself in a similar situation here are my ideas ...

Cook’s Treat – this is your absolute right so feel free to nibble away to your heart’s content.

Stuffed Dates – just remove the stones from dates (if someone hasn’t done it already) and insert a nugget of marzipan.

Marzipan Balls 

Santa brought these for my real man last year and he loved them so much I think it will become a tradition. Just roll the leftover marzipan into balls and dip in melted chocolate. This also produces some cooks treats during production.

Marzipan Sculptures

If you are of an artistic bent then make marzipan fruits or other “sculptures” and decorate as appropriate. Here's my pathetic effort - must try harder!

Marzipan Sprinkles

Bake little scraps of marzipan in a medium oven, say 180ºC/350°F/160ºC fan/gas 4 ish, until crisp, they won’t take long, then crumble over things such as ice cream or Affogato.

Chewy Marzipan Cookies

To be honest this recipe uses a whole pack of marzipan but you could either halve the recipe or buy a pack specially to make them – because they’re worth it.

2 egg whites
70g-90g icings sugar – sifted
pinch salt
500g marzipan – finely chopped or grated
a little more icing sugar

~   Preheat the oven to 160ºC/325°F/140ºC fan/gas 3.
~   Line 2 baking trays with greaseproof or baking parchment and grease lightly.
~   Whisk the egg whites till pretty damn frothy but not so that you have a meringue situation.
~   Slowly whisk in the sugar, salt and marzipan speed up and whisk to a soft sticky dough which is as smooth as poss.  You may need to add more sugar or, if too firm, perhaps a splash of rum; the texture of bought in marzipan seems to vary quite a lot.
~   Scoop into small balls, roll in icing sugar to coat and place well-spaced (4cm or so apart) on the baking trays, they will spread during cooking.
~   Bake for 20-25 minutes till golden round the edge and cracking on the top.

Marzipan Ice Cream

200g white marzipan
500ml double cream
50ml Amaretto or brandy
200g condensed milk
maybe some inclusions ~ chocolate chips, toasted almonds, dried cherries, for instance

~   Coarsely grate the marzipan and then heat gently with the cream till melted.  Cool to completely cold.
~   Whisk together the marzipanned cream and the liqueur to thick.
~   Fold in the condensed milk plus any inclusions.
~   Freeze.

This recipe comes from my book Luscious Ice Creams without a Machine, which gives over 100 no-churn ice cream recipes including how to make the cherry ice cream in the ice cream sandwich above.

Mince Pies 

... become even richer and deliciouser with a little grated or finely chopped marzipan added to the mincemeat.

Marzipan Enhanced Fruit Tart 

To make a deliciously different fruit tart add a layer of marzipan.

~   Preheat oven to  200°C/400°F/180ºC fan/gas 6.

~   Roll out the leftover marzipan to size and lay it in the base of the tart case. 

~   Top with your chosen fruit, sliced peaches are lovely as are pears.  

~   Sprinkle with a little sugar and bake for about 20 minutes till the pastry is crisp and brown and the fruit is tender and starting to caramelise.

Alternatively make a …

Frangipane Fruit Tart!

Good Housekeeping have a great Pear-Frangipane Tart recipe here.

Fruit Crumble with Marzipan

This is my basic crumble mix, which is enough to top about 750g fruit to serve 4 people, with added marzipan. Cherries are particularly good topped with this and served with clotted cream.

240g plain flour
160g cold butter or margarine
120g sugar
150g grated marzipan

~   Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350°F/160ºC fan/gas 4.

~   Rub together the flour and butter till the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
~   Stir in the sugar and the marzipan.
~   Sprinkle the mixture over raw or cooked fruit in a shallow ovenproof dish.
~   Bake till the fruit is hot (and cooked if using raw) and the crumble is crisp and golden.
~   Serve hot or cold.

Marzipan Scones – see here for my very flexible scone recipe and after making the dough gently fold in leftover marzipan cut into small dice.

Marzipan Pancakes

Make thick fluffy pancakes, the recipe is here. Whilst the first side is cooking coarsely grate over some marzipan. This way, when flipped, it will have a chance to soften and go golden without overdoing it.

Stollen – I feel I should give a recipe for Stollen here but as I haven’t made it for years ‘n’ years see here for how to make the Perfect Stollen.  

Save the marzipan till Easter and make Simnel Cake!

If I can think of all these ideas for leftover marzipan don't you wonder what I've come up with for the othr 449 potential leftovers in my book Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers?

Look inside here!

Marzipan Leftovers & Not Very Cornish Pasties

~  Menu  ~

Duck Confit & Butternut Squash Pasties

Glass of Secret Red

Marzipan scraps

The church in our village has only one bell so every Sunday it rings a very fast toll – a “bring out your dead and make it snappy” kind of noise!  It woke us this morning which was useful; lots to do.  In fact I’ve had lots to do for a while so haven’t blogged much but don’t worry I have been eating.

~   Yesterday I made roasted butternut squash and chorizo but cooked too much squash. 

~   Two days ago I made a chicken and leek pie and had some leftover puff pastry scraps – see here on how to store leftover puff pastry and other delicious ideas for pastry scraps.

~   Last week I confitted myself some duck legs and ate all but the last one, I don’t know about you but I never eat the last one first!

So this is what I came up with next ….

Two duck and butternut squash turnovers plus a rough pasty like thing, the shapes were dictated by the pastry scraps.  Fabulous lunch even if I say so myself.

Having marzipanned my cake (spell check is of the opinion that “marzipanned” isn’t a word but surely it is!) I ate a few of the scraps and trimmings. I also made ...

Chewy Marzipan Cookies

This recipe is not for leftovers but I thought I’d mention it just in case, like me, you find a pack of marzipan you hadn’t realised you had bought! Caster sugar works well too. 

2 egg whites 

70g-90g icings sugar - sifted 

pinch salt 

500g marzipan – finely chopped or grated 

a little more icing sugar 

~ Preheat oven to 160ºC/325°F/140ºC fan/gas 3
~ Line 2 baking trays with greaseproof or baking parchment and grease lightly.
~ Whisk the egg whites till pretty damn frothy but not so that you have a meringue situation.
~ Slowly whisk in the sugar, salt and marzipan speed up and whisk to a soft sticky dough which is as smooth as poss. You may need to add more sugar or, if too firm, perhaps a splash of rum; the texture of bought in marzipans seems to vary quite a lot.
~ Scoop into small balls, roll in icing sugar to coat and place well spaced (1½” or so apart) on the baking trays, they will spread during cooking.
~ Bake for 20-25 minutes till golden round the edge and cracking on the top.

Here, however, are some ideas for genuine marzipan scraps, trimmings and leftovers.

~ Eat them.
~ Roll into little balls and then in cinnamon sugar or cocoa and sugar and then eat them.
~ Roll into little balls, dip in melted chocolate and set aside to harden.
~ Bake or toast for a few minutes till crisp, crumble and sprinkle over ice cream, trifle, etc.
~ Add coarsely chopped marzipan to cakes, cookies, pancakes, muffins etc.
~ Sprinkle a layer of chopped marzipan over a pastry base then top with fruit (peaches or cherries are great, apples or pears are good too) and bake for a delicious frangipane tart thingy. ~ Make marzipan fruits, animals, stars or whatever to decorate cakes and desserts.

More ideas for leftover marzipan here.

And loads of ideas for 450 more leftovers here!!!

2 unrelated points …

1.      About a week ago I saw daffodils fully in flower beside the road.  Poor things.

2.      I also spotted a lovely typo the other day: