More Leftovers From Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday by far. It is all about being grateful and thankful for what you have. It is also the holiday that keeps on giving, at least with the food. I didn’t think I prepared a ton of food, but apparently, I did. I am still creatively using up my leftovers, with a few more to go too.

When I first stared my blog, originally, the thought was to use my recreated leftovers as the main feature, but I realized I had to make the “firstovers” first before I could serve up the leftovers. Now, both the “firstovers” and the leftovers get fairly equal billing. My latest leftover creation was a Thai curried turkey with vegetables over noodles. This time it was a green curry.

I love curry, but the Thai curries are my favorites. Curries are an important part of Thai cuisine and refer to both the dish as well as the curry paste used to make the dish. There are three main types of Thai curries—red, yellow, and green—which are categorized by the color of the curry paste. The color of the chilies and other ingredients gives each curry its distinct hue.

Traditionally, all Thai curries were made with the same ingredients except for one thing: the chilies. Red curry was made with several red chilies for a fiery hot dish, while green curry was made with green chilies and yellow curry was made with yellow chilies. In Thailand, these chilies have slightly different taste characteristics in addition to their color. Over time, however, other ingredients have been added to the curry pastes to enhance each recipe, making them more distinct from one another. Although all three colors may be spicy-hot depending on the chef, normally green is the mildest and red the hottest with yellow falling somewhere in between.  Out of all the colored Thai chilies, green curry is considered the most popular curry in Thai cuisine. I make all colors of Thai chili, and love them all.

Curried Thai Turkey and Vegetables

I always cook with a lot of vegetables. In my view, the more the merrier, and I am always mixing them up too. I like to use a wide array of colors with my vegetables. The larger the collection of colorful vegetables, the healthier the dish will be. This time the vegetables I used were pumpkin (I still have A LOT of pumpkin yet to use too), bell peppers, green onions, mushrooms, green beans and carrots. I also use vegetables that are complimentary to the dishes I make and to their ethnicity if I am making an ethnic dish. I added some diced turkey to the vegetables and made a Thai green curry sauce and served it all over some leftover fettuccine noodles. Once again, the meal was a success, and I got to use up a lot of my leftovers. In my book, that is always a winning combination. WHOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!! 🙂

The Green Curry Sauce

1 can coconut milk

1 TBSP garlic

1 TBSP ginger

1-2 TBSP green curry paste

2 tsp curry powder

1 TBSP honey ginger balsamic vinegar, optional

1 tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste

Just combine everything together and set aside until ready to use.

I cooked the vegetables first for about 5-7 minutes in olive oil and a little lime olive oil. Lime juice is also a very popular ingredient used for Thai dishes, as is basil. I would have used basil, but I didn’t have any at the time I was making the dish. I like to cook my ginger and garlic with my vegetables to help really bring our their flavors.

Next came the turkey, which was already cooked. You can easily do the same thing with chicken or raw turkey too, just cook them first before adding to the vegetables.

Once everything was combined well and heated through, I added the sauce. Bring the sauce to a boil, then reduce the heat and continue to cook for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently. This dish could easily be made vegetarian too. We are meat eaters, so I add meat. To Larry more so than me, a meal just isn’t complete without some kind of meat.

When everything was ready, I served it all over some noodles and topped it with some green onions and chopped peanuts. I added some fried potstickers and dinner was done. I served it all with a cool, crisp chardonnay on the side. Delicious!

Have a great day Everyone. Happy Holidays. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.