Recipe Sunday: Thanksgiving Leftovers

What always seems to be better than Thanksgiving dinner? Why the leftovers of course! Not only does turkey and gravy taste even yummier re-heated the next day, but my mom's turkey stew always hit the spot on those cold post-Thanksgiving evenings. Growing up, I watched my mom put together the most creative concoctions with leftover turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing, but I never knew how challenging this was until Jeff and I hosted our first Thanksgiving dinner last year. This was when we came up with one of our favorite meals of all time - the post-Thanksgiving panini.

The best wedding gift we received when we got married was a panini press, and ever since then we've been known to "panini" almost anything. Jeff even likes to cook chicken nuggets in the press! So when we were about to make the usual leftover turkey sandwich, its dawned on us - we love Thanksgiving and we love paninis... And that's how it happened folks.

So take your leftovers out of the fridge and heat up a small portion of mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey, and gravy in the microwave.

Grab some bread...

Put together a mix of extra virgin olive oil and some seasoning. We used a sun-dried tomato seasoning that we have, but anything will work.

Spread the olive oil on the outside of the bread.

We've learned that stacking the filling on the bread while the bread is on the press works best when dealing with an unstable goopy sandwich such as this. We've had quite a few transfer fails when we made the whole sandwich first and then tried to move it. Start with a layer of turkey and then add the mashed potatoes and stuffing.

Finish with some gravy on top and add any other ingredient you like. Jeff likes to put cheddar cheese on his and I actually love it with some cranberry sauce - yum! Make sure both sides get a plenty of olive oil.

The sandwich will start rather large, but don't worry, its presses down into a lovely, gooey delight. Press it for four minutes and then turn the whole sandwich a quarter of a turn for one more minute.

Turning the sandwich creates a nice criss-cross look, but it also makes the bread crunchier!

This is one meal that we look forward to every year - even more than Thanksgiving itself! One last thing, be careful when cutting your sandwich because you can easily squeeze everything out if you're not careful. Not that we would know...

I also got this tip from my friends Evan and Kristy and I can't believe I had never done this before! Mashed potato pancakes! Take some really cold leftover mashed potatoes, make little pancake patties, and fry them in a bunch of butter.

These things taste fantastic and are perfect for breakfast the next day! Thanks so much you guys for the tip!