The flip side to the Thanksgiving Blues is Oh Boy! Leftovers! There you are, as happy as Templeton in Charlotte’s Web, singing through days of plenty, your mission being just to clear out some refrigerator space before the flags start waving you on to the New Year. So… sandwiches, soup, bone stock for the freezer, lots of options.

It’s a good idea to start by picking over what’s left of the turkey, that’ll help with the space issue and make what’s usable easier to access. I generally buy a bigger turkey than I need just so that I can coast a bit with what’s left.

My mother used to make a casserole from a recipe found in an old community cookbook, author unknown, and it’s a winner. The original recipe called for chicken, but turkey is equally good as a substitute, along with a few additions and changes made over the years. You need about six cups of turkey, cut into forkable chunks. If you don’t have six cups, add cooked chicken to make up the difference. Remove skin, tendons, gristly bits, etc.;  you want just nice meat.

Whenever I make this, whether it’s after Thanksgiving or just for a winter dinner, it’s always a success, and someone always wants the recipe. It is easy if you follow the directions, and it can be made ahead and cooked on the day. This is always a blessing, and one not to be underrated. When I was learning to cook there were a lot of recipes that seemed to say “Chisel some flint into arrowheads, hunt and dress a moose, serve immediately.”  Served with frustrated tears on the side sometimes, too, before I knew better. You can serve this with a smile.

Chicken Florentine
Serves 6

2 ten-ounce packages of frozen chopped spinach
1 TB. unsalted butter
1 TB. flour
I clove garlic, mashed
2 shakes of dried basil
1/3 c. heavy cream

Cook the spinach (I use Green Giant, microwaved). Press out liquid in a fine strainer. Melt the butter over low heat, add the flour. Cook for two or three minutes, stirring with a wire whisk: you want to cook the flour so it doesn’t taste raw. Smell it, taste it carefully (it’s hot), don’t burn it. Start over if you do burn it. Add the garlic and basil, cook briefly, add the cream, stirring until it thickens. Add the spinach and combine. Put this mixture into a 4-5 quart buttered casserole.

3 TB.  unsalted butter
3  TB. flour
3/4 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup chicken stock
Salt and pepper (I use Maldon sea salt. Kosher is okay too.)
6 cups cooked turkey OR 4 whole chicken breasts (8 halves), cooked and torn into bite size pieces.
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Put the meat over the spinach.

Make a sauce: as you did previously, foam the butter, add flour and cook over low heat for a few minutes to eliminate the raw flour taste. Add the cream and the chicken stock, with salt and pepper to taste. If your stock is salty, pepper may be all you need. Pour the sauce over the meat; let cool a bit before topping with the Parmesan, or it will melt into the sauce.

You can bake this immediately, or at this point you can refrigerate it for a day or freeze it. If it’s frozen, thaw in the refrigerator for a day. When ready to serve, let it sit on the counter for a half hour or so to warm a bit, and then bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes (or longer, depending on how cold it is at the start), until the cheese is bubbling. I serve this with rice — I like an orange-flavored pilaf, a recipe for another day. Cranberry sauce or chutney, good bread, Bob’s your uncle.

If I am using chicken, I cook it according to the method given in the Silver Palate Cookbook in the recipe for chicken salad with tarragon, my fallback chicken salad recipe. Don’t overcook the chicken, it will cook more in the casserole. Your library will probably have this book, and it’s worth buying if you don’t have it.

If you double this, which I often do, don’t double the spinach base, 1.5 times is better, and don’t double the Parmesan topping.

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Written by
Pamela Osborne